Dec. 11, 2024

Chapter 88: The Devils in Pavilian 5-The Lainz Angels of Death

Chapter 88: The Devils in Pavilian 5-The Lainz Angels of Death

In this chilling episode, we dive deep into one of the most horrifying and mysterious murder sprees in modern history – the Lainz Angels of Death. Operating under the radar for years, a group of nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna turned...

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In this chilling episode, we dive deep into one of the most horrifying and mysterious murder sprees in modern history – the Lainz Angels of Death. Operating under the radar for years, a group of nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna turned their workplace into a gruesome killing field, responsible for the deaths of at least 49 patients (though some suspect many more).
But what drove these healthcare professionals, sworn to protect life, to commit such unspeakable crimes? How did they evade detection for so long, and what psychological forces played into their twisted motives? We’ll unpack the strange psychology behind the nurses' actions, the chilling modus operandi, and the horrifying moments of the investigation that shocked Austria and the world.
Join us as we explore the dark side of human nature and the terrifying reality of the Lainz Angels of Death. From the cold hospital corridors to the twisted personalities behind the murders, this episode takes you inside one of the most notorious and complex serial killer cases of the 20th century.Get ready for a journey into a case where the lines between care and cruelty blur in the most terrifying way.

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For a full list of Sources please go to botdpod.com
Anomalien.com. (2019, February 21). Lainz Angels of Death: 4 Nurses Killed 49 Patients. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://anomalien.com/lainz-angels-of-death-4-nurses-killed-49-patients/CBS News & Associated Press. (2008, July 17). Austria’s “Angels Of Death” To Be Released. CBS News. Retrieved June 6, 2022, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/austrias-angels-of-death-to-be-released/Cooksey, K. (2008, July 18). Austrians outraged over “death angels” release. The Guardian. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/18/austriaDavis, N. (2012, November 26). Making of a Monster: Waltraud Wagner (Angel of Death). Pick Me Up! Retrieved June 29, 2022, from https://healthpsychologyconsultancy.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/making-of-a-monster-waltraud-wagner-angel-of-death/Death Angels of Lainz. (2020, October). Missing Doe Europe. Retrieved June 30, 2022, from https://missingdoe.com/sk-0001/Donkey Junk. (2021, August 17). Lainz “Angels of Death” The disturbing story of the Austrian killer nurses. Retrieved June 30,...

WEBVTT

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Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to

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the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Brought

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to you by dark Cast Network indie podcasts with a Twist.

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Scottish Murders is hosted by Me Dawn and as a

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multi award shortlisted victim focused podcast covering the murders of

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those from or living in Scotland. We tell each victim's

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story in a respectful, sensitive, unsensational and unopinionated way. So

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why not join us whenever you listen to your podcasts

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and ensure you never miss an episode of Scottish Murders.

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Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter in the Book

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of the Dead. By the title of this chapter, I

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think a lot of you can gather, or at least

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those of you have been listening since the beginning can

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gather what we're going to be talking about today. So

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for our very first episode, for those that don't know,

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haven't listened, and I don't blame you for not listening,

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we recorded an episode covering the Lanes Angels of Death

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and it was not a good episode. The content was good,

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the research was good. But I instead of waiting to

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get a new computer because mine had died. It decided.

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You know what, I'm really excited. I'm going to record

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this anyway on my iPad in my living room. And

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it's terrible. At the time, I thought it sounded okay.

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I knew it wasn't good, but I thought it was okay.

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Listening to it today, two years later, two and a

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half years later, it's awful. So I finally recorded it,

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something I had wanted to do for a very long time.

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I rewrote out the whole thing. I added some new information,

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not a lot, but some new informations. It's a little

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bit different than when you first heard it. But I

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am excited to bring you this episode in the way

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it was intended, properly, with good audio, clear audio. So

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without further ado, we are going to jump into the

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lanes angels of death. This story begins in nineteen eighty

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three and Vienna, Austria, with a woman named walterd Wagner.

