Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 445: Jack Unterweger Part I - Mr. Nobody

Episode Date: March 13, 2021

This week, we tell the story of charismatic serial murderer Jack Unterweger — his time in Austrian prison, his confounding literary success, and his eventual journey to the Cecil Hotel in LA.Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Hi there, you sexy podcast listener. My name's Henry Zabrowski from The Last Podcast Network. And wow, it's me, Holden McNeely. Great. We wish to present unto you Last Podcast Network's Deep Dive, Student Cast, where we'll be talking about all things dune centric.

It's like a book club, but you don't even have to read the book. You don't have to read the book. You just have to sit and listen to two soft-bodied men warble about it. But soft-bodied men is what brought you dune in the first place. You're welcome.

Some people call me book stupid, but even I think dune's a pretty fun read. It's more than a fun read, you dirty slug. It's a lifestyle. Dune's got space witches, sandworms, and a tiny boy king that can see the future. He's only 15 in the books. They're making a movie about it.

He's not 15 in the movie. From Stilgar's, she etched down to the card of the God Emperor Leto to himself. We will plum and dig in the guts of Frank Herbert's masterpiece dune. And it's far superior sequels. I'm finding some of the sequels difficult to read. Silence!

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This is the last podcast. On the left. Yeah. Why? What's your glade? That's when the cannibalism started. Oh. What was that?

Oh, yeah! Oh, oh, Marcos, I would like to start doing the show, but it seems that I am too full of chocolate. Yeah, you got a lot of chocolate on your mouth, man. Did you get into the chocolate drawer? Yeah, oh, you see, yeah, I went into the chocolate drawer, just in the room, had a wonderful little room.

It's got, oh, it's got the closets you go and you get wet, and it's got the mini pond. That's called the shower. Yeah, and then I went into the chocolate chair, and I saw all of you. I was like, oh, freshly made chocolate, very bitter, 95% cocaio. Yeah, that was a, that was dookie, my friend.

Mmm, I survey, I am a sweet toothed little boy for it. I love it, welcome to the last podcast on the left. I am Ben, hanging out with dookie feet. Stuck in the pipe at Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You are so talented, Henry Soprowski is with us. Dookie King, and of course, Marcos Parks is with us. How are you, Marcos? I'm good, how are you, Ben?

I'm good, you look sharp, you were mentioning how spring has sprung in New York, and I can see it on your face and your eyes. Spring is almost sprung, we've had a nice springy day, but spring is not yet sprung. When spring springs, I'll let you know. But I think it's safe to say it's springy. It is springy.

Honestly, I was looking at Marcos. Marcos looks fairly devious today. There's something, you have a mischievous look in your eye, you're looking a little bit like a man that employs orphans to pickpocket for him. But I think that it's good. I do feel like our subject has kind of, he's like coming from behind your eyes right now.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, our subject today is very villainous. Oh, this is really scary. So some of you might say, what's with the German perfect accent, Henry? Well, that's because today we're going back to my homeland, and we're discussing a fella. I'm just gonna say,

because I am fully assimilated to America, we're talking about a dude named Jack Enterweger. Oh, right, Kessel. We know that your father tried to erase your German heritage both by burning all of the documents and by teaching you improper pronunciation of German words. I can tell you're not really a descendant of Germans because you don't burn documents, you shred documents,

and that's what we did in 2000 after my opa died. So seven hours of just hearing cats dying, but in reality, it's documents dying that hold serious truths. No, it's secrets going to sleep. Sometimes secrets need to go to a bed. Anyway, let's talk about Jack Enterweger. Unterweger.

Unterweger. Johann Jack Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who strangled and killed 11 women, primarily sex workers in both Europe and Los Angeles. His first kill occurred in 1974, but after his release for that murder in 1990, Unterweger committed a further 10 murders in less than a year. He goes, kill crazy.

This is the story of its international serial killing, which I think is one of the first time we've covered this, except for Carl Pansram, who was the closest. This guy is, we're going to talk about this a little bit more in depth. Marcus and I have started to apply certain Batman rogue gallery qualities

to certain serial killers, like Haddon Clark. When we covered Haddon Clark, we were like, The Riddler. He's not the, no, no, no, no, really. He's classy. Yeah. He is a villain that gets beat up

in the first 15 minutes of the story that then gives the location of The Riddler to Batman. It's Mr. Zazz. Yeah, he's Mr. Zazz. For example, like Jeffrey Dahmer, that's Mr. Freeze. That's Mr. Freeze, that's Class A. Top tier, top tier. Top tier.

Ted Bundy, we're probably close to calling him the Joker. Honestly, I probably put him close to that John Wayne Gacy, the Penguin, Class A, top levels. But Jack Unterfeger is another dude that does not get a lot of attention, but this motherfucker is another one of, it's like, he's a supervillain. Like this guy is a,

this is a Batman style villain that traveled the world bringing Mayhem and his own personal style of conmanship to a bunch of different communities. And it's very rare that a serial killer does this. I mean, as we know, serial killers usually kill in a place that where they're comfortable.

And Jack Unterfeger went everywhere and did fucking everything. Like he was a highly dangerous human being. I know that story of the Des Moines lazy boy killer. He would bring his lazy boy everywhere, sit down and shoot people. Anyways, I just aim better when my butts level. Absolutely.

Now, while one might ask why a convicted murderer was released after just 15 years, that question is precisely what makes Jack Unterfeger interesting. See, in Austria, before it was known that Jack Unterfeger was a bona fide serial killer, he was a bona fide true crime celebrity. See, while Jack was in prison for his first murder, he began writing.

And five years before he was released, Jack had written an autobiographical bestselling novel called Fegefeuer or in English, Purgatory. And so when Unterfeger was up for parole, public opinion helped set him free. I didn't realize you jerk off so much with somebody on a bunk beneath you in Purgatory. I feel like that would be my main source of Purgatory.

Yes. Is that or like waiting, you know, but you're waiting for the game to download the next level and then like a buffering thing. It is just that always sitting with a PlayStation controller in her hands just like watching the circle go. Fate worse than death.

But this guy was a famous quote unquote rehabbed criminal. He was one of these guys, like he will cover it in depth, but he kind of came, like I'm trying to figure out like what's the proper American analogy. Like he was a, he's an example of like people can get better while while in jail. But the question is... When Charlie Sheen went through all of it

and he was like, he's getting better, but then he took tiger blood and then he went crazier. Maybe. Something like that. At one point, Charlie Sheen went to passage of Malibu's and got his butt fluffed a little bit or something like that. And then got better. But he kind of wrote himself out of prison.

Like he kind of just found a way to become. He's like, if I'm just famous enough, someone will let me go. Okay. Even while he was doing talk shows about the redemptive powers of creativity and even while he was writing piece after piece concerning the seedy underbelly of the sex work industries in multiple countries,

he was actually committing the same murders that he was writing and talking about. Wow. That's called conservation of content. Where you just shoot one show and you turn it to three different pieces of media. Yeah. See, Jack Unterweger was extraordinarily charismatic,

which made him the most dangerous type of psychopath. He was so charismatic, even through the TV screen, that people would forget about his previous crimes almost immediately when he spoke. And the public became solely focused on Jack Unterweger, the person, and not Jack Unterweger, the brutal murderer. That is unbelievable television talent. I don't know if this man needs to be in prison.

I think this man needs a show. Well, yeah, it's like no one wants to talk about the serial murders of Ina Garten. But when she finally, she did her time in jail and she got through that loophole that said, see, there's no way that she could have been there the night that whole busload of children went into the cavern because she was too busy making a roast chicken for Jeffrey.

But we now know that all of those crimes were real, but I think that her cooking managed to make her a step above some petty criminal. Also, Mr. Ira Glass, why do you talk so low? Oh, is it because you're used to talking in closets as you watch people sleep before you slash their throats? Is that why Mr. Glass? Another factor as to why Unterweger flew under the radar

is because Austria actually had very little experience with serial killers outside of what seems like an inordinate number of Black widows and angels of death. They had a whole lot of those. Isn't that incredible how you have nothing if you refuse to acknowledge it? And both come from a weird sense of morality, right? Because Black widows is a lot of times

those pragmatic killings or slash revenge killings and then angel of mercy killing slash angel of death killings or what they view sometimes it's money, a lot of times it's some weird God-like idea that doctors have, but Austria has never gotten a straight up full-on American-style serial killer before and then they just got one popped up and they weren't ready. Also, just to clarify, some Black widow murders

are because some people are crazy and some people need to have forgiveness on their death pedal, like how my grandfather forgave my grandmother. What, for selling them out to the Americans? No, my grandfather, my American grandfather forgave my grandmother for being so mean to him while he was dying.

