The now 44-year-old Spaniard Estibaliz C. was not finally found guilty, in 2008 and 2010 she shot her husband and her partner at close range with a pistol, the corpses were dismembered, embedded in concrete and stored in a basement under her ice cream parlor in Vienna- to have hidden Meidling.
She was sentenced to life imprisonment and committed to an institution for mentally abnormal offenders. The case was uncovered in June 2011, and the defendant was arrested in Italy after fleeing. Below is a chronology of the most important key data of the spectacular criminal case:
– April 27, 2008: According to the indictment, Estibaliz C. kills her divorced husband Holger Holz in her apartment while he is sitting and turning his back on her. She fired from a 22-gauge Beretta pistol at point-blank range twice in the back of his head and once in his temple. According to the public prosecutor’s office, she first tries to burn the body in her apartment, but stops because of the heavy smoke and buys a chainsaw over the next few days, cuts up the dead body and initially freezes it. In the fall of 2008, she cemented the body parts in a tub and stored them in a basement compartment under her “Schleckeria” ice cream parlor on Oswaldgasse. The motive is probably that Holger Holz did not want to move out of the shared apartment.
– 21./22. November 2010: After an evening together, Estibaliz C. and her partner Manfred Hinterberger come home. According to the indictment, the suspect waits until her boyfriend is asleep, covers the walls and floor with plastic sheeting after the experience of the first murder and kills the man with four short-range shots in the back of the head. With a previously procured chainsaw she cuts up the corpse and also cements it in tubs in the basement under the ice cream parlour. For Manfred Hinterberger, his repeated infidelity is said to have been the death sentence.
– November 26, 2010: Because of repeated inquiries from his relatives, the accused reported Manfred Hinterberger as missing.
– June 6, 2011: A tenant is renovating his shop, which is also located in the building of the “Schleckeria” ice cream parlor, and has to make new installations in the basement. To do this, he breaks into the cellar compartment number 6, which is secured with a padlock and which, according to several residents, cannot be assigned to anyone, and discovers a handgun and the mortar tubs filled with concrete. He calls the police. This conveys the body parts in several concrete-filled troughs, flower pots and three freezers, which are identified by an expert as Holger Holz and Manfred Hinterberger.
– June 7, 2011: In her ice cream parlour, the accused overhears the discoverer of the corpses telling one of her employees that he had found “Manfred”. She flees, has a friend fetch her passport from her apartment and get her a prepaid mobile phone, withdraws 10,000 euros from her savings account and empties her safe deposit box. She takes a taxi to the airport, books a ticket to Paris, but flees from the airport to Vienna for fear of being arrested because of the late flight date and gets into another taxi at the bus station. The investigators were actually already waiting for them at the gate. The driver takes her to Udine, where he rents a hotel room for her under his name.
– June 8, 2011: Estibaliz C. leaves the hotel and again forestalls the investigators. They have already spoken to the taxi driver and asked the Italian colleagues to arrest them at the hotel. At the Udine train station, she meets a street performer and persuades him to record her. He notices her interest in the basement corpse case on the Internet, and she also expresses suicidal thoughts. Eventually he calls the police.
– June 9, 2011: Police identify one of the dead as Estibaliz C’s partner.
– June 10, 2011: Italian police officers arrest the accused in Udine. She is hospitalized because she is two months pregnant. Father is her new partner.
– June 24, 2011: The suspect is handed over to the Austrian judiciary by the Italian authorities. In Udine, she had previously confessed to the Italian authorities in principle, but was initially relatively silent during the interrogations in Vienna.
– January 11, 2012: Estibaliz C. becomes the mother of a healthy boy in a Viennese hospital. Immediately after birth, the baby is handed over to his father. Ultimately, the child is brought to Barcelona to the accused’s parents.
– March 29, 2012: The accused marries the child’s father: in the interrogation zone of the Vienna-Josefstadt prison, Estibaliz C. and her partner, 47-year-old Roland R., exchange the vows.
– July 4, 2012: Details of the psychiatric report on the accused are known. In it, the expert describes the woman as a “princess” who “hopes to be ‘saved’ by a man”. She was completely subordinate to her respective partners, but was not happy about it. Since Estibaliz C. is unable to end relationships that she no longer wants, “essentially there are only deviant ways out,” the court psychiatrist notes. Suicide is out of the question for Estibaliz C., which is why the way out is to “eliminate the obstacle” “that stands in the way of a new and hopefully more beneficial relationship”.
– September 5, 2012: The Vienna public prosecutor files charges against Estibaliz C. for the murder of Holger Holz and Manfred Hinterberger and applies for the accused to be committed to an institution for mentally abnormal lawbreakers. The start of the trial is subsequently set for November 19th. The verdict is to follow four days later in the large courtroom of the regional court.
– November 19, 2012: The trial against Estibaliz C. begins in the Vienna Regional Court with great media and public interest. Estibaliz C., described by prosecutor Petra Freh as a “ticking time bomb”, reports in detail why and how she shot her ex-husband and later her partner. She states that the two men only put her down and didn’t want to leave when she had intentions of breaking up.
– November 22, 2012: Estibaliz C. is unanimously sentenced to life imprisonment for double murder in the Great Courtroom of the Vienna Regional Court and sent to an institution for mentally abnormal lawbreakers. The judgment is not final, the defense files a nullity complaint and an appeal.
Source: Nachrichten