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And like I said when I first covered this story,

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there's really no information on who she was as a

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person as she was growing up, or what her childhood

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was really like. But when she was twenty three years old,

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she got a job as a nurse's aide at the

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Lane's Hospital in Vienna, specifically in Pavilion five. Lane's General

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Hospital was built in eighteen thirty nine and was the

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fourth largest medical facility in Vienna. Pavilion five was part

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of the Internal Medicine department and primarily focused on patients

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with terminal illnesses, whether that be patients with cancer, patients

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and end of life care, or patients who were very elderly.

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Problem patients quote unquote were also placed in Pavilion five,

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and those were patients that may have been suffering from

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some sort of mental illness or who were considered pretty

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difficult to deal with now. Because of the type of

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war this was. Many of the patients were over seventy

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five years old, so they were quite elderly. When waltter

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Trip began working in Pavilion five, things were not easy.

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Working as a nurse or a nurse's aid in general

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is not an easy job. However, things were made worse

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by the hospital being critically understaffed, and that was the

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problem that Austria had in many of their hospitals. According

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to a nineteen eighty nine article for The New York Times,

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nurses at Lane's Hospital were working over sixty hours a

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week to try and compensate for the lack of staff

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and the nurses. Aids themselves base salary was only six

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hundred and thirty five to seven hundred and fifteen dollars

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a month, which was half of what the nurses themselves

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were making. And just to put that in perspective, that's

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the equivalent of two thousand and four to two thousand,

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two hundred and fifty seven dollars in today's economy. Mind you,

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that's the conversion for American dollars, but still that's not

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a lot of money to live off of. Obviously, there

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were huge discrepancies in the pay which contributed to the

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staffing issues because the hospitals couldn't afford to pay qualified

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people to be nurses, so many aids and orderlies around

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Austria had to do work and take on responsibilities outside

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of their usual jobs that they did not have the

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qualifications for training to do. Ordinarily, aids would be in

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charge of providing basic care to patients like bathing or feeding,

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helping with mobility, monitoring vitals and transporting patients to different rooms.

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They would assist with toileting, taking vital signs and reporting

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changes to the nurses. They may make sure that a

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patient is taking their medicine if it's in pill form,

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but they are not authorized to give medicine intravenously. That

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is not something that an AID does now, and they

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weren't doing it in the eighties either, as they are

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not trained or certified to do so. Because of the

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staffing issues, there was also little to no supervision on

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the ward. There were no doctors or nurses making sure

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that things were being done properly or making sure that

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the aids were following procedures. It was essentially a free

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for all because no one with any qualifications was around

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to keep an eye on things. So Waltrade was going

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through work every day doing all sorts of different jobs

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that she shouldn't have been doing because she had to. Obviously,

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she wasn't the only one, but the AIDS will be

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focusing on. In addition to Waltride, our twenty one year

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old Irene laid off in nineteen year old Maria Gruber.

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Irene was married and preferred to spend her free time

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with her coworkers as opposed to her husband, and Maria

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was a nursing school dropout and single mother, so out

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of the three of them, she had the most knowledge

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in the sense that she had had some training, but

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she wasn't certified in anything because she hadn't completed her schooling.

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One day, while working, Waltrid is taken care of an

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unnamed patient, and this patient is very ill and can't

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take it anymore. She asks walterd to help her die

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in an assisted suicide. Now, prior to twenty twenty two,

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assisting in the suicide of another person was illegal in Austria.

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According to the World Federation Right to Die Society, Austria

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had one of the most rigorous prohibition systems against suicide assistants,

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and they also prohibited it occurring abroad, So if you

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lived in Austria as an Austrian citizen and went out

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of the country, you could still be persecuted. Quote. Till

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twenty twenty two, articles seventy eight of the Austrian Penal

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Code read anyone who induces others to kill themselves or

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helps them is punishable by imprisonment of six months to

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five years to punish. Since January first of twenty twenty two,

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the word or helps them are removed from the article

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that now reads anyone who induces another to kill himself

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is punishable by imprisonment of six months to five years. Now,

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after this was amended, assisted suicide is allowed under strict requirements.

