The Lainz Angels of Death | Austria
Evidence Locker True Crime Podcast - Transcript
In April 1989, an elderly patient at Vienna's Lainz Hospital had a disturbing story to tell. Franz Kohout had unexpectedly slipped into a coma, only to be revived by a quick-thinking doctor. When he regained consciousness, he revealed something chilling: a nurse had given him an injection he didn't need. He couldn't remember her face, but he remembered the strange feeling of dizziness before everything went black.
What investigators would soon discover was that Franz Kohout wasn't just the victim of a medical mistake – he was the only known survivor of Austria's most prolific team of serial killers.
Behind the sterile walls of Pavilion 5, in a ward staff grimly nicknamed "Death Pavilion," four nursing assistants had been playing God, deciding which patients lived and which ones died. They called themselves angels of mercy, but there was nothing merciful about their methods. This is the story of the Angels of Death at Lainz Hospital.
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In the 1980s, Lainz General Hospital was a significant medical institution in Vienna's 13th district, Hietzing. Established in 1913, it was the first hospital built and administered by the municipality of Vienna. By the late 1980s, the hospital had expanded to 14 departments with a capacity of 1,504 beds, serving a diverse patient population.
The hospital primarily catered to the city's elderly and chronically ill residents. As a state-owned institution, it was accessible to all Austrian people, including those from lower-income backgrounds. The services were either free or subsidized, ensuring that even the most vulnerable people received necessary medical care.
Lainz Hospital was located near the Vienna Woods and the Lainz Zoo, areas considered to have a healthier climate compared to the city's center. This area was chosen to provide patients with a serene environment to support recovery. The sprawling complex, with its long corridors and sterile rooms, housed hundreds of patients requiring constant care, given by more than 2000 staff members.
In the 80s, the healthcare system in Vienna faced challenges such as understaffing and limited resources, leading to demanding workloads for the staff. Sadly, these conditions sometimes resulted in compromised patient care and oversight, especially in a health facility the size of Lainz.
Nursing assistants were meant to handle basic patient care – washing, feeding, and offering comfort. But with chronic staff shortages, their roles expanded beyond their training. They were left to administer medication, give injections, and perform duties meant for fully qualified nurses – often without supervision.
Of course, death was not uncommon in the hospital, particularly in Pavilion 5, Ward D. It seemed like a hearse drove up to the entrance every day. Because of this, staff started referring to the section as ‘Death Pavilion’. The hospital’s dispensary also noticed that Ward D’s order of Rohypnol (a strong sedative, also known as the date rape drug) had increased eight times from its usual order over the span of a couple of years.
In April 1988 rumours surfaced that something wasn’t quite right in Pavilion 5. Nurses noticed that the sedative was freely administered by nursing assistants to pacify demanding patients. They reported their observations to one of the senior physicians, Dr. Franz Xaver Pesendorfer, who in turn followed protocol and informed authorities.
But when investigators arrived at Pavilion 5, they were met with a wall of silence. No one wanted to talk. A week later, an autopsy in a suspicious case proved inconclusive, leaving police with no physical evidence to pursue. And with staff refusing to cooperate, the investigation stalled completely. In a hospital where discretion was the norm and loyalty ran deep, there was little the police could do.
In early 1989, another senior physician discovered that Franz Kohout, a patient in Ward D had slipped into a coma. Fortunately, the doctor managed to revive him, but nothing could prepare him for what the patient was about to tell him.
"I can’t remember the nurse’s face," he said. "I just remember thinking it was strange that she gave me an injection. Then, I felt dizzy… and everything went black."
As it turns out, Franz had been given insulin – a drug he did not need, as he was not diabetic. Too much insulin causes dangerously low blood sugar, leading to coma and death. The doctor was appalled and immediately called the police, asking them to investigate the matter further.
When detectives arrived at Lainz Hospital, they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. Professor Pesendorfer, the hospital’s chief physician, met them at the entrance. Standing beside him was a nurse, arms crossed, a scowl etched into her face. She shook her head and muttered, almost to herself:
"So, now we need the police in our hospital? We could have handled this ourselves!"
Investigators came up against another brick wall, and realised no one working at the hospital, especially in Pavilion 5 was ever going to talk to them. But investigators pushed forward. They combed through patient records, death certificates, and shift schedules trying to piece together a pattern of death. It didn’t take long to find the connection… One name kept popping up, over and over again: Waltraud Wagner.
When Wagner was on shift, six times more patients died than when any other nurse was working. Detectives knew if they persisted, they would eventually break the silence and soon learned that Wagner had a nickname… Hospital staff referred to her as ‘The Witch.’
As the investigation unfolded, detectives worked to uncover who Wagner really was. She began working as a nurse’s assistant in Pavilion 5 in early 1983. At 24, Wagner was ambitious, and quickly gained a reputation for taking control on the ward.