It was his last words. That's incredibly sweet. It's horrible, lived a horrible life, that's very sad. I love my grandmother though, she was very funny. Yeah, and yeah, like Austria, they had never had a sexual say to serial killer of the kind that's usually confined to like America, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Now concerning violent sexual crime committed by men against women they don't know, there might be a reason why Austria has comparatively very little. As every long-time listener of the show knows, or as anyone who has even a passing interest in serial killers knows, the number one victim in serial killing has always been the sex worker

and Jack Unterweger killed sex workers almost exclusively. Only one of his victims wasn't a sex worker. But as opposed to America, sex work is not only decriminalized in Unterweger's native Austria, but it is completely legal and has been for decades. Woo! There, a sex worker has been able to legally sue a client for non-payment since 2012.

No shit. And they've been tax payers since 1986. Why don't we just taxing them? We should tax the movies. I do wanna see when the IRS receives all of the money from the sex workers just dripping in bags of cum. I'm making a joke, but you can imagine all of the sticky dollars, we're like,

oh, this is the good money. They already hide all of the Epstein money and all the other barrels and barrels of money that is sticky with cum from other crimes? Pipping, however, is illegal because it encourages exploitation. So sex workers in Austria are considered independent contractors.

And it's not a perfect system by any means. Exploitation still occurs to this day, but even the women working the streets of Vienna are still registered with the government. And it provides safety for everyone. Well, it does, it is hard because it does, then you do get taxed, which sucks. I mean, honestly, it sucks because you, you know,

you work really hard and then all of a sudden I get to give what? I get what percentage do you give? Okay, it's not that time, you're on the wrong show. I hate it so, but you know what I mean? I can see how, but there's an accountability level. There's somebody saying like, where's Sheila? Yes.

People don't just disappear like they do here in America. And, you know, as a result, violence against sex workers in Austria is exceedingly rare, as opposed to say America and Canada, where the criminalization of sex work is a direct cause of violence against sex workers. Yep. In other words, Jack Unterweger was an extreme outlier

in his home country. And it was difficult for a lot of Austrians to admit that they've been completely wrong about his rehabilitation once sex workers started dying violent deaths. You know, cause then they're like, oh, I'm sorry, you've gotten a little bit of a Stunkelmeier on my nose. Yeah, that's a pretty big Stunkelmeier right there,

my friend. Here you see how much, oh, this is this pile of Stunkelmeier, guys, right here sitting upon my moustache. I can't, honestly, I cannot imagine an Austrian backtracking or ever apologizing. I just don't even know if they can as a people. It was after World War I, they started. Yeah, yeah.

After World War II, they had a bit to be, you know, contrite about those. But even then, they kind of skated. Amen. They gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's always true. It's equal now. Everything's done. The crimes of the Holocaust have been fixed. Very good, Henry. But concerning murderers turned writers,

turned murderers like Jack Unterweger, something very similar to this case actually happened in the United States almost a decade prior in 1981 with convicted criminal Jack Abbott and author Norman Mailer. See, Norman Mailer had just written the true crime classic The Executioner's Song about the execution of murderer, Gary Gilmore.

He'd done it with Gilmore's cooperation, but Jack Abbott, after reading the book, wrote Mailer a letter saying that everything Gary Gilmore said was a load of hogwash. It's hogwash! And you know, like in prison, their favorite term is hogwash because hogwash is when they all get together and clean the fattest dude on the block.

Oh, I love being the fattest dude on the block. Hey, boys, if it's Monday, it's hogwash. So after a brief correspondence, Mailer helped Abbott publish his memoir In the Belly of the Beast, and Mailer subsequently endorsed Abbott's parole. As far as Abbott's previous crimes went, he'd been serving a sentence for forgery

when he stabbed another inmate to death and he had subsequently escaped and committed a bank robbery. Is it weird to say in my mind, because, you know, Jack Unterfeger originally went to jail for a brutal sexual murder, like which we're gonna cover, but this one doesn't seem as bad.

I feel like this is the type of crime that you could get rehabilitated for, because sometimes what I've heard from all of our prison shows, if you're gonna stab in somebody in prison, a lot of it's just because you kind of like, like had to or you'd get stabbed. Well, there's a lot of,

I've heard there's a lot of controversy and conflict in jail, although if this man seems to be in prison for something just slightly worse than plagiarism, and then he stabs somebody, which is the problem. Well, that's the thing is that prison officials maintained that Jack Abbott was a dangerous psychotic who should not be released under any circumstances.

I take it back. I totally get what you're saying. Shit happens in jail, but this guy, the prison officials talked to him, psychiatrists talked to him, said this man should not be released under any circumstances whatsoever. He's awful, he's dangerous.

A picture of Jack Abbott, he looks very scary. I will say that. And you know we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover because if you did, you'd be like, oh, Henry, are you a model? You know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about? I know.

But Jack Abbott was very, he's gnarly looking. And so I could see him being, he had kind of one of those permanent scowls. Like he looked like a criminal from the Ren and Stimpy cartoons. Like he looked like, what's his name? Ren? Stimpy.

No. Mr. Toastman? No! But since Norman Mailer was such a famous fancy pants writer, the parole board listened to him instead and Jack Abbott was released. Within six weeks,

Jack Abbott was back in prison on a murder charge. Wait, so Norman Mailer basically helped kill a person? Yeah. Well, okay, let me tell you the story. Then you can judge for yourself. Jack Abbott had been at a small cafe in Manhattan called Binibon with a couple of intellectuals from Mailer's scene.

And it was- You know what happens when, you know when you're in the middle of a beef and jail, right, and the guy's shitting, right? So that's how you fucking shank his ass, right? Because he's got his pants around his fucking ankle. And he's got his shit coming out of his ass, right? So you go up and, the main thing is you wanna fucking stab him

right above the shit bags, right? Because of his employees can dip down into the fucking shit bags, right? Yeah, I've been told by Norman that this is one of his more articulate friends. Yes, yes, we're- Oh, they're very smart, yes, indeed. Well, it was at this Manhattan cafe

that Jack Abbott got into an argument with the waiter over their employees-only bathroom. It is an infuriating position, I understand. You see a bathroom right there, you gotta pee. And he's like his employees only. And the only thing that makes it an employees-only bathroom is that sign. And so you know that it's a powerful sign.

Of course- It's an insurance thing, because now what it is that the bathroom was in this specific situation, the bathroom was on the other side of the kitchen. And customers can't be in the kitchen because of insurance purposes. So the waiter was trying to explain this to him because Jack, I was like,

why can't it go to the fucking bathroom? He's like, it's an insurance thing. I'm still fighting for the liberty of bathrooms everywhere. I get it, it's difficult to find a fight. The hardest thing in the world to find in New York City, especially right now, is a fucking bathroom in Manhattan. It's impossible. Oh, these are great grapes, guys.

One of the people that was speaking to this ex-con was Howard Schultz actually from Starbucks. And he said, I'm going to create bathrooms that will be surrounded by coffee shops. People will come in to take a shit, but I will force them to buy my crappy coffee. Save this for the road, Kessel. This is good.

Isn't Starbucks just a bathroom surrounded by a coffee shop? Why don't any gas punch work? I have so many different fun bits coming for you guys. Well, after much shouting, the waiter, who was extremely accommodating for being a server in New York City, he compromised and led Abbott out to the alley

where Abbott could urinate. Oh, I'm sorry, it was actually a big shit. Well, there in the alley, Abbott very quickly stabbed the waiter to death. Man, it's already hard being a waiter in the town of Manhattan. It's so hard to be a fucking, a fine dining waiter in the middle of that work. Can you imagine then also just getting fucking stabbed

to death in the piss alley? Cause you know, you also use that as your piss alley. Oh, then he falls in the piss that he just got. Oh my goodness, Matt. But when Norman Mailer was asked about his role in releasing a dangerous individual out into the street simply because he was impressed with his writing skills, Mailer infamously said, culture is worth a little risk.

What? I don't know if that's the right response, Norman. I work for your PR company. Maybe just say the words, I'm sorry. I honestly, in my culture victories in six, you do have to kill people, but that's different because I'm running a civilization. And it's a video game.