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The person wanting to die has to be fully informed

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by a doctor and they have to have diagnosed disease

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or illness, and then a second doctor has to verify

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that the person is fully capable of making this decision.

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They have to wait two to twelve weeks depending on

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what the prognosis is. A death order has to be

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drawn up by a patient advocate or a notary which

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will allow them to access lethal preparation which is accessed

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at a pharmacy, and it has to be noted in

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a registry if this is submitted. And the reason this

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law was amended was because in twenty twenty the Austrian

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Constitutional Court ruled that prohibiting assisted suicide violated a person's

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right to self determination. So while it is legal now,

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it was not legal when this patient approached Waltrid about

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assisting her suicide. So this patient was dying of an

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undisclosed illness and they didn't want to suffer anymore, so

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Waltrid agreed to help and administered an overdose of morphine.

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The woman died like she wanted, and that should have

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been the end of it. Now. If it's stopped there,

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one could almost commend Waltrid for doing this. While it's

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highly unethical and illegal, you could argue that she was

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trying to do the right thing by choosing to help

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this patient and their suffering. It happens today legally in

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controlled environments, like in hospice settings, and the person is

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usually given paid medication to make them comfortable, and they

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aren't given food or drink. Again, it's done ethically and

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in a controlled environment, the patient isn't typically being given

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an overdose. However, this patient's death was a catalyst for

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Waltride and would be the beginning of a reign of

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terror in Pavilion five. You see, Waltrid realized something when

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she administered that overdose. She realized that while this patient

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may have decided to die, she needed Waltrid to make

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it happen. Waltrid got to play God in that moment,

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and that gave her a power that she didn't know

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was possible. It was by her hand that someone died,

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and she loved the feeling that gave her. Her actions

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directly impacted someone else in a literal life or death situation.

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So Waltred is thrilled with this newfound power, and she

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approaches Irene and Maria and tells them what happened and

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how great she felt about it, and she asked them

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to join her. Maria and Irene agree, which is just

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as baffling to me now as it was when I

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first covered this story that they not only agreed to

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do this, but they also allegedly didn't find this horrific

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in any way, although at least in Irene's case, according

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to doctor Nikola Davies, who gave an interview on her

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thoughts about these women, Irene was likely susceptible to the

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idea of doing this if it was framed as a

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merciful act, as she had spent a bulk of her

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life caring for her critically ill father. So the three

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of them go on to start killing patients, and at

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first they're doing this intravenously. They start out with morphine,

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and then they move on to insulin and rufinol, which

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they have unlimited access to working in a hospital, and

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no one is paying attention. They're getting away with it

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because of the type of war they're in the patients

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that are dying are terminal or otherwise very ill or elderly,

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and they're killing one patient a month, so no one

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is really questioning why patients are in this ward. A

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patient passing isn't necessarily a cause for alarm, at least

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at first, because it's relatively expected that these patients could

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die while at the hospital. Eventually, though, Waltrid decides that

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administering overdoses isn't enough for her. It's not exciting enough,

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and the reason for this is that Waltred is highly

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irritated by most of her patients. The reason is that,

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even though she chose this job, her patients were an inconvenience.

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So it was to the point where if a patient

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irritated her, she would kill them, and she would do

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this for any reason. If a patient pressed the call

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button too many times, she would kill them. If they

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refused to take their medicine, it didn't matter if they

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made her angry, she decided to kill them. She killed

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patients for complaining. If someone had an accident in their bed,

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she would they quote that one just bought themselves a

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ticket to God. So, because she felt so annoyed by

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these patients, she came up with more creative ideas to

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end their life, one of which was the water cure. Now,

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Waltred was the primary initiator of the water cure according

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to the others, and if they did this themselves, they

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alleged that she forced them into doing this. The water

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cure consisted of one of them, usually Maria or Irene,

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and later the fourth member of their group would pinch

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the nose of a patient closed and push their tongue

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against the roof of their mouth. Then another usually Waltred,

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would pour water down their throats to drown them. So

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this was an even more extreme version of waterboarding. To

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give you an idea of how horrific this was. Once

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the news broke, these women were literally compared to Joseph Mangela.

