Martha Marek

Martha Marek (née Löwenstein; 1904 – December 6, 1938) was an Austrian serial killer who caused media attention during the interwar period.

Martha Marek
Born
Martha Löwenstein

1904
Vienna, Austria
DiedDecember 6, 1938(1938-12-06) (aged 33–34)
Vienna, Austria
Cause of deathGuillotined
Conviction(s)Murder
Criminal penaltyDeath
Details
Victims4
Span of crimes
1932–1937
CountryAustria
Date apprehended
1938

Insurance fraud

Martha Löwenstein inherited a villa in the Vienna Woods and financial means in August 1923 from her 50-year-old patron as sole heir, months later she married the student Emil Marek. Within two years, the money was used up by the couple.

In 1925 Martha and her husband Emil first entered the mass media coverage: Emil had lost his leg while chopping wood on June 25, 1925, a day after Martha had put an insurance policy on him.[1] As the circumstances were very strange to the insurance company, they refused to pay the sum and a lawsuit began. In the course of which, forensics experts were able to clearly prove by multiple traces on the leg that it was self-mutilation. Emil Marek, who was almost fully obedient to his wife, had purposely injured himself to get the sum insured.

The public, however, was largely on the beautiful Marek's side and suspected that the insurance company wanted to suppress the payment through legal mishaps. Marek and her husband were acquitted of fraud in 1927 and sentenced to only a small prison sentence, as Martha had tried to bribe or slander the coroners. The insurance company agreed to settle the matters out of court and paid a large sum of money.

Prison

Martha Marek spent the short prison time in a cell with the poisoner Leopoldine Lichtenstein, who in 1925 had poisoned her husband with the thallium-containing rat paste "Zelio".[2] This allegedly inspired Martha to do her other deeds. After the media popularity had subsided, the sum had been used up and Emil's entrepreneurial plans as an inventor had failed, the Mareks experienced economic hardship.

Murders

After Emil Marek, who had always been sickly after the leg amputation, died unexpectedly on July 31, 1932, public attention returned to the widow. When her two children developed similar symptoms and their daughter died shortly after, Martha was able to play off the role of a long-suffering widow and mother, and she was given a broad wave of compassion, including financial donations. An aunt of hers, Susanne Löwenstein, even went so far as to appoint her as her sole heir, and promptly died thereafter in 1934.

After Marek had used up the inheritance, she found in tailor Felicitas Kittenberger another victim. Kittenberger was taken in by Marek as a subtenant and was persuaded to take a life insurance in Martha's favour. Kittenberger died shortly after, which, however, aroused the suspicion of her son, who filed charges. The subsequent investigation and exhumation of the bodies revealed that Marek had murdered all four victims with the toxic Zelio paste, which was then freely available.

Conviction

Back in court, Martha Marek faked seizures and blindness, and had to be carried to the courtroom in a specially-constructed chair. She was sentenced to death on May 19, 1938 by the jury, with the court assuming that Marek, as a woman, following the Austrian tradition, would be pardoned by the Federal President for life imprisonment. In the meantime, however, Austria had been attached to the German Reich and Adolf Hitler rejected the petition for clemency. Marek was executed on December 6, 1938, as the first delinquent on the recently brought from Berlin to Vienna guillotine, in the Vienna Regional Court by the executioner Johann Reichhart.

Literature
  • Harald Seyrl: Tatort Wien. Band 2: Die Zeit von 1925–1944. Scharnstein, Wien 2007, ISBN 978-3-90169-709-8.
  • Hans-Dieter Otto: Lexikon der ungesühnten Morde. Unaufgeklärte Fälle, Unentdeckte Verbrechen, Umstrittene Freisprüche p. 129 ff, F.A. Herbig, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-7766-2533-2.
  • Helga Schimmer: Mord in Wien. Wahre Kriminalfälle. Haymon-Verlag, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-85218-876-8. pp. 61–69.
  • Christoph Nettersheim: Schrecklich nette Frauen, Bucher, München 2011, ISBN 978-3-7658-1883-7, pp. 10–16

References
  1. Nettersheim, Christoph, Schrecklich nette Frauen.
  2. Heinichen, W. (December 1931). "Thallium-Vergiftung (Selbstmordversuch mit Zeliopaste)" [Thallium poisoning (suicide attempt with Zeliopaste)]. Sammlung von Vergiftungsfällen (in German). 2 (1): 27–28. doi:10.1007/BF02460485.
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