Well, Mailer did however, later amend that. He said that his involvement with Jack Abbott was another episode in his life in which he had nothing to cheer about or take pride in. But despite these failures, there are examples of advocacy working. French philosopher Jean-Paul Saltra and Pablo Picasso went to bat for writer John Genet

when he was faced with a life sentence following multiple arrests. And Genet never got in trouble with the law again. Well, he also went to jail for like, sodomy. Not like a real crime. It was like one of those things where they jailed him for being gay. But if you read Our Lady of the Flowers,

it is very interesting. It's a lot of poop. Yeah, okay. There was also Scottish author and former gangster Jimmy Boyle who was actually convicted of killing a guy yet still became a successful and law-abiding novelist afterward. There are, however, differences between these guys

and Jack Abbott and Jack Unterweger. See, Jean Genet was mostly a petty criminal and, as Henry said, half of his convictions were bullshit sodomy charges. And while Jimmy Boyle was certainly a violent gang member in his past, there's a strong possibility that he was innocent of the murder

and the murder he was convicted of involved another gangland figure. He was just a fucking guy in a gang. That can be rehabilitated, of course. I really, because we all believe here, we believe in rehabilitation and I think that things are, people are obviously over-prisons

and over-punished as it is and it doesn't help. But it is hard. I'd love to have people write in, side stories, L-P-O-T-L, at gmail.com, like people that work with this type of crime and asking about if someone does intense sexual violence, how do you rehabilitate that person? Like, what do you do with someone who is just-

Can you rehabilitate that person? Or do you just lock them in a fucking room until they die? My little insight, I did last Thanksgiving on Abeligan's Top At It at a special, speaking with a therapist who works with non-offending sexual predators. No, we remember.

And it was a perfect time. But she, but that is the main crux of the conversation. Is can rehabilitation happen? She says yes. Well, by contrast, Jack Abbott's murders were impulsive, anger-fueled, and animalistic. Obviously a dangerous human being. He stabbed a guy to death

because he wouldn't let him use the fucking bathroom. Yeah. Jack, and Jack Unterweger's first murder conviction was an absolutely brutal, prolonged, sexually-driven, premeditated affair involving a young woman. And there was a direct witness to the fucking crime. In other words, while we're, of course, all for rehabilitation, there's certainly a middle ground

to find between putting someone away for life on a drug charge and freeing a psychopath because he turns a good phrase. Yeah, and they also give him, like, in Austrian prisons, they have, like, fireplaces and... Yeah, they have, like, the foosball tables, they have rumpus rooms. I want to say they have, there is a rumpus room.

I think that they might have a rumpus room. I mean, to be fair, how bad did he have to piss? And I know we have to move on from that, but I'm just thinking about the last time I was driving, you have to piss so bad, and if there was the option where it's like, you can kill this person and immediately feel better, I don't know. And I have actually been asking myself the question today,

like, would I be as annoyed about Varg Vikernis only doing 15 years in prison if Varg Vikernis didn't annoy me so much personally? Interesting. Interesting, I don't know. I also wonder whether or not, you think this is that, if I was gonna kill one member of society to piss, I would never want to kill a waiter or a waitress

because of how hard they work. If it was like a congressman, like, I feel like that is a much more like that, just like, let me choose the victim. Well, thank God for Howard Schultz, that's all I'm gonna say. Saving lives with bathrooms all over the place. But before we get into the story,

let's acknowledge our one source for today because unfortunately, most of the books about Jack Unterweger are written in German. Our book is Entering Hades. Yeah, gross language, we just can't read it. I know. Our book is Entering Hades by John Leake, which it's a somewhat erratic and incomplete

and it's telling of the tale, but it still has plenty of good information. If anybody has a translated version of, I'm looking for this because I couldn't find it anywhere. I was looking for Jack Unterweger's purgatory, I was looking for it. If you got it, please send it to me. SideStoriesLPOTLGmail.com.

Also, if it just slowly reverts back to Bigfoot erotica, we're gonna know you're making it up. Now, the thing about Jack Unterweger's childhood to remember is that it is still, to this day, grossly misrepresented in most of the media that covers his life story. See, as we said in the Ted Bundy chapter in the last book on the left,

available online and wherever fine books are sold. Nice, true plug. Thank you, thank you. True crime journalism often depends on the most untrustworthy person in the room for the narrative. It depends on the killer itself. Now, there are reasons for this.

Partly, it's because when it comes to serial murder, the only living witness is 99 times out of 100, the murderer themselves. Even the fucking Ted Bundy book was called The Only Living Witness. The other part, however, is that everyone, especially a journalist, loves a good, clean narrative. A narrative that tracks,

a narrative that makes sense to their mind, even if whether or not it is real or not. Sometimes you wanna look at a story and you wanna tell a specific story about somebody because that's how you make it make sense to you and then you think that's how you make it sense to the, that's how it makes sense to the public. But guess what?

Sometimes the truth, it's stranger than fiction. Whoa. And since serial killers are almost always psychopaths, they like to create a sympathetic backstory to help excuse their crimes and deflect blame away from themselves. And that usually results in a pretty straightforward narrative that's irresistible to a lazy writer.

Concerning Jack Unterweger, the picture he painted of his childhood in both his books and in interviews was barely true. According to him, his mother was a petty thief who abandoned him at a young age to an alcoholic, abusive grandfather in the early 50s. Is there something also about an abusive Austrian grandfather? I know, cause you can just see him showing up

on his front door like the kid from the movie Up with the big lollipop just being like, are you gonna take care of me now? And it's cute. And he just beats the fuck out of him. He starts molesting him and all that fucking shit. It's Joseph Fritzel. Oh, I see, never mind.

I was thinking more like Bavaria, like fun, fun pretzels and stuff. You know, it's like a guy who spends all day whittling those like, you know how in every Santa Claus movies, the original Santa Claus always like whittles like fishermen on a log and you're supposed to be like, thanks. Like what do you mean, thanks?

But like, it's a guy who spends all this time whittling those little like old Santa Claus toys and then just beating the fuck out of you with them. Oh, that's scary. Well, some accounts, including Jack's obituary in the Los Angeles Times, went even further and said that Jack Unterweger was the son of an Austrian street walker and an American soldier

and that he'd been raised among sex workers in a remote Austrian village. Ooh, like Richard Pryor and Jack and James Brown. Whoa, no kidding. Yeah, a complete and total fallacy. And according to Jack's own biography, he grew up in an oppressive and cramped cottage in the Alpine countryside surrounded by seedy,

violent individuals that seem almost cliche. This is an excerpt from his book describing his childhood environment. My eyes burnt from the smoker air in the low litter room. Women prattled, men played cards. I was the house owned cart full of slave, educated to be a frauds accomplice. I sat on my uncle's lap and betrayed his cards to grandpa.

I was the ace in his slab. His face were my teacher. Fist, fist, not face, his face, fist. His fiasks were my teacher. And I was a good student where I accepted these fiasks as an essence. Oh, oh gosh. Oh my, oh yeah.

Hey Jack, got some more chocolate for you. You just wanna go into the kitchen near the wet. Very fresh. Just look at all of these different ribbons. Different styles, levels of cocaioca. That schnitzel shit. To be clear, he is Austrian, not French. No, he's Austrian.

That's Austrian, that's Austrian. But I do like this idea that he was a, like the weird boy accomplice into a hot field with criminal people. Yeah, of course. Well, he further claimed that the only kind person in his life was his aunt Anna, who also happened to be a sex worker.

And this, of course, introduces yet another cliche, the so-called hooker with the heart of gold. Most of them at least got a heart of bronze though. I'll tell you what. Yeah, or at least a heart full of a lot of carcinogens. But with aunt Anna, Unterweger included a twist. According to him,

and Anna was later murdered by a customer. And Jack often used that story to gain the trust of both cops and sex workers themselves. Oh, what an incredible story book. Beginning, that's exactly what you think a serial killer would come from. Yeah.

But when people began looking deeper into Unterweger's past, after they finally accepted that he'd killed 11 women, they found that while his stories had nuggets of truth, like the best lies always do, most of his story was false. Now, Jack had been born into post-World War II Austria in 1950.

This was back when the country was divided between American, British, French, and Soviet Union control. And his father probably was an American soldier who'd left his frowline in Europe when his tour of duty was up. I was back in the day when you could just leave a breadcrumb series of children

throughout Europe and everybody called you a hero. Absolutely. But Jack's beloved aunt Anna Unterweger, the quote unquote only kind person in his life, she was not a sex worker. And in fact, was not even related to him. She was simply a murder victim who shared Jack's last name. And the name Anna Unterweger was lifted

from a newspaper article to give Jack's life a little more color and a little more tragedy. Jack Unterweger to me is very similar because Ted Bundy also immediately kind of clouded over his childhood and he wrote all of these things. But his was the opposite, right? Where he was like, because Ted Bundy maintained his innocence forever

and he wanted everything to be sunny and perfect because he was that type of narcissist that thrived and loved this idea of creating an invincible front that was this kind of perfect guy that everybody loved and everybody wanted a piece of and you know, people couldn't get enough of Ted, right? And he wanted you to feel comfortable with him even though he was this roiling,

awful fucking super predator underneath where Jack Unterweger, he actually got to taste it. He got to taste what it was like to be one of those. Everybody loves you, everybody wants a piece of you types. And this is kind of key to it because Jack Unterweger, the fact that he just like takes a name from a newspaper and he spins it into a story, Jack Unterweger is fucking paper thin as a person.

