Murder unsolved

Wrongly accused: this is what happened to Walter Nickl

Walter Nickl has found his smile again.

(Bild: Juergen Fuchs)

Despite a legally binding acquittal almost five decades ago, Styrian Walter Nickl was repeatedly and wrongly accused of killing a letter carrier. He recorded his dramatic story in a book. And: new investigative approaches raised hopes of finding the actual perpetrator.

"I didn't kill anyone, please leave me alone!" That was the desperate message that Walter Nickl sent together with his lawyer Gerald Ruhri via the "Krone" in April. Around five decades ago, as an 18-year-old, he stood before the jury. At that time, he was held responsible by the public prosecutor for the robbery and murder of the Knittelfeld letter carrier. He was attacked and beaten to death in the entrance of an apartment building in Schulgasse on December 2, 1975. He was robbed of 80,000 schillings. Walter Nickl had sneaked out of school and committed the crime unnoticed and within a few minutes, then even changed his clothes and sat back down in class. 

The jury realized at the time that the story could not have happened that way and acquitted him. But the sword of Damocles of the murderer continued to hang over Walter Nickl's head. For decades. The Styrian didn't want to and couldn't live with it any longer. So he took his fate into his own hands and, with the help of his lawyer, had the alleged blood residue on the jeans he was supposed to have been wearing at the time of the crime examined by the renowned German forensic scientist Nicole von Wurmb-Schwark. The result: there was never any blood on the pants! Nickl and his lawyer revealed this fact via the "Krone". Just like the publication of his book "Rufmord", in which he tells his complete story. A few months later, we at the "Krone" wanted to know how he is doing today.