The Lainz General Hospital was built in 1839, and is considered one of the largest hospitals in Vienna, Austria. Of specific note was their Pavillion 5 wing – a wing that was specially designed to help and treat older, terminally ill patients. This also meant that Pavillion 5 was a ripe hunting ground for medical malpractitioners.
In 1983, Waltraud Wagner was 23 years old. She, along with three other women, often worked the night shift on Pavillion 5, attending to elderly patients who often knew they were on their death beds. But they had no way of knowing just how close to death they truly were.
On one particular evening, a 77-year-old woman wailed to Wagner that she was miserable. She begged and pleaded for Wagner to put her out of her misery. Wagner was all too pleased to oblige. She used an overdose of morphine to give the woman what she wanted.
But it wasn’t enough. Wagner had gotten a taste for “helping” her patients in Pavillion 5. She wanted to do it again. But she didn’t want to do it alone.
Wagner used her charm, charisma, and wit to manipulate others to do her bidding. She was the leader, and she needed followers.
Wagner approached three other women to help her. First, was Maria Gruber. She was young, 19, and had dropped out of nursing school. She’d do anything to get the approval of the cool, older woman.
Next, Wagner sought out Irene Leidolf. She was 21, married to a brute of a man whom she tried to avoid at all costs, and wanted any excuse not to go home. Hanging out with her new ‘friends’ seemed as good a reason as any.
Finally, Wagner approached Sephanija Mayer, the ‘house-mother’ of the group. At 43, she enjoyed spending time with the younger girls, enjoying how vivacious they were.
They were part of a group. They talked, hung out, and had fun together outside of work. But their main goal took place within the walls of Pavillion 5.
Wagner wanted to help the patients, she said. She wanted to end their misery, she reassured her trio of accomplices. But she had certain… guidelines. Wagner, for all her charm and joviality, had a very, very short temper that could be set off at a moment’s notice.
Soon, she had a long list of annoyances. If patients complained, snored, soiled bed linens, refused medication, or buzzed the nurses station for help when Wagner didn’t feel like attending to them, she’d make mental note. The following day, she’d tell her friends: “This one gets a ticket to God”. That was how she justified committing murder – sending them off to God.
At first, they wanted to go about it easily – undetected. They’d overdose patients with morphine, insulin, and tranquilizers. But Wagner soon bored of such mundane murder methods. With input from the other three, she came up with her own method.
One of the group of four would hold the patient’s head while pinching their nose. Another, holding their mouth open, would pour water down their throat until they drowned. Wagner believed this to be ingenious. She knew that elderly patients often had fluid in their lungs. If they were found to be drowned in their beds, it wouldn’t be all that suspicious.
In 1988, police and investigators attempted to look into a particularly suspicious death at the insistance of the family. They were met with resistance and silence, something for which the hospital received a lot of negative feedback and criticism. But that didn’t stop rumours from spreading.
Wagner and her group had been murdering patients for five years by this point. Most other hospital staff referred to Pavillion 5 as the “Death Pavilion”, and tried to steer clear. They didn’t want to be caught up in what was going on there.
Wagner and her rag tag crew of murderers thought they’d gotten away with everything. Their own hubris would be their downfall.
In February of 1989, the group were at the pub, talking, giggling, and laughing about their exploits. A member of hospital staff, a doctor, was seated nearby and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Wagner had given “the water treatment”, as the group called it, to a patient who had called her names. The group was happy about it; gloating. The doctor was shocked, and horrified. He went straight to the police with his information.
In April of 1989, Dr. Xavier Pesendorf, the doctor in charge of Pavillion 5, was suspended for mass negligence. On April 7th, all four suspects were arrested.
Waltraud Wagner claimed to have murdered 39 patients. All in all, the four confessed to anywhere between 49 and 200.
The other three were quick to throw their fearless leader under the bus. They told police that it had been all Wagner’s idea, and she’s simply charmed and manipulated them into helping. Mayer even gave police details about specific murders that Wagner had forgotten about.
As the trial date grew closer and closer, Wagner became more and more reluctant to discuss her involvement with the murders. She even recanted her confession.
The trial began in March of 1991. Neither judge nor jury were sympathetic to Wagner’s claims of ‘annoyances’.
Wagner was convicted of 15 counts of murder, 17 counts of attempted murder, and two counts of assault. She received a sentence of life in prison.
Her cohorts received similar convictions and sentences. Irene Leidolf was convicted of 5 murders, and received a life sentence. Maria Gruber and Stephanija Mayer were convicted of manslaughter, and attempted murder. Gruber was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while Mayer was sentenced to 20 years.
Having served their sentences, Mayer and Gruber were released from prison. Upsetting the entirety of Austria, Wagner and Leidolf were released in 2008 for good behaviour.
Ironic that Wagner’s behaviour should be judged as ‘good’, when it was her judgement of ‘bad’ behaviour that put her in prison in the first place.
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Sources:
Waltraud Wagner – Angel of Mercy – Demon of Death – At Her Discretion – written by Max – Wicked We
Lainz Angels of Death – Four nurses systematically murder hundreds of patients in Vienna hospital – Altered Dimensions
Lainz Angels of Death Wikipedia page