Hugo Schenk

 

Hugo Schenk (February 11, 1849 – April 22, 1884), was an Austrian serial killer and imposter who murdered four maids with the help of his accomplice, Karl Schlossarek (1858 – 1884).

Activities

Hugo Schenk was born into a well-off family as a son of a judge working in Cieszyn. His brother worked as a community doctor in Maria Taferl. In 1869 and 1870 he began his criminal life as an escapee from the henchmen of the Tsar from Warsaw, Prince Boleslav von Wilopolsky, and was tried as a marriage swindler to get the dowry of the alleged brides. Sentenced on December 5, 1870, to a five-year stay at the Mírov detention center for a number of serious frauds, but was pardoned and released after two years.

At the age of 32, he was once again convicted of marital fraud for two years in a heavy dungeon at the Stein Prison. In prison he met Karl Schlossarek, who was imprisoned for theft. After his release in January 1883 Schenk met the 34-year old Josefine Timal, who worked as a maid in Vienna, where he worked as a railway engineer and promised her marriage. Timal gave into his confidence, quit her job, packed all her valuables and traveled with him to their alleged honeymoon in Kraków. However, he raped her near the Hranice Abyss. With the help of Schlossarek, he gagged and tied Timal, robbed her of valuables and sank her with a heavy stone into the abyss.

Because Schenk was of the opinion that her aunt Katharina, who worked as a maid in Budweis, could notice her niece's disappearance, he also planned to kill her. He wrote to her that he had married Josefine and invited her to his estate. On June 21, 1883, he picked her up from the station and took her to Krummnußbaum, where he overpowered and killed her along the banks of the Danube, along with Schlossarek. After taking all her valuables, they sank Katharina into the Danube. Only six weeks later Schenk murdered the maid Theresia Ketterl in a gorge in Lilienfeld to get her valuables. On December 28, 1883, the duo murdered and buried maid Rosa Ferenczi in the Danube at Kittenish to rob her.

Execution

On January 10, 1884, Hugo Schenk was arrested, and just a day later - Karl Schlossarek. Both were sentenced to death by hanging and executed on April 22, 1884, in Court No. 1 of the Vienna Regional Court.

Legacy

The skull of Hugo Schenk, which was autopsied and neurologically examined after the execution by Viennese neurologist Moritz Benedikt, is in the Vienna Criminal Museum. The writer Egon Kisch (1885 - 1948) has dealt with the story of a woman who survived Schenk's attack.

Literature

Ludwig Altmann: Hugo Schenk und seine Genossen. (= Aus dem Archiv des grauen Hauses – Eine Sammlung merkwürdiger Wiener Straffälle, Band 2). Wien-Leipzig-München 1925.

Moriz Benedikt, Rudolf Frank: Anthropologischer Befund bei dem Mörder Hugo Schenk. In: Wiener Medizinische Blätter, XIV. Jg., Nr. 1 (1885).

Michael Kirchschlager: Der Mädchenmörder Hugo Schenk. Historische Kriminal-Bibliothek, Band 1. ISBN 3-934277-15-2

Egon Erwin Kisch: Eine Frau, die auf Hugo Schenk wartet. In: Ders.: Prager Pitaval. Gesammelte Werke in Einzelausgaben. Hrsg. von Bodo Uhse und Gisela Kisch. II/2. Berlin/Weimar: Aufbau, 1975, S. 34–44.

Proceß des Mädchenmörders Hugo Schenk und seiner Genossen, verhandelt in Wien im März 1884 vor dem Ausnahmegerichte. Nach authentischen Berichten bearbeitet. Wien 1883.

Bernhard Purin: Hugo Schenk – Ein Heiratsschwindler und Serienmörder zu Besuch in Rosenburg. In: Horner Kalender 2015 (Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Söhne), S. 93–103.