He is, there is no Jack Unterweger. Anything you hear about him is a complete projection and a story that he's spinning and it's gonna spin him all the way back to Los Angeles and then back to Austria. It sounds like one of those collages that 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old girls in the mid 90s created with the band In Sync

where they would put their name next to like all of the big pictures of the people in the band In Sync and be like, JC and then they would take a hard out from a tiger beat and then they would find their name Stephanie in a magazine and they would put that on there and in theory it's really really scary. But that seems like what he did with his life. If you look at my childhood journals,

it's just Mr. and Mrs. Wynona Zabrowski. Mrs. Wynona Zabrowski. Yeah, you wanted to be the brown beaver. Well concerning the cruel abusive alcoholic grandfather, Jack's aunt Charlotte had a much different story to tell about the man that the locals affectionately called Corbler. According to her, Jack Unterweger only lived

with her and Corbler for four years and Jack was in fact just a spoiled brat that they all called Hunsey. Oh, you've gone to protest again and soup wasn't hot enough for me. Oh, many rats had been playing with my wooden hoop. I hate you Corbler. I hate you, I'm Charlotte.

So mad at this damn kid. Oh, my bow is common type. What about my bonnet? How would I go to school without my school bonnet? Hold on a second. I want to make you some more chocolate to shut you up. Well, Corbler was just his nickname. His real name, he was just,

he was a kindly old Austrian man named Ferdinand who made money by weaving baskets out of hazelnut branches. Ah, quaint. That's why they called him, that's why they called him Corbler because Corbler means basket weaver. It does sound quaint. It sounds quaint until he gets a massive order

because it's Easter Sunday and everyone wants the little basket for their Easter eggs and his bloody hands are just desperately trying to make baskets after basket after basket. And then everybody also could be a nightmare job. He immediately organizes a line of people and they all have patches on that are little baskets and he's got a big sign that says it works.

I'll set you free, I'll find him and they're all weaving baskets and he's like, do not call me here Corbler for nothing, I am the basket weaver. And if you pay people a living wage and they're there with their own compliance then that's just being a CEO. Ferdinand actually treated Jack Unterweger

like a little prince. He would spoil him constantly. He made him handmade toys to try and make the little fucker happy. I hate these Uncle Corbler. I hate the toads sitting on the long vista fishing rods. They are not real. That is all we got, kid.

I hate the little tricycles. I cannot even get onto this made of pretty wood. There really was no electricity in the cottage but nobody in their entire valley which by the way, the valley was adorably called Vimitz Valley. Nobody had electricity. This was the early 50s.

Half of Europe hadn't been hooked up to electricity yet and the other half had their shit knocked out by World War II. This is where white people come out of the crags. This is the delta of white people. Yeah, yeah, it really is. No, this is just a fucking cottage in the Alps. Oh yeah, so when I think of the Delta,

when I think of the Delta Blues, all the great music that was created in the American Delta, I feel the same way about Austria with their great Kling Klang songs. This is the polka delta. This is where you're down there. This is where the polka waters run deep. But when it came to Jack's backstory,

he knew that being raised in an idyllic cottage by a basket weaver named Ferdinand who made him handmade toys, that wasn't gonna elicit a lot of sympathy from the general public. So as far as the public was concerned, Jack Unterweger was raised in a din of sin by a drunken monster and Jack therefore

presented himself as a person who had no choice but to enter a life of crime. My parents didn't pay attention to me, which led me, I had no choice, but to enter into a life of laughter. Yes, absolutely. I think your parents paid way too much attention to you. No, to be sure.

One parent paid too much attention, the other parent didn't pay enough. You need the both! Oh my God, you're complaining. The amount of people who are just looking at the dead pictures of their dead parents right now. I couldn't suckle! And that will haunt me forever.

And now I'll be suckling till the day I die to make up for it. That was your fault you couldn't suckle. It was! What are you? I'm sorry, Henry. You've got to take responsibility. What are you? You got it.

The one job a baby has is to suckle and you didn't do it. You mean to tell me I need to pull myself up by my suckling bootstraps and get me suckling? Not by your little baby booties. See, Jack Unterweger, despite his later self-created image of a suave and electoral on the talk show circuit, he started out as a violent criminal from the age of 16

when he got his first conviction for the sexual assault of a sex worker. Between 1966 and 1974, Unterweger was convicted 16 times for everything from the aforementioned sexual assault to theft to pimping. He later wrote in his book that he, quote, wielded his steel rod among the prostitutes

of Hamburg, Munich, and Marseille, and that he conquered his enemies through an inner hatred. Which is seems to me like a seed of the truth that he then threw in, because the one thing that especially somebody like him, a true villain, he loves mixing the two. I think he really likes throwing a little bit of like something that's real so you can see

that he's not fucking around. And they actually can still kill you, but he wants you, mostly he wants you to get the message, but I'm harmless now, I'm harmless, I'm harmless, but he's got this other side where he just wants you to also have this little tiny thought knowing that like, I also can kill again. Yeah.

Yeah, it's the whole thing of admitting to the smaller crime so you can get away with the really fucking big crime. Yeah. And all in all, between the ages of 16 and 25, Jack Unterweger spent a total of 12 months as a free man and was constantly in and out of prison for a variety of crimes, both petty and serious.

Then in 1973, Jack Unterweger committed his first murder. Now details are a little murky on this one because Jack was never convicted nor even charged for this murder, but- Oh, he didn't wear his GoPro? Not yet. But it is highly likely that he was the culprit. According to a young woman who was a witness to the crime,

Jack Unterweger, presumably while pimping, beat a sex worker named Maria Horvath in Salzburg, Austria until she was unconscious. Another witness assumed that Jack had killed the girl after he punched her in the throat and she passed out. But from Jack's actions, it seemed as if he was all too aware that she was still alive and he decided at this point to begin

his serial killing career. Or the opportunity presented itself. How many times do we see that, right? Well, of course, no, that's what I mean. Yeah, like Arthur Shawcross, that kind of shit where the first time he put himself in the position of like, I am going to, I don't wanna pay money to this sex worker. Same thing with Yorkshire Ripper.

It's very interesting to always see how like, they set up the scenario to make it so I had to kill. Right. Yes. And of course they did not. You're right. Just to clarify, they did not. You're right. Thank you.

Well, as Maria Horvath lay unconscious and barely alive, Unterweger bound her wrist with an expensive necktie with black and silver checkered stripes and wrapped a bandage from a first aid kit around her head nine times, giving her a mummy-like appearance. He also removed her pants and wrapped her legs tightly at the ankles with her own pantyhose.

He then drove to the nearby lake and pulled right up to the edge where he threw her in to drown. Think about the amount of work that went into that. When he, I mean, honestly, if it was a crime of passion, he would have beat her to death. Like, you know, to not mention any words. He would have just like hit her a couple of times

and then like, oh, fuck, what did I do? But this is a full-on premeditated process killer. That's what we're gonna discover with him is that he's a full-on process killer. He does not want the body. He's the definition of the process killer. Maria Horvath's body was found by a fisherman on the shoreline days later,

but in a move that will become part of Jack Unterweger's signature, he had taken none of her jewelry and left the gold signet ring on her finger untouched. Now, no one came close to Jack Unterweger as a suspect for this crime because the witness, afraid of what Jack might do to her, she didn't come forward until after he was arrested

for the 10 murders in the 90s. And so, Jack continued life as a criminal, working as a disc jockey or a waiter by day, and he terrorized Salzburg as a robber, car thief, burglar, and rapist by night. Welcome to 99-5-5-K-K-K-K-K-I-L-L-L-Q. Coming up next this Friday, it's time to get the lead out.

Like I did last night on a series of women. Am I confessing to crimes this morning? Beating things with a pipe in the studio. He started this shit early. I think that's interesting. He, some serial killers don't start the double life thing for a while. Every DJ has a double life.

Don't ask about ours because my other life is just me sitting in my underwear at home. But this, he had a specific love of the double life. He did. There are certain killers that are like that. Like Ted Bundy, he comes up for me a lot because I think Jack Winterveger's Ted Bundy light, like he steps below Ted Bundy,

but it's kind of the same wolf because they both like attention, but they both are actual fucking super predators, like uncontrollable animals. And so Ted Bundy kind of like, he peppered it immediately growing up, having like his put together Republican life mixed with all of the weird shit.

