The acquittal of the ex-husband of the woman from Grünburg near Steyr, who has been missing since the beginning of December 2005, at the Vienna Regional Court last Thursday is not final. The public prosecutor’s office in Vienna filed an appeal for nullity on Monday, as authority spokeswoman Nina Bussek announced on request. The appeal will have to be dealt with by the Supreme Court (OGH), possibly before the end of this year.
Video: ORF reporter Barbara Piontek observed the process and explained how the acquittal was understood in the courtroom.
Unanimous acquittal
After a four-day trial by eight jurors, the husband of the missing architect was unanimously acquitted of the charge of killing the woman and dumping the body at an unknown location. Immediately afterwards, the 65-year-old was released after around 15 months in custody. “I didn’t kill Elisabeth. I have a 100 percent clear conscience,” the pensioner assured the court.
There has been no trace of the architect since December 6, 2005. She had filed for divorce three months before her disappearance after relationship problems, had moved out of the marital home and had looked for other accommodation. A few hours before the then 31-year-old disappeared from the scene, she had visited the accused to pick up things. The prosecutor was convinced that her husband must have killed her between 4:02 p.m. – at which time the woman had ended a phone call with her father – and 5:43 p.m. – at this time the accused made an ATM withdrawal.
Cold case investigation led to arrest
The accusation was based primarily on the final report of the Cold Case Group, which in September 2020 had resumed the investigations into the cause, which had already been discontinued twice before. A trail of blood in the husband’s apartment was “not exhaustively examined” at the time, and the available call data was “subjected to a graphic analysis”. The results obtained would have substantiated the suspicion and led to the arrest of the man, the Federal Criminal Police Office said.
However, the closer DNA analysis of a trace of blood that came to light on the wooden floor in the eat-in kitchen, carried out using a technically up-to-date method, only confirmed what the accused had previously said of his own accord. He said his wife injured her hand at some point and was bleeding, and he bandaged it, causing blood to drip onto the floor. This representation was not refuted by the newly obtained DNA report. According to the expertise, the spot with a diameter of 12.5 centimeters was a mixed trace with the biological characteristics of the missing person and the accused.
That and a new call data evaluation enriched with a graphic movement profile were not enough for the jury. The acquittal came after a deliberation period that was extremely short for a jury trial.
Source: Nachrichten