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This was so bad it was compared to Nazi war crimes.

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This went on four years, and in nineteen eighty six

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there was actually a report of a suspicious death when

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a patient overdosed on sleeping pills, but when police showed

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up to the hospital to investigate this, they were allegedly

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refused entry. Hospital officials claimed that they had done their

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own internal investigation and found no evidence of the death.

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Being suspicious and that things were under control, so the

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police left. Now, in nineteen eighty seven, a new woman

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on the ward was brought into the group named Stefania Meyer,

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who was a forty three year old immigrant from Yugoslavia.

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She was the oldest of the group and was considered

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00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:53.559
the mom of the four of them because she had

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00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:58.679
children and grandchildren. Now, after Stefania comes in, things start

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to accelerate and they go from killing one patient a

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month to three or more. The reason things started to

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accelerate is because the women were growing more confident that

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they were getting away with this. No one was questioning anything,

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and they believed that these methods of killing were undetectable,

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which on the surface they were. If you just look

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at someone without running any sort of tests, you can't

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see if they've drowned or overdosed because it's not leaving

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00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:36.399
a visible mark. When these patients passed, no one was

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doing an autopsy or a more thorough examination like looking

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for petikia in the eyes, because, as I said, many

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of these patients were terminal, so there was no reason

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to run tests to find out what happened. The patient's

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00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:55.240
family or the attending physician can request one, but it's

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not something that's necessary if the patient had a known

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terminal condition or was already feeble. So these women have

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started to get sloppy when it comes to being discreet

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00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:10.440
about what they've been doing. And in February of nineteen

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eighty nine, they really throw discretion out the window. These

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00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.720
women go to a bar after work and they start

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00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:23.799
talking about the patient they've just killed, named Julia Drapel. Now,

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Julia was, at least according to Waltride, a very difficult patient,

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00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:34.279
and we've already established that Waltrde doesn't like difficult patients.

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00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:39.000
Julia had allegedly refused to take her medicine and called

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00:16:39.080 --> 00:16:44.200
waltred a common slut. So Waltrede, pissed off, used the

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00:16:44.200 --> 00:16:47.440
water cure to kill Julia. As I said when I

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originally covered this story, I give a lot of credit

248
00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:55.000
to people that work in healthcare. I really do. You

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00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:58.639
encounter a lot of difficult patients, and you deal with

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00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:01.519
a lot of crap that isn't right, But at the

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00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:03.759
end of the day, you have to let it go,

252
00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:09.319
let it roll off your shoulders. When someone is sick,

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00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:12.519
they get upset, they get angry, and you can't take

254
00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:17.480
offense to it. You have to move on. But everything

255
00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:20.839
irritated Waltrid and she wasn't going to let a patient

256
00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:26.079
disrespect her, even if it really wasn't that serious. So

257
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they're talking about this murder and they think it's the

258
00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:33.319
greatest thing. They're laughing, they're joking, they're just bragging about

259
00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:37.359
what they've done. But the problem is that they're talking

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00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:41.799
about this in a bar. Now, unbeknownst to them, sitting

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00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:46.000
right next to them is a doctor. Now I don't

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00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.359
believe that this doctor was known to them. I don't

263
00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:52.880
know if he worked at Lane's, but even if he did,

264
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I don't believe that they knew him, or if they did,

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they didn't notice him. But he figured out what they

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00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:04.279
were talking about in what they had done. He goes

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00:18:04.359 --> 00:18:09.000
to the police, and the police investigate for six weeks

268
00:18:09.680 --> 00:18:13.839
before arresting all four women on April seventh of nineteen

269
00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:19.039
eighty nine. After the arrests, the women start confessing immediately,

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and they claimed to have killed forty nine people, before

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00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:27.200
later recanting and claiming it was really forty four people.