Detectives soon realized she hadn’t acted alone and that she had recruited others. Her best friend and confidante was another nursing assistant, Irene Leidolf – and ultimately she also became Wagner’s closest accomplice. She was married but never seemed to be in a great rush to get home, spending a lot of her free time with her work colleagues.
Then there was single mother, Maria Gruber, 27 years old, eager to prove herself. She dropped out of nursing school and never completed her qualification.
Wagner, Leidolf and Gruber all came from large families in small, rural villages and had little higher education. The oldest of the diabolical group, Stefania Meyer, 50 – the so-called "house mother" of the ward – was a divorced grandmother who left her home in Yugoslavia to start fresh in Austria in 1978. The four women worked the night shift together. The time when hospitals are at their quietest – when doctors aren’t around, when most patients are asleep, when people die unnoticed.
Investigators had to act fast. They brought Stefania Meyer in for questioning first. Of the four, she seemed the weakest link – the one who might talk. And she did. At first, she was hesitant, reluctant to say too much. But the weight of her guilt – the sheer magnitude of what they had done – became too much to bear. She broke down, confessing what they had suspected: Waltraud Wagner was the leader. She had trained them, chosen the victims, and taught them how to kill. Meyer said they enjoyed the power of deciding who lived or died. And in their minds, they were untouchable. However, she added that she herself had "murdered only out of pity."
Investigators could not afford to waste any time and called Waltraud Wagner in for questioning. Sitting across from detectives, she was almost defiant, not showing any emotion. She didn’t deny the accusations. She didn’t ask why she had been arrested. She didn’t even try to negotiate. She simply said:
“How many do you want?”
Perplexed, investigators asked what she meant. Then, she continued on, confessing to 49 murders. Later, she changed her story, saying she had killed around three patients per month since 1983. This implied that the real number could have been closer to 100. Maybe more. She defended herself by saying that she had…
"…only put patients who were almost dead anyway to rest.”
Unfazed of the magnitude of her confession, Wagner carried on, matter-of-factly, describing how it all began. She claimed the first time she killed, was a mercy killing. A terminally ill woman begged for relief, so Wagner gave her a lethal dose of morphine. The patient never regained consciousness again, and something ignited within the wicked nurses’ aid. Because no one questioned the death, she realised that no one suspected her. It was too easy.
It’s relevant to note that – at the time – euthanasia or assisted suicide was illegal in Austria, with perpetrators facing up to five years in prison if caught.
At first, Wagner may have told herself it was mercy. But soon, that wasn’t enough. She felt untouchable, above suspicion, and the thrill of deciding who lived and who died became intoxicating. She began choosing her victims not out of suffering, but for her own convenience. Patients who were too much trouble, who took up beds that could be freed, who simply annoyed her. She later admitted to police:
"Anyone who annoys me gets a free bed with our Dear Lord."
And what counted as annoying? Snoring. Soiling the sheets. Refusing medication. Pressing the call button too many times. Trivial, everyday things in a hospital ward, but for Wagner, they were a death sentence. When a patient tested her patience, Wagner would coldly declare:
"This one gets a ticket to God."
And just like that, their fate was sealed. She would either carry out the murder herself, or delegate it to one of her accomplices. Her victims weren't just the terminally ill – many were simply elderly or frail, with years of life ahead of them. She had crossed the line from mercy to murder, selecting patients who were merely inconvenient.
At first, she worked alone. But soon, she brought the others in: Irene Leidolf, Maria Gruber, and Stefania Meyer. Of course, they were hesitant, but soon each of them grew curious. Wagner took it upon herself to train them. She showed them how to increase morphine doses just enough that a doctor wouldn’t question it. She also told them how to inject insulin, to make a patient fall into a coma and never wake up.
And then… the killings escalated in the most sadistic method imaginable: They menacingly called it ‘Mundpflege,’ which translates to "Oral Care." But this was no act of kindness. Here is how it worked: one nurse would hold the patient’s head down and pinch their nose shut. Another would force open their mouth, press down their tongue with a wooden tongue depressor, and pour water down their throat. The victim – weak, elderly, unable to fight back – would suffocate, drowning in their own hospital bed. Waltraud Wagner and Irene Leidolf actually laughed about it in their confessions, calling it ‘an art form’.
By the time detectives finished questioning the four nursing assistants, one thing was clear: They were no angels of mercy, they were cold-blooded killers. Helmut Zilk, mayor of Vienna at the time, compared their crimes to those committed by doctors in NAZI Germany’s concentration camps.
The hospital administration attempted damage control, publicly stating they were cooperating fully with investigators. However, reports indicate that some within the institution were hesitant to acknowledge the scale of the crimes.
The hospital’s Chief Physician, Professor Franz Xaver Pesendorfer, was suspended by order of Vienna’s mayor, accused of ignoring the warning signs – rumors of mass killings in his department had been circulating for over a year. Dr. Pesendorfer, however, refused to take the blame. At a news conference, he defended his actions, claiming he had raised concerns with authorities, alerted doctors and senior nurses, and even ordered autopsies when suspicions arose. His frustration was evident as he asked reporters:
"What more could I have done?"