He started like all the peeping toms and the burglaries and the rapes that he was doing leading up to his first murder. Same thing here. And we're just trying to build a really good political career, you know. But Jack Winterveger, it's weird. He immediately got a taste for it.

Like he liked having the two. He really did. And the difference between Ted Bundy and Jack Winterveger is that, you know, Ted Bundy, we were having this conversation yesterday about how Ted Bundy like very much could have gone into a career in politics, perhaps eventually or career in law,

had he not constantly been consumed by the urge to murder and it was always the murder that derailed him every time. Jack Winterveger went to prison for 15 years where he was allowed to blossom as a writer because murder was not constantly on his mind. He had no choice but to become a writer. So when he came out, he had this whole life all set up for him, but that was a whole new game.

The whole new game was that he liked to say, oh, yes, I was a murderer. I was horrible in my past, but I'm no longer a murderer anymore. But he's still murdering. He's still murdering a lot of people all at the same time. So it's this very complicated game that he was playing. And of course, you know, he eventually got caught

relatively quickly. If he was in the United States, he would have been caught like five years later. But in Austria, it didn't take that long. Because they actually investigate the murders of sex workers in Austria. But so he went, that's what makes him not full class A. Yeah.

As a matter of fact, I'm no longer a murderer society. I'm something much worse. I'm a fiction writer. No! Not in another world, you must read every book that I write. Oh, God, I can barely get through tune. I can barely get through tune again. Well, in the years 1973 and 1974,

multiple women in various towns made complaints on Jack Unterweger, including one teenage girl who said he picked her up, beat her, tied her hands with her own stockings, and violated her with a steel rod while he masturbated. Jack was immediately arrested for this particular crime. But in a true psychopathic move, he was able to smuggle a large dose

of prescription painkillers into his cell for the purposes of a fake suicide attempt. Interesting. His plan worked, and instead of facing a charge for this horrific crime, he was placed in a psychiatric clinic in Salzburg and was soon released. Did no time whatsoever.

He just understood how to game the system. He just immediately had a second nature understanding of what do I need to do to squiggle my way out of this shit? He just did what fainting goats do. He's just like, what if I fall asleep for 20 hours? It worked, and it worked. Yeah, just a few months later, Jack would commit the murder that sent him to prison.

And of course, prison was where Jack would eventually find fame. But what's important to know about Jack is that it's not like he learned how to become charismatic while he was in prison. Even before his first long stretch, he already knew how to use his charisma to control people. And that's exactly what he did

with his girlfriend Barbara back in 1974. He sort of looked like, he looks like a European actor. Like he's got a big forehead, he's got those kind of piercing eyes. There's something, I mean, before he had a lot. You're gonna put a lot of your bias in, by the way, when you describe a European actor. Yeah, I actually know.

He's about to steal my job. And he was also five, he was just five, six. He did have an actor's body, big head, little body. He did one of those, but people fucking love this guy. They just thought that he was the funniest, the funnest guy, it's very strange because it really, no one saw the real him until he killed you.

Yeah. Sure, that's scary stuff. Now, Barbara said that on December 11th, 1974, Jack used her to lure an 18-year-old girl named Margaret Schaefer into the backseat of his car under the vague auspice of having a good time. Now, the account given by Barbara this night in Entering Hades is a little vague

when it comes to motivation for the murder, but it seems like at one point, Barbara lets something slip about Jack's criminal activities to Margaret. See, at one point during the hangout, Jack pulled over the car and asked Barbara if there was anything else she wanted to tell Margaret. Ooh.

When Barbara said no, Jack reached into the backseat and jerked Margaret to the front by her shirt. You know what it is too, is an immediate, you can see where the rage first spikes, which is a, on a direct, it's a direct attack. He views it as an attack on his persona. And anybody that tries to find any sort of hole

in his persona, like there's something about, that's like fucking narcissists, the sadistic narcissist that's like 101, where if you come for the thing that's supposed to be, like this thin veneer that makes us friends, that makes me friendly to you, the second you even try to stick your finger into the curtain, you're gonna get fucking slapped.

Yeah, let me just try to stick my finger into your curtain really quick. No. Oh, I found a bunch of chocolate. It reminds me, interestingly, of the Donald Trump roast, where the only thing you could not make fun of was the amount of money that he had or not had,

but you could make fun of him fucking his own daughter. Yeah. He had no problem with it. But as soon as you talk about the money, don't you, don't fuck with my money. But you can mention how I wanna bang my daughter. Save that sentence, Travis. Just, just pull that, pull that one little chunk.

It's Donald, it's Donald, mommy. Now, Margaret was understandably shocked when Jack pulled her to the front, but Jack told her that nothing would happen if she didn't resist. And she, either she believed him or she just fucking froze. And it's, you know, that happens to the best of us.

There's nothing to be ashamed about for reason. That happens to so many people in these scenarios. Well, you're also taught in America, we're taught to go along with it. That's what, to be honest, that's every cop I've ever spoken to, anybody talks to me about like these kind of things where especially being robbed while you work in a store,

you just give them the money. You just do the thing. If you're getting mugged, you just give them money and you try to end it. Yeah. And it's not like here where serial murder is a very real thing that people have been living with for decades upon decades.

Serial murder was not a thing. And violence against women is not as anywhere near as bad in Austria as it is here. I've always said that about Austria, especially just right around during World War II and post and serial killing is not a thing. They got it out of their system. Serial killing.

They just had their government do it. And it really helped everybody get it out. I see. Well, because she went along with it, Unterweger was able to tie her hands behind her back using the belt from his girlfriend, Barbara's coat. After Margaret was restrained, Jack put her in the back floorboard

and rifled through her purse, finding 12 bucks and the key to her apartment. They then drove to Margaret's place where Barbara went inside and took another 40 bucks as well as some of Margaret's clothes. All three of them then drove on the main road out of town headed south. And when they stopped for gas,

Jack told Barbara that it was time to make her new friend disappear. Amazingly though, it was Barbara who directed Jack to a secluded spot in the woods where he could commit the murder. She was fucking, she was in that situation where she is both under someone's control and absolutely terrified of them at the same time.

You're a, you are quote unquote in love with this type of person, right? He is a sadistic narcissist, you're in love with him. You've, he's already done this thing where he's both- A malignant narcissist, that's more that, yeah. He talks to you and he shows you two sides at all times where he's this friendly, loving, vivacious dude.

That's the guy you love, that's the guy you met, right? Slowly but surely because he quote unquote trusts you, that's what he tells you, he trusts you. He starts to tell you about the other shit that he does. But what he's doing is making you an accomplice because he knows that you're stuck here with him. So now you're sitting and talking to him and he's shown you the two sides.

You're the only person in his little world that knows the two sides. Everybody else just knows fun, fancy, free Jack who might've gotten in some trouble but everyone's like, oh, he's like this. He's this good looking rogue type. But you know- He's a little short. He's a little short, hey, he's a fun guy.

But you have to have a lot of personality if you're short. And so he's talking to him, you do what's up. So she kind of has an inkling, oh, he does mean it when he says, I can hurt people and we need to go hurt this person. So you help instead of being the next on the chopping block. And it's just normal, that's very normal and it's a part of the abuse cycle.

He's like that green, fuzzy, he-man, evil character that you hit the button and it changes this face. Remember that one? Yes. The green, fuzzy, he-man character. You're putting two of them together though. You're talking about, was it many faces or was that man-at-arms?

I think that was man-at-arms. Oh, man-at-arms had the multiple arms. The fuzzy one was the skunk guy. Yes, skunk man. They even entered the toys first on the show. Isn't that weird? Well, after driving a bit down a forest road, Jack pulled over and undressed Margaret.

And even though Margaret had a chance to beg for her life with Barbara when Jack momentarily got out of the car, Barbara just shrugged as if to say, what are you gonna do? Like, I can't help you, what do you want me to do? Yeah, cause then you know that I'm next, right? Yeah.