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According to an article for the United Press by John Hollins,

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00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:36.240
police Chief, gun their Bogels said that he could not

274
00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:39.599
assure that the final murder toll would be the forty

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00:18:39.640 --> 00:18:43.759
four patients that the women had confessed to killing, and

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in fact, by the time corporaceeeding started, the women had

277
00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:50.119
changed their statement again and claimed that they had only

278
00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:55.759
killed twenty people and they were all mercy killings. Again.

279
00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:57.920
The reason they thought they could get away with this

280
00:18:58.119 --> 00:19:01.720
was because they believed their methods of the murder were untraceable,

281
00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:06.720
But the police had victims' bodies exhumed and autopsy and

282
00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:11.640
toxicology reports proved that patients had died of overdoses, and

283
00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:14.000
there was fluid and water present in the lungs of

284
00:19:14.039 --> 00:19:17.960
others that pointed to drowning. Now to backtrack a bit,

285
00:19:18.359 --> 00:19:21.440
when the police were initially contacted in nineteen eighty six

286
00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:25.640
about the suspicious death, it was actually Waltred who was

287
00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:29.480
suspected of being at fault for this. The reason that

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00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:33.319
nothing happened with this alleged internal investigation was because it

289
00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:37.839
was reported that Waltred was incredibly charming and helpful. According

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00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.680
to a doctor on the ward, this is very likely

291
00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.200
how she got away with things for so long, because

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she put on this wonderful persona to hide who she

293
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:52.440
really was. But this is just another layer that the

294
00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:56.759
police could add to their investigation that she was suspected

295
00:19:56.960 --> 00:20:00.839
previously of a patient's death, so when the women go

296
00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:05.039
to trial, State Prosecutor Earnest Globel stated that the true

297
00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:08.640
number of victims was probably much higher than what they

298
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:12.519
were able to prove, which was thirty nine victims, and

299
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:16.079
he believed that the actual number of victims was likely

300
00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:21.160
two hundred or more. However, there was no way to

301
00:20:21.240 --> 00:20:24.480
know for sure because it's not realistic to exhume that

302
00:20:24.599 --> 00:20:28.839
many people. He also compared the women and the murders

303
00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:32.359
to medical experiments performed in Nazi death camps, and he

304
00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:36.079
also said, according to Killer Women Chilling, dark and gripping

305
00:20:36.119 --> 00:20:40.640
True crime Stories of Women Who Kill by Nigel Cawthorne, quote,

306
00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:46.799
this was not mere killing, but cold blooded murder. The

307
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.839
judge also responded to Waltred's insistence that these were merpcy killings, saying, quote,

308
00:20:52.359 --> 00:20:55.440
these patients were gasping for up to half a day

309
00:20:55.519 --> 00:21:01.119
before they died. You cannot call that pain relief. A

310
00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:05.079
pathologist tested that upon examination of the exhumed bodies, the

311
00:21:05.119 --> 00:21:08.240
presence of fluid in the lungs supported the accusation that

312
00:21:08.279 --> 00:21:11.440
Waltred was using water as a method to kill her patients.

313
00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:15.960
On the stands, Stefania Meyer claimed that she had been

314
00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.960
forced to observe the murders of two patients using the

315
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.000
water cure, and that she feared that if she did

316
00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:24.799
not do as Waltred said, she would lose her job.

317
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:28.839
In another article for the United Press by Marcia Hill,

318
00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.960
a psychiatrist that examined all the women testified that none

319
00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:38.400
of them displayed any psychopathic disorders, and Waltred specifically was

320
00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:45.079
described as barely of average intelligence, neurotic, but of normal character. So,

321
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:49.920
according to this psychiatrist, Waltred wasn't particularly smart, she displayed

322
00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:54.680
negative emotions, but she was otherwise a functioning member of society.