But for the families of the victims, the answer was clear. He could have and should have stopped the killings sooner. Dr. Pesendorfer was later reinstated.
The Lainz Angels of Death demonstrated a disturbing phenomenon known as folie à plusieurs - a shared psychosis among multiple people. Unlike folie à deux, which occurs between two individuals, this was a more sinister evolution where the group's dynamic fed their darkening impulses, each murder emboldening them to commit the next. Their collective madness spiralled, making them far more dangerous together than they might have been alone.
Waltraud Wagner, the dominant figure, set the rules, rationalizing murder as a solution to inconvenience and overwork. Over time, her three accomplices – initially hesitant – became desensitized, normalizing the killings as part of their routine. This wasn’t just about power; it was about a warped sense of control, a delusion of omnipotence, where they convinced themselves they were deciding who deserved to live or die. The group setting eroded individual morality, creating an echo chamber where killing became not just justified, but a twisted form of camaraderie.
So, were there any red flags from Wagner’s life that could tell us why she became a statistical killer? Not much is known about her background, other than the fact that she grew up in a small rural village as one of six children. From an early age, she took on caregiving responsibilities, helping manage the household while her mother worked in the fields. By the time she was twelve, she was already caring for her ailing grandmother, who suffered from chronic leg ulcers.
Academically, Wagner struggled in school, repeating a grade during her primary education. Later, she attempted a two-year nursing program but was unable to pass anatomy, preventing her from becoming a fully qualified nurse. Despite this setback, she was able to secure a job as a nursing assistant, largely due to staff shortages in the healthcare system.
In the hierarchical world of 1980s Austrian healthcare, nurses' aids at Lainz – and throughout the country – were at the bottom of the food chain. Despite having minimal authority, they shouldered the heaviest workload and took on the longest shifts. Perhaps it was this very powerlessness that drove them to seize control in the most horrific way possible. Their killing spree wasn't motivated by financial gain or any tangible benefit – at most, they temporarily lightened their workload by eliminating "difficult" patients. But the true horror lies in the calculated nature of their crimes: trained caregivers who transformed from healers into hunters, methodically selecting and murdering the vulnerable souls who depended on them for comfort and care.
By the time the case went to trial in January 1991, the entire country was watching.
Austria had never seen a serial murder case of this scale before. The courtroom was packed – journalists, the families of victims, even hospital staff who still couldn’t believe what had happened.
And then there was Franz Kohout, the only known survivor. The octogenarian took the stand, his voice shaking, and described how he had been injected with insulin. He was lucky to have made it out of Pavilion 5 alive.
Throughout the trial, the women turned on each other. Wagner insisted she was the only real killer. Leidolf blamed Wagner, saying she only "assisted." Gruber and Meyer painted themselves as helpless followers, forced into it by their dominant leader. Wagner also retracted her first confession, claiming her total tally could not have been more than ten victims.
But the evidence painted a far darker picture. After the four nurses confessed, authorities ordered exhumations of suspected victims. The grim process revealed their true methodology – forensic tests detected traces of Rohypnol and Dominal in several bodies, proving these weren't merciful deaths but calculated murders. The sedatives found in the corpses directly contradicted any claims of natural causes. The deaths by "oral treatment” were more difficult to prove in court. The cruel irony was that many elderly patients naturally developed fluid in their lungs, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between their victims and those who died from natural causes.
On March 29, 1991, the verdict was read. Waltraud Wagner, the ringleader, was found guilty of 15 murders, 17 attempted murders and two counts of assault and sentenced to life in prison. Her closest accomplice, Irene Leidolf, was convicted of five murders and also received a life sentence. Stefania Meyer was found guilty of manslaughter and attempted murder, earning her 20 years behind bars. Maria Gruber, convicted of the same charges as Meyer, was sentenced to 15 years, though this was later reduced to 12.
As the sentences were read, Stefania Meyer collapsed in the courtroom. A doctor rushed in to treat her – one of the very doctors who worked at Lainz Hospital. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone.
Even after the verdict, there was one question no one could answer. How many people had actually died? The police could only confirm 42 murders, but what was the true number?
The prosecutor speculated that it could have been 300, maybe even 400. The nurses had kept no records, and many bodies had been cremated, making an exact count impossible.
By 2008, in what many consider a grave miscarriage of justice, all four Angels of Death had been released on good behavior, despite orchestrating one of Europe's most horrific serial murder sprees. What's more chilling: they were given new identities but faced no restrictions on working in healthcare. One of them secured employment immediately upon release – though where, no one knows.
While Lainz Hospital has been renamed to Hietzing Hospital, the shadows of what happened in Pavilion 5 between 1983 and 1989 still linger. Today, these four women walk freely somewhere in Austria, their dark past buried beneath new names. They could be anyone – a neighbor, a caregiver, a nurse – their deadly history hidden behind ordinary faces. And you would never know.
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