Elfriede Blauensteiner

Elfriede Blauensteiner
Born	Elfriede Martha Blauenstein (1931-01-22)22 January 1931 Vienna, Austria
Died	16 November 2003(2003-11-16) (aged 72)
Other names	The Black Widow
Criminal penalty	Life sentence
Details
Victims	3–10+
Span of crimes	1981–1995
Country	Austria
Date apprehended	January 1996

Elfriede Martha Blauensteiner (22 January 1931 – 16 November 2003), dubbed The Black Widow, was an Austrian serial killer who murdered at least three victims by poison. In each case, she inherited the victim's possessions.

Crimes

On 7 March 1997, Blauensteiner was found guilty of murdering 77-year-old Alois Pichler and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her former lawyer Harald Schmidt was jailed for seven years for being an accomplice to grievous bodily harm and for forging the will of Alois Pichler. She was a gambling addict, and it is believed that she would deliberately date rich elderly men and poison them before gambling away the money which had been left to her in their fabricated wills. Four years later, she was found guilty of murdering her 64-year-old husband Friedrick Doecker and 84-year-old female neighbour Franziska Koeberl. Although she was only convicted of a total of three murders, Austrian police believe that she may have murdered at least 10 people. Koeberl is believed to have been her only female victim.

After serving less than seven years of her life sentence, Blauensteiner died from a brain tumour on 18 November 2003, in a Vienna hospital. She was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering, where her ashes were also buried.

See also

• List of serial killers by country
• List of medical and pseudo-medical serial killers

References

• Peter Vronsky: "Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters”, Berkley Books, New York (2007), p. 439

External links

• Mayhem Net