323
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:58.359
So there was no medical reason to explain why these

324
00:21:58.359 --> 00:22:04.279
women did what they did. They were just evil. It

325
00:22:04.400 --> 00:22:07.920
also came out how subpar the working conditions were at

326
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.160
Lane's and how the patients weren't receiving proper care, as

327
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:14.319
a way to place the blame on the hospital, which

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00:22:14.839 --> 00:22:18.480
the hospital absolutely carries some blame for allowing this to

329
00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:20.559
go on for as long as it did and doing

330
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:25.400
nothing to rectify what was happening. Now they would claim

331
00:22:25.519 --> 00:22:28.039
that they had done something. As the head of the

332
00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:32.240
department at Lanes, doctor Xavier Penzendorfer, was suspended in nineteen

333
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:36.039
eighty seven for failing to launch a timely investigation into

334
00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:40.440
the deaths occurring on the ward, but at a news conference,

335
00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:43.599
when asked why this had gone for so long, he said,

336
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:47.440
according to The New York Times, that he had alerted

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00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:51.559
authorities and supervisory doctors and nurses, as well as ordering

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00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:56.440
autopsies when suspicions were raised, saying, quote, what more could

339
00:22:56.480 --> 00:22:59.880
I have done? He also said that the murdered patients

340
00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:03.759
were not victims of the system, but victims of crimes

341
00:23:03.799 --> 00:23:08.640
that could not have been anticipated or prevented, which is

342
00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:12.160
mind boggling because these were crimes that could have been prevented.

343
00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:15.640
They may not have been anticipated, but there is no

344
00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:22.480
reason that the hospital could not have prevented further murders.

345
00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:28.400
I understand a few of them maybe not raising alarm bells,

346
00:23:29.480 --> 00:23:32.599
but there's no way that they got away with at

347
00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:36.400
minimum thirty nine, like the police were able to prove

348
00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:42.119
up to two hundred plus. There's no way the hospital

349
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:46.160
didn't know. Now there were patients that survived encounters with

350
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:50.160
the women, one of whom being a man named Frank Cohut.

351
00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:54.759
According to his son's testimony, Waltred became very hostile when

352
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:57.720
Frank had went the bed and told him, quote, old man,

353
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if you do that again, you're going to get it,

354
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:03.960
after which she had attempted to give him an overdose

355
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.400
of insulin, which Waltred said was just her trying to

356
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:10.079
get him moved to a different ward. She said she

357
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:13.680
wasn't trying to hurt him. At the conclusion of the

358
00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:16.440
four week trial in nineteen ninety one, all of the

359
00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:19.440
women were convicted for their crimes, and it was reported

360
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:22.200
by Desert News that Waltrd was in a daze through

361
00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:26.279
most of the trial and fainted at sentencing, as did

362
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:28.640
Stefani A Meyer, who had to be taken out on

363
00:24:28.680 --> 00:24:34.720
a stretcher. Now Wagner received a life sentence for fifteen

364
00:24:34.799 --> 00:24:38.160
counts of murder, seventeen counts of attempted murder, and two

365
00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:42.559
counts of assault. Irene laid Off received a life sentence

366
00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:45.839
for five counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.

367
00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:50.759
Maria Kruber received fifteen years for manslaughter and attempted murder,

368
00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:54.640
and Stefanier received twenty years for attempted murder and manslaughter.

