Fear of the devil

Six robberies read in tarot cards

Tarot cards, coffee beans and water had provided the details of the invented robberies.

(Bild: @crisblazmar/stock.adobe.com)

A 19-year-old woman gave Lower Austrian police officers the slip and confessed to six robberies. In court in Wiener Neustadt, she now provided a supernatural explanation: "It started with tarot card readings ..."

On December 12, a 19-year-old girl marches into a Vienna police station - accompanied by an elderly couple and a renowned defense lawyer. None of the officers had expected what the young Romanian woman confessed there: She had committed six robberies together with her brother and uncle - including two attacks on banks.

25-page confession made up
The police are immediately alerted, expecting to put a stop to a large criminal family. The young woman submits 25 handwritten pages with detailed descriptions of the robberies, starting in December 2018 at the Deniz Bank. The full inspection checks the information. Meanwhile, the 19-year-old is questioned in the interrogation room - until it finally comes to light: it's all just made up ...

Curious responsibility in court
How does a young innocent woman come up with the idea of confessing to serious crimes that she could not have committed? She provides an explanation for this at the Wiener Neustadt Regional Court that amazes trial observers. The public prosecutor is now accusing her of defamation and giving false evidence. She shares the dock with the couple who accompanied her to the police station - her boyfriend's parents.

Had been afraid the devil would come in the night 
He is in prison because he beat up and humiliated the 19-year-old's ex-boyfriend. The young woman then stayed with his family. And is now testifying in court for the first time: "Their aim was to get me into custody so that I could see how their son felt. They blamed me for it." So they forced the Romanian woman to report herself to the police.

My clients' good nature was shamelessly exploited. The first defendant convinced them that they had really committed the robberies. Her statements in court are also fictitious.

Anwalt Alexander Prenner verteidigt das mitangeklagte Ehepaar.

Bild: zVg

"I have to sleep in a pool with snakes"
And how did she come up with the robberies? "It started with tarot card readings. They said, I see this in the water and in the coffee beans, I see this in the cards, you did all this." And that made her feel a little queasy, she explained to the judge. "I'm afraid of this kind of thing, I didn't know it before. They said that if I didn't admit it, something bad would happen. The devil would come to me in the night and I'd have to sleep in a pool with snakes."

So she first wrote down the crimes in the tarot cards and later confessed to the police.

Whoever hears about the fortune-telling for the first time: the co-defendant couple, defended by lawyer Alexander Prenner. Their only mistake was to have taken the 19-year-old in after the arrest of their son and to have accompanied her to the police station in December, they plead not guilty to multiple counts of slander. The trial continues in October.