Murder without corpses
One serial killer whose victims’ bodies were never found was the Austrian Egon Maurus Heidenberger, who killed at least four people between 1980 and 1983 out of pure greed. The first victim of Heidenberger, who was born on August 17 in Linz and was considered a shady businessman, was Austrian entrepreneur Walter Sassmann from Linz on October 8, 1980. On that day, Sassmann withdrew 1 million schillings because he had a lucrative gold deal in prospect. After Sassmann had withdrawn the money, he suddenly disappeared without a trace. The search for the wealthy entrepreneur Sassmann, who still had millions in his bank account, led to Heidenberger. He had been in contact with Sassmann for some time regarding a profitable gold sale. Heidenberger already had a criminal record for multiple counts of fraud and marriage fraud. It was an open secret that he traded in dubious second-hand goods and secretly did business with coffee smugglers. On February 2, 1984, Heidenberger was arrested after intensive investigations. During weeks of interrogation, the 55-year-old Heidenberger confessed not only to the murder of Sassmann, but also to the murder of his 59-year-old business partner Adolf Handl on June 8, 1981, and the double murder of two Yugoslav coffee smugglers, 38-year-old Milisav and 34-year-old Milojko Petronijevic, on January 26, 1982. Heidenberger did not reveal the crime scenes or the method of murder. Heidenberger had encased the bodies in concrete in barrels with a mysterious accomplice he called “Kiroff” and sunk them in Lake Traunsee or buried them in the landfill in Asten near Linz. Heidenberger repeatedly recanted his confessions. The search for the missing persons was unsuccessful. Although the bodies were never found, Heidenberger was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 21, 1985, for the murder of Walter Sassmann and three counts of bodily harm resulting in death, as well as aggravated robbery, in a sensational trial at the Linz Regional Court. After months of investigation, Heidenberger’s accomplice “Kiroff” was identified as 46-year-old Walter B. from Traun. On December 11, 1986, he was also sentenced to life imprisonment for murder at the Linz Regional Court. Shortly after Heidenberger was released from prison in Stein, he died of cancer on October 18, 1996. He took the secret of where he and Walter B. had hidden the bodies with him to his grave.
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