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The thing is, though, is that Austria has maximum sentencing

370
00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:03.559
laws and they are vastly different than what would happen

371
00:25:03.640 --> 00:25:07.839
in America. Here in the States, if someone were to

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00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:11.799
receive a life sentence with the possibility of parole, then

373
00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:16.920
technically they could be released after fifteen years and serve

374
00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:20.640
the rest of their life sentence on parole. If a

375
00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:24.599
person gets multiple life sentences or a sentence without the

376
00:25:24.680 --> 00:25:28.240
possibility of parole, then that person would spend the rest

377
00:25:28.279 --> 00:25:33.559
of their life in prison. However, in Austria, a life

378
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:37.599
sentence is just fifteen years, which can be extended to

379
00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:41.240
life if the person is not granted special clemency by

380
00:25:41.279 --> 00:25:45.559
the president. This means that the president would make a

381
00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:48.680
decision based on if they believed the offender has been

382
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:53.079
rehabilitated or not. If not, the decision would be made

383
00:25:53.119 --> 00:25:55.119
for the offender to spend the rest of their life

384
00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:59.000
in prison, but if they had, then they could be released.

385
00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:04.519
Austria as a country has a heavy emphasis on rehabilitation

386
00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:08.279
when it comes to prison, and they have various educational

387
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:11.119
programs and jobs that a person can go through while

388
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:15.079
in prison to work towards release. They also have a

389
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.559
program in place to reacclimatize prisoners to life outside of prison.

390
00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:23.440
So Irene and Waltrade were allowed to leave the prison

391
00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:27.000
on day trips to go shopping or have their hair

392
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.200
done in the months leading up to the end of

393
00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:34.000
their sentence. In two thousand and eight, both women were

394
00:26:34.039 --> 00:26:38.519
released after serving only eighteen years for good behavior, and

395
00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:42.200
a few years prior, Maria and Stefania were released as

396
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:47.200
well and given new identities. So all four women are

397
00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:51.839
living their lives in anonymity after killing possibly hundreds of people,

398
00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:57.559
but Austria says they're rehabilitated now. Like I did the

399
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:00.480
first time I covered this story, I am going to

400
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:04.920
reiterate a bit of this psychology behind medical professionals who

401
00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:09.240
kill so According to an article written by Fiona Guy

402
00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:13.400
for Crime Traveler dot org, the psychology behind killers in

403
00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:17.039
healthcare sheds light on a lot of similarities between medical

404
00:27:17.079 --> 00:27:20.440
serial killers, kind of like we discussed when I interviewed

405
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:26.079
Bruce Sackman. According to doctor Indra Kinkin, an assistant professor

406
00:27:26.119 --> 00:27:29.920
of psychology and behavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia.

407
00:27:30.519 --> 00:27:34.160
Seventy percent of perpetrators kill in a hospital setting, and

408
00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:37.640
over half of all killings within this field are caused

409
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:40.720
by lethal injection, as it can only be found through

410
00:27:40.759 --> 00:27:46.079
toxicology testing. The victims are usually elderly, as this alludes

411
00:27:46.119 --> 00:27:49.240
to the depths being from natural causes, which deters the

412
00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:52.920
performance of testing or autopsies due to age or illness

413
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.200
leading up to the death. Doctor Kinkin described four categories

414
00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:02.279
of motives for medical killers. Seekers achieve a thrill from

415
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:05.519
the act of killing that they want to repeat. Power

416
00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:10.839
oriented killers want to achieve the feeling of power and control. Gain,

417
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:14.279
motivated killers killed to receive something out of the murder,

418
00:28:14.440 --> 00:28:17.880
like theft or relieving themselves of the burden of caring

419
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:21.839
for the patient, and the less common missionary killers believe

420
00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:24.079
they are doing a good deed by getting rid of

421
00:28:24.160 --> 00:28:28.160
those they deem to be unworthy or immoral or unimportant.