And when Jack returned, he dragged Margaret out of the vehicle into a dark, cold, snow-covered forest and asked Barbara if she wanted to come with him. If you want to go, we'll take the sled. I don't think he said it like that. But Barbara, knowing what was about to happen, said no and stayed in the car. After Barbara opted out of witnessing the murder,

Jack grabbed both Margaret's bra and a steel rod from the center console of the car. And he dragged Margaret deeper into the forest out of Barbara's sight. Later autopsy reports stated that Unterweger then mercilessly beat Margaret Schaefer with the steel rod before manually strangling her. But the killing stroke would later become Unterweger's

defining signature. He strangled her to death with her own bra. And he never deviated from it. Never. Ever. It's so weird to see a style so distinct and it happened immediately upon the, maybe his first murder,

cause he also began bounding, he bound his potential first first victim, right? So he started with the binding. And also bound her with one of her own articles of clothing. That was what, that was his signature, is it was killing them with an article, an intimate article of their own clothing. It's not as fun as when in Home Alone,

when he's like, we're the wet bandits, get it? And then they made everything wet. That's it. It's not as fun as that. Because I was like, you were gonna fill up the sink with water. Yeah, cause this is not Daniel Stern.

No. Daniel Stern though would have been good to play him in the movie back in the day. Yeah. Maybe. No, Daniel Stern's too goofy looking. He's too tall too. You shave his head?

You shave his head? Way too tall. He's tall and he's tall and lanky. Tom Cruise. Elijah Wood. No. Elijah Wood. No.

Are we, are we just casting now? We're just casting this mass murderer? Well, after the murder, he propped the body against a larch tree, lightly sprinkled the body with leaves and soil, and once again left all the jewelry behind on Margaret Shaffer's otherwise naked body. He wanted to be pointed about the fact

that it was never about robbery, ever. Yes. He returned to the car, splattered with blood 15 minutes after he'd left, and tossed the steel rod, slick with blood and hair over to Barbara. He then mumbled something about how Margaret couldn't betray them anymore,

and they simply drove back to town. But unlike the woman in the first murder, Barbara went to the fucking police. Oh, that's good. And based on her statements, Jack Unterweger was arrested for the murder of Margaret Shaffer, and he was sentenced to life in prison

a year and a half later. And that's been last podcast on the left. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode. We're going to be in Branding County, second show edit, second show edit. Now, to pass the time, Jack... Oh, what's that? Now, to pass the time,

Jack Unterweger began writing various musings about life from his prison cell, and after three years, he'd completed a correspondence course in literature and narrative writing. You could almost say if this didn't turn out to be a massive, one of the longest, deepest cons that anybody would do,

you'd say that he blossomed. And then he found the thing, he found his thing that he was supposed to be good at in life. And what do we talk about with serial killers all the time? It's bored out of extreme mediocrity, right? It's made out of people that are losers, they're not good at anything else.

And then he finally found his thing. But the opposite was true, was that the thing came to him as he's like, oh, this is how I get back in. Right, right now. And he's just like, all I have to do is become a famous author. And it started to make me think that maybe it's not,

that maybe serial killing doesn't just come from mediocrity, that maybe it's something else entirely, because Jack Unterweger had everything he could ever wanted. He was about, I mean, we'll get to it, but by the time he got out of prison, he was a best-selling author. And still, he still murdered 10 women. It's just kind of like knowing

that you have to get all the way to the presidency so that all of your crimes can be fully covered. We'll see what happens. Marcus, by the way, New York Times best-seller. Yeah. How many people have you killed? I would say a whole... Since the book, how many people have you killed since the book?

Oh, since the book, that's a different hand. Yeah, yeah, since the book. Since the ego boost of the book. Remember the big ego boost we got last year? The big ego boost, that thing that I was dependent on for so many years of work. All the shows and the signings and the bullet door and the money and all that stuff.

All that stuff returning to Lubbock in a bust, my own face on it, so I could lean out the window and just flip off everybody and say, fuck you, I was right, fuck you, I was right. Over and over again. Well, actually, let's get the net. Yeah, let's get the net. Get the net, get the net.

Zero, I've killed none, I've killed none. Thank you for saying it in front of a microphone. And of course, we know 2020 and this whole thing has been hard for everyone, so hang on in there. Thank you for covering. Absolutely, of course. Of course, of course.

I'm just joking. Oh yeah, we're just joking. That's great. Well, soon enough, Jack Unterweger was submitting children's stories to the Austrian equivalent of the BBC, known as the ORF, or the ORF. Ultimately, 50 of Jack's stories were broadcast

on ORF's children's radio program. Holy fucking shit. Oh my god. And here's the story of the magical brawl. All she wanted to do was live on the necks of the women. She used to live on the necks of women. I love the freaky Bill Cosby. It always becomes Bill Cosby, fuck.

I wish you were Jimmy Savile. That's my favorite. But rather than being horrified that a convicted murdering rapist was feeding stories to children, most listeners saw Jack's stories as a celebration of the love he'd never known himself in his childhood.

Oh my god, I just... I don't know. There's a little brown here, people. There's the absolute amount of drama. You're a scary, scary guy. That's unbelievable. One listener, a single mother, was so moved by the stories

that she began visiting Jack in prison, and she testified at his parole hearing years later as a character witness, maintaining that Jack was merely a misunderstood man, quote, full of love. Yeah, I mean, what was so weird, she came dressed for her, she was a character witness,

so she came dressed as Gumby, and she just did not understand what it meant to be a character. It was about his character, and she came dressed as Gumby, so where is my gun? Where is it? Well, after the children's stories,

Jack, like almost every fucking serial killer in existence, moved on to poetry. It's not because poetry is easy. I think that it's because poetry seems easy. Yes. This... Don't, don't, I'm not. It seems easy.

No, it's not easy, but it seems easy. They're doing it well. There's a difference between me running down the block and Usain Bolt running the 100, you know? There is a difference. There's a difference. Yeah, it's both running, but one is gangly and weird,

and the other is an achievement. Yeah, one looks like a grown-up greyhound on two legs, just flitting down the street, and one is Usain Bolt. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Well, this is an example of one poem that imagined death as a lover

who would take him in her embrace and free him from his pain. It's called Love Poem to Death. You come to me again. You don't forget me until the end of the agony and the chain breaks. Still you appear strange and distant

and our live death. You're stunned like a cool star over my distress, but then you will be near and full of flame. Come, lover, I am here. Take me. I am yours. And just to put that into some clarification here, let's read something from BTK.

Oh, Anna, why did you appear towards the perfect plan of deviant pleasure so bold on that spring night? My inner feeling hot with prevention of the new Awakening season. Yada, yada, yada, yada, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Oh, Anna, why didn't you appear? That's Dennis Rader.

So I actually totally understand what you're saying. Dennis Rader is you, and he in this situation is Usain Bolt because that is much better than anything BTK wrote. He genuinely had a touch. Like he had like a poetic touch. Yeah, he had a talent for writing. And by the way, BTK is the Riddler.

That's who the Riddler is. He is the Riddler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So much respect for him, actually. I'm surprised. The Riddler still needs a bullet in the head. You know what? He sucks.

I hate the Riddler. Okay, but he is an 18 guy. That's all I'm saying. He somehow got to the 18. Yeah, I mean, the Riddler is just baked in at this point. Perhaps that's the ultimate Riddler of all. Well, unlike every other serial killer writer outside of Ian Brady,

Jack Unterveger didn't stop with poetry. He began writing short stories, plays, and eventually novels. And the literary community ate it up. In 1984, Unterveger's story, In Station Zugthaus, won an Austrian literary prize. And he followed that in 1985 with the book that made him famous.

Fegefeuer, oder die Reise in Zugthaus. You're scaring me. It's just the language. In English, that translates to purgatory, or the trip to prison. Oh, why does it have a smiley face at the end of it? I don't know. This is fun.

Now purgatory was published as a novel, but it was a highly autobiographical novel. And everyone took Jack at his word. The book opens with Unterveger narrating a nightmare about being put in handcuffs. But even after the dream ends, he still wakes up in a prison cell. No.

Prison, however, was not hell in Jack's world. Prison was purgatory, as the title explicitly states. And this decision was actually very clever. Calling it purgatory implied that Jack was not a soul forever condemned for his crimes, but was instead worthy of redemption. He's just waiting for his time in heaven. Essentially, he was telling the reader

that he would leave prison one day because he deserved to leave prison. And what was absolutely insane was that the vast majority of the Austrian public bought the claim and bought Jack's story. I could see, well, the government at the time, from what the documentaries were saying, the government at the time was on a mission

to rehabilitate people. So he became the perfect poster boy for it because he was good at his job. He was good at being a writer. So they're like, you know, you can't be talented and a vicious merchant. They don't believe that, they don't think that can happen. And it's interesting because he kind of saw it,

he scanned it in his mind and kind of put himself directly in the spotlight. Interesting. And after the book became a best seller, Austria's intellectual elite started a public campaign to release Jack Unterweger from prison. They wrote letters to the Austrian president requesting a pardon for Jack

because obviously someone with this much talent couldn't possibly be a danger to society. Yeah, Hitler sucked at painting. Yeah, that's very true. However, the president refused, not because of the horrific nature of his many crimes, but because Jack had only at this point served 10 years. He was only in jail for 10 years already.

