Multimedia special

When mothers kill – six unbelievable cases

(Bild: zVg, Krone KREATIV)

In July 2023, a 36-year-old woman pushed her two daughters under water in her own pool in Absdorf, Lower Austria, for several minutes until they stopped moving - the children's agonizing death throes were captured on video. Now, just a few kilometers away, a 29-year-old woman suffocated her two girls, aged five and eight. The cases not only deeply shock neighbors, they also bring back memories of other horrific acts: When mothers kill.

Time and again, children become victims of their mothers. Sometimes because they are overwhelmed, sometimes because they are convinced they are protecting the child from "evil", or because they are afraid of losing their children, for example in the course of a divorce. The six cases described by Krone crime expert Martina Prewein in our digital special are particularly tragic.

Like that of a 42-year-old woman from Lower Austria who not only killed her 21-year-old daughter, but also set her daughter on fire and dismembered her. Or that of a 37-year-old woman who pushed her children down from the fourth floor in Vienna. Or that of an Upper Austrian woman who let her 17-year-old daughter starve to death.

Martina Prewein not only describes the background to these unbelievable dramas, but also knows what the perpetrators are doing now - whether they are still in prison, free or dead themselves.