Mother who killed newborn babies jailed for life
An Austrian woman who stuffed the bodies of two of her four infants in a freezer and entombed two others in plastic buckets filled with cement was convicted of three counts of murder today and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Gertraud Arzberger, 33, was convicted by a court in the southern city of Graz, closing out a macabre crime that stunned Austria. Her live-in companion, 39-year-old Johannes Genser, was convicted as an accessory and sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Arzberger had denied having had a fifth baby and killing it shortly after birth, despite testimony by neighbours.
Genser had proclaimed his innocence and had insisted he never noticed Arzberger was pregnant.
Neighbours, however, had testified that her swollen belly was obvious.
The two were charged last June after police discovered the bodies of two newborns in a basement freezer shared by residents of an apartment complex in Graz, about 120 miles south of Vienna, and the remains of two more entombed in paint buckets filled with cement.
Post-mortems on the remains indicated that the two infants found in the freezer were still alive when put inside, wrapped in plastic bags.