422
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:32.480
Research conducted by Elizabeth Ardley and David Wilson for the

423
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:36.720
Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profilings state that the

424
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:41.519
common traits in medical serial killers include attention seeking, strange

425
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:45.960
behavior when a patient dies, frequent changes in hospital working locations,

426
00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:51.319
and a disciplinary record. It's also stated that the repetitive

427
00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:54.480
cycle of killings suggests that there is an addictive element

428
00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:59.920
to the pleasure associated with committing the murder. Now. Based

429
00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:02.640
on this, there was an interview done with doctor Nicola

430
00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:06.279
Davies as I mentioned about Waltrid, and she believed that

431
00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:09.720
Waltrid started killing as a way to release pent up

432
00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:13.759
anger or emotions, and she had a need met when

433
00:29:13.759 --> 00:29:18.839
she killed someone. She said quote Waltride likely gains some

434
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:23.640
kind of sadistic pleasure in witnessing other struggles. She also

435
00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:27.359
said that her victims likely reminded Wagner of someone or

436
00:29:27.400 --> 00:29:31.319
something she wanted to forget, not that anyone is really

437
00:29:31.640 --> 00:29:35.640
sure who or what that is because there's just such

438
00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:40.880
a lack of information of her early life now. In

439
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.640
the aftermath, the hospital did try and take steps to

440
00:29:43.799 --> 00:29:47.839
separate themselves from what had happened. The original name for

441
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:51.559
the hospital was Krokenhouse Laines, and they changed the name

442
00:29:51.599 --> 00:29:55.880
to Krokenhouse Heightsing in two thousand. The name of the

443
00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:58.759
senior home next door was also changed to try and

444
00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:03.799
separate the hospital from what these women had done. It's

445
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:08.960
interesting looking back now of the psychology of medical serial

446
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:14.240
killers with the information gained from speaking to Bruce Sackman

447
00:30:14.359 --> 00:30:18.319
who caught doctor Michael Swingo, which was a really great

448
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:21.519
interview that we did last year. He was a really

449
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:25.440
wonderful man to speak to and learn about his career

450
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:28.519
and the things he had done catching medical serial killers

451
00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:31.559
and doctor Michael Swango. So definitely go listen to that.

452
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:35.640
And it's interesting looking back on our coverage of Lucy

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00:30:35.720 --> 00:30:41.200
Leppie and some of the characteristics that are associated with

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00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:47.319
her that match the characteristics of medical serial killers, which

455
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:49.640
is interesting because there are people out there that believe

456
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:54.240
Lucy Leppie is innocent or was framed, which is an

457
00:30:54.279 --> 00:30:59.160
interesting theory. However, she was convicted. So I thank you

458
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:02.640
for listening to this again if you hadn't heard it already,

459
00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:06.240
I hope you learned about something you hadn't heard of before.

460
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:09.559
Not many people have covered this. There are very few

461
00:31:09.599 --> 00:31:12.680
people in the podcast world, from what I've seen at least,

462
00:31:12.720 --> 00:31:16.680
that have actually covered the Lane's Angels of Death. I'm

463
00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:19.920
glad that I finally got to redo this one. It

464
00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:22.559
has been on my list to re record for a

465
00:31:22.759 --> 00:31:25.960
very long time and I'm glad I finally did it.

466
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:29.200
There's one or two others that I'm interested in re recording,

467
00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:35.000
so that may happen eventually. But with that, I thank

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00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:39.039
you for listening. I thank you for listening again if

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00:31:39.039 --> 00:31:41.960
you've heard it the first time. And with that, I

470
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:44.519
hope you have a wonderful week and I will see

471
00:31:44.599 --> 00:31:49.240
you on the next chapter of the Book of the Dead. Bye, guys,

472
00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:53.119
thank you so much for listening to this chapter of

473
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:56.519
the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you

474
00:31:56.559 --> 00:32:00.359
can always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect

475
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:03.400
with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with

476
00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:07.160
us on Patreon. We also have a March store as

477
00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:10.480
well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for

478
00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:14.079
so that you guys can get March hand drawn by

479
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:17.279
myself at a better cost. We hope you have a

480
00:32:17.359 --> 00:32:21.079
lovely rest of your week, and just remember, please be

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00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:26.720
kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious,

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00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:41.440
and stay vigilant. Bye guys.