Wow. See, in Austria, any prisoner, including those convicted of murder, go up for parole after 15 years, even if they have a life sentence. They undergo a psychiatric evaluation and if they are deemed to no longer be a threat to society, then they can be released.

Now, murderers in Austria rarely get outright at 15 years, but most still don't serve more than 20. With Jack though, the public push to release him began five years before his parole hearing was even held, with his supporters arguing that purgatory was proof that Jack had transformed himself through self-reflection. But what I think this is proof of

is that even in a country where sex work is legal, most people still think of sex workers as less dead, because I highly doubt people would be so forgiving had Jack Unterweger killed a fucking pretty teenage girl from a wealthy family. Yeah, if it was John Benet Ramsey, he would not have gotten back out. No, they wouldn't have found him at all.

No. But as far as John Benet Ramsey, the killer's never been found. We remember. Okay. But as far as supporters went. That cat society, that's who did it. I want to find out where those guys are.

Yeah. But as far as supporters went, one of Jack's biggest was radio talk show host, Peter Hummer. He called purgatory, quote, a real cry. Oh, God. And he said that Unterweger represented the hope that a person can somehow come to grips

with their problems through verbalization. I wish, I wish they could. I want them to. They can, some people can. Many people can, most people can. Dangerous psychopathic sexual sadist cannot. They can't just talk. The dangerous psychopathic sexual sadist

can't just talk his way out of it. When I think of like, who's the best judge of character? I always say, radio DJs. Yeah, man. You know, the way they always love and let go. Bubba the love sponge. Bubba the love sponge. But he filmed the whole co-gamer having sex with his wife

because why? That's honesty. Yeah. That's transparency. Casey Anthony, she found a DJ of a different kind because they found something in her. Yeah, DJs are just the mind's eye of society. DJs, what do we learn from side stories?

DJs jobs are to observe when people are fucking the party flow, right? So they're, all they do is observe people. And that's really, so we should trust the DJs. I think we should have a DJ on the Supreme Court. Because we're talking about three different kinds of personality. You're talking about a disc jockey, which is one thing

which is different from a club DJ, which is different from a radio personality. Why do you got the same name? I was actually talking about DJ Tanner from Full House. Oh, Dij. Yeah, Dij. Well, Jack Onderveger, what he was for the intellectual lead of Austria, he was a social experiment for them.

And 10 women would die to satisfy their curiosity. But it wasn't just the intellectuals on Jack's side. Purgatory was so popular that a feature film based on the book was produced and released while Jack was still in prison. Although it did, very conveniently, replace Jack's sadistic murder with simple assault. I couldn't find both films. Because there was another movie,

because I know Michael Fosbender was working on a Jack Onderveger movie. Really? And I couldn't find that that's never came out. Well, I don't think that was ever made, yeah. I don't think it was made. But that would be good. But then there was a movie called Jock

that I couldn't find. That didn't come out that long ago. And then there was that movie, Purgatory, that he was on set for. No, he was getting a visit set from him. Jeez. And give notes on the set that he'd get to go do, but I couldn't find that movie either.

Oh my God, all right. There were some people, however, who weren't fooled. And the people not buying Jack's line tended to be people who were in direct contact with Jack. See, the woman who had first encouraged Jack to write was named Sonia Eisenstein. And she'd been in contact with Jack since 1974. See, she'd been somewhat intrigued

with how a seemingly soft-spoken five-foot-six-inch man could be convicted of murder. And she wanted to discover the reasons why. I don't think five-foot-six people can fucking kill people. No, I do think that they can kill people. I think that's what we've learned over the years. There's literally an entire complex named after it. Very complex general that that complex is named after.

But as she got to know Jack better, she noticed that he had an almost supernatural ability to win advocates to his side. And he was able to gain privileges and influence in prison with ease. There was someone about Jack that made just a fucking hairs on her neck stand on end. See, what I have the ability to do

is walk on all fours with my ass so high up in the air that they just start giving me food and candy. It is fantastic. I love it when this sticky horse is in jail. Do you remember a sticky horse? Yes, that's what sticky horses do. That's your sticky horse, that's you. I know.

But you know what I would say? Can I drop a little bit of Satanism in here? But it's not going to apply to everybody. But there is a, when you look at, when you read the Satanic Witch by Anton Leves, it is aged poorly. But he talks about, which I, it's a way of what he called personal enchantment.

So what he does is this personality clock, right? Which is this idea that you, there are three aspects of the human personality. It's what you look at when you see them, right? And then their inner demonic personality, which is the exact opposite of what they look like. And then their inner, inner personality. So to break it down, I'm an endomorphic quote unquote

party animal, like it's on a clock, right? They would, let's say I'm at a three o'clock on the clock, right? I'm an endomorphic party animal who's like a fun, ruddy dude when you see and you look at me. But on the opposite side of the clock is someone that is a cold or a analytical, someone that is more subdued in their emotions.

And the real you is the third you, which is exactly as you appear, right? You actually are a fun loving person on the inside. But the way to get people to gain their trust is that you show an opposite sliver of your personality to someone and it feels like they trust, it feels like there is a trust bond, like a secret has been shared.

Like, oh, I'm this crazy guy, but really, I love Towns Van Zandt. Like that kind of shit where you go, you say a thing where he naturally did that, where Jack Unterveger put on this one personality, but then would switch this, but I grew up in a prostitute's hut. Like, and it brings people in immediately.

Well, those are the barbs on the hook. Yes. Yeah. Well, concerning Sonya Eisenstein, when she actually researched the details of the murder that had put Jack behind bars, she was fucking horrified and she cut off all contact. But years later, when Jack was released from prison and became a celebrity,

Sonya actually tried sounding the alarm. She wrote a very succinct, well-written letter to the local paper saying this, Jack Unterveger is a shark in the Austrian cultural scene. His madness is like the AIDS virus, an agent of destruction that threatens all of society. No one is safe from him. Geez, that's scary.

That's a harsh one-star review on iTunes. But have you read his poetry? I mean, that's what people did. That's what they said in response. Yeah, dude, since public opinion was on Jack's side, the editor didn't publish the letter and his popular support continued well into his trial for 10 murders across three countries.

Now, concerning how Jack got released for the savage murder of Margaret Schaefer, it really didn't take that much effort once it got time for the parole hearing. Many politicians and church leaders were all for Jack's release and the local governor actually said this. We will never find a prisoner so well-prepared for freedom. Well, you will find him once again

after he kills 10 people. No, no, no, I've never find someone, he just wants it, you know, most people, they think they want freedom, but they don't. He does, he wants it, wants it, wants it. Anybody else? Okay. And so on April 27th, 1990,

a court-appointed psychiatrist gave Jack a favorable prognosis and less than a month later, Jack Unterweger was back on the streets of Vienna as a best-selling author and celebrity. To me, this is the true power of psychopathy, whatever he'd have, he went deep undercover into his own personality for 15 years. This was always the plan.

He knew that he was working his way towards getting out. When he saw it, when he, you could imagine, the inner glee. Well, not for 15 years, I would say he figured it out about five years then. Sure, but I mean, when he entered into the character of Jack Unterweger, a celebrity author, he didn't let it go to anybody.

This is a, there's something about it, like that idea of the double life and holding up this fucking, because now the inner life, whatever the fuck it is, that's this fucking animal that's inside of you is very hungry and you have this thin sheet that no one else understands is gone in a second. Like it's a tissue thin front and no one knows that,

but he's been holding the line to keep bringing that term up. He's been holding this shit down for fucking at least 10 years. And now he's coming out and just being like, so he imagined at some point, he must think he's fucking invincible. I mean, you just described Pennywise the clown. Yeah, yeah. Like he's just like, I didn't eat kids for 50 years.

No one gives me credit for not eating kids. And I come back and I eat kids every 50 years and now I'm a bad guy. Within weeks, if not days after his release from prison, Jack Unterweger was pontificating on the redemptive power of writing on Austrian talk shows and drawing applause for the contrition he showed for strangling a woman in the forest with her own bra.

To commemorate his first week out of prison, Unterweger bought an expensive Mercedes that had a vanity plate reading, W. Jack won. Wow. Oh my God. And now it's another level of douchebag. Yeah. Now it's just like,

now we're getting to like nacho fries where they put the liquid cheese out of town. Oh yeah dude. And he dressed in the finest clothing bad taste could buy. According to accounts, Jack Unterweger fashion-wise was stuck in the disco era. This is 1990 and he's strutting around town in snow white silk suits with red roses on the lapels.

He looked like a fucking mid-70s pimp. Big solar glasses. Oh yeah, he fucking, a lot of jewelry, a lot of like the fancy cars hanging out with models. He jumped straight into like rock star lifestyle. Like he was like ready to go, which I can honestly imagine 10, 15 years of prison, even in a fucking like European prison, it's gotta suck.

But now you're coming out of this thing and he just was like, boom, I'm a fucking superstar. I would say it doesn't seem like prison was that bad for him cause he always had that extension to the outside world. But I do have to say this is the point of the show where I will defend portions of this person's character. I kind of like the disco look. It's fun.

It is fun. What's wrong with fun? It's a big hotel, I love the big jackets. I don't, I just got the wrong with a good disco look. The disco look comes back every 10 years. It does. And you know, for some people the power of celebrity trumps all.

And Jack had no problem seducing woman after woman after woman but some did get a little scared off when they got Jack home and found that his body was covered in these fucking diabolical prison tattoos. He loved it. So again, one of those like serial killer true crime nerd things that I love is the accidental psychological positioning

of exteriors and interiors. Like, you know, we talked about Ed Gein's house and that kind of thing. But like on his body, like he covered it up completely when he was dressed outside. Like it was big suits, fancy suits, old kind of shit. And there was something about how you didn't see the prison tattoos until it was like essentially like too late.

You're already nude with the guy. Any of women ran and said, I got to go. Yeah, I'm certain, I'm certain. But he, you know, he's a TV man. What does this TV man on the TV gets a lot? There's you don't understand just how easily the human animal is hypnotized by images that are in the media. Like you the TV man buys you trust.

It's like seeing him all the time, seeing his face, seeing people who like talk to his face. And then you think that that guy must be cool because how could he be on all the TV shows I like if he wasn't a fixed person? I mean, that's what I think about Dennis Franz from NYPD. Blue. What are you talking about?

He normalized our bodies. I know what he did for your people. He allowed us to be sex objects. You just imagine looking at John's body just been like, oh, what's that tattoo? And he's like, that's when we played sticky horsey. That's me dressed as the sticky horsey. That's Bruno behind me.

He's going to be sticky. No, of course, people started digging into the murder Jack had committed more out of curiosity than anything else. But Jack, like any good psychopath, he already had an excuse locked and loaded. He'd had 15 years to think about it. When asked about the murder of Margaret Shaffer, Jack would first give a preamble about being abandoned

by his mother to an alcoholic grandfather, which showed up sympathy for the crime to come. Then he'd give a sob story about being in the throes of drug and alcohol abuse by 1974, which framed the murder as a sort of rock bottom story, something he could recover from. And finally, Unterweger found a way to blame the murder on both the victim and his own mother.

He said that there was just something about Margaret Shaffer that irritated him. And he finally figured out that it was because she looked and sounded like his mother. And it was for this reason that he beat Margaret Shaffer with a steel rod and strangled her to death. And that worked for people? They'd just be like, yeah, I hate my mom too.

Yeah, that makes sense. Have to take you-know-moms. Bought it every time. Then as a kicker, once when a reporter named Margaret Haas heard this story and unflinchingly asked how Jack felt about his mother now, he said this. I want pretty good terms for her. She lives in Munich and I visit her from time to time.

It's great. But you just said that the person that you killed reminded you of your mother and you hated your mother. Oh, and I hated her then. But now you like her. We've watched The Office. You do. Oh my god, when he spilled the chili.

Yeah. Have you seen that scene when he spills the chili? I did see that scene too. Oh, my mother and I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and we're just hanging out all the time. You're shopping the other day. Yeah, what do you think when you see Pam? I'm a Max and Easton with my mother.

It's so much fun. We were like, oh, we're just having fun. OK. Jack's creative output never slowed down after he left prison. He wrote further novels and began producing plays like one called Dungeon, which flopped critically and commercially.

And he wrote and produced a play about AIDS called Scream of Fear. Jeez. Oh, that's about right. But again, those who had worked closest with Jack weren't sold. The director of the film adaptation of Purgatory said that Jack doesn't like literature

and Jack doesn't like writers. Jack, he said, doesn't like anything. Jack only likes Jack. And this is coming from a director of a movie. They are the meanest people on earth. And sure enough, just four months after being released from prison, Jack began killing once more and he wouldn't stop

until 10 more women were dead. And that's where we'll pick back up next week for part two of Jack Unterveger, where we'll cover the majority of his murders and his time in the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Oh, my god. All right, well, thank you all so much for listening. This is fascinating.

You're right, Mr. Marcus Parks, that he is one of the more accomplished maniacs that we've ever covered. I can't think of anyone, as a matter of fact, that could do any of the things that he was able to do while doing something that he did, which is mass murder. He had a fucking literary career that was his throwaway persona. Like, think about that kind of.

That's why he is so fascinating to me, because it started our conversation with Ted Bundy, because in my mind, his political career got cut short. But I think Ted Bundy had a plan at one point where he's like, if I enter into politics, I really do think that Ted Bundy could have been our first congressman serial killer. It was just a couple of wrong turns that he took.

But if he had stayed on track, it's that same kind of skill set where they were just trying to, all of this shit was just an excuse to get them to a point where no one would question their actions anymore. Yeah, we only had Gary Condit. He murdered somebody, supposedly. And then Ted Kennedy, he was a senator who murdered somebody.

Matthew Broderick. No, he's not in Congress. He's not in Congress. And that was an accident. You need to stop doing what you're doing with Matthew Broderick. I love it. But we haven't had any serial killers. Not yet.

Not that we've discovered. Not yet. Not yet. There's always time. There's definitely why. There's always time that are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. That's different.

Yeah, that's covered. That's different. Yeah, yeah, that's much different. But the thing is, Jack, Unterberger, he's actually going to take it even further when he goes to Los Angeles. When it comes to making the game just that much harder and to seeing how much he can truly play society,

he fucking turns it up. All right, he's a real Triple H. Time to play the game. A little reference for my wrestling fans out there. Thank you. Thank you all, by the way, for supporting every show that we have here on the LPN Network. Thank you for listening to this episode. We have one more of this guy, right?

One more. One more of this guy. Let's do a little bit of an announcement. We've got coming this Monday, March 15th. Dunecast with me and Holden McNeely is coming out on the tubes. And just again, to prepare you, it's going to come out on the last podcast on the left stream

as well. It's coming out on our feed and also on its own feed. So just to know that's coming for you. And then this Wednesday, St. Peter's Day. Some place underneath with Natalie Jean and Amber Nelson is also going to debut. Very excited for you guys to see this new show. We've been working real hard on all of this shit.

And I hope that you guys like it. We still got some tickets for our show in Grundy County. Grundy County? On Friday. What's the place called? I think it's just called the place in Grundy County. The only place in Grundy County where concerts are held. Yeah, wherever it says we are, that's where we're going to be.

Again, going to be outside, big cordoned off areas. So we'll all look real small. And of course, the only thing you got to do is bring your gun for half off tickets. That's a joke. OK. And don't forget the season 1.1 of No Dogs in Space is premiering on March 25.

In season 1.1, it's not necessarily a bridge into the entire next season. But it is, you know, it's a band that we really love. And it's really cool. It's going to be fun. We already recorded episode one, so we're fucking where I had to schedule. All right.

That's fucking sweet. Toad the Wet Sprocket, it is. What a story you have to tell. Can't wait for Alice in Chains. Oh, yeah. Well, that'll be right after our Better than Ezra series, our five-part series on Better than Ezra. What about Ezra?

Exactly. David Letterman. What about Ezra? And I want to personally shout out to Edward Larson from Brighter Side. I had a chance to interview Bobby Lashley, a WWE champion, because Eddie's friend is friends with him. So thank you, Mr. Larson, for hooking that up.

And if you haven't listened to that episode, check that out on Kind of Fun. And top hat and all the other shows. You know what to do. Anything else, boys? Nothing. Nothing at all? Nothing.

God damn thing. Not a fucking thing. All right, everyone. Thank you all so much for listening. Hail yourselves. Hail Satan's. Hail game. Bagusta lesions, don't trust writers.

Don't trust a writer except if it's Marcus. Yeah, we're fine. Most of us. Hail game? Hail game, Marcus? I said it. I said it. I said it.

OK, all right. Isn't it enough? Haven't we done enough? I don't know. OK, fine. I've said it 430 something fucking times. 500? I'll say it again.

It's like 500. Well, how many times I've said it, though? He's getting writers, right? Yes. Ah! This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them.

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