A 30-year-old woman was sentenced on Tuesday at the Vienna Regional Court to 20 years in prison for murder because, according to the indictment, she intentionally killed her daughter seven days after birth in the Favoriten Clinic. The jury returned a unanimous verdict in line with the indictment. The judgment is not yet final.
In determining the sentence, the court took into account the woman’s previous clean record, her confession, and “psychological strain” as mitigating factors. Weighing against her were “the brutal manner of committing the act” against “a completely defenseless and helpless victim,” the presiding judge said in her reasoning. The woman had committed “just about the worst crime one can imagine.” For that, twenty years—given a statutory range of ten to twenty years or life—were “just still adequate.”
The 30-year-old then withdrew with defense lawyer Astrid Wagner for several minutes to consider possible appeals. “She is too confused,” Wagner said after they returned to the courtroom, as the defendant cried and sobbed. Wagner therefore requested time to deliberate. The prosecutor made no immediate statement.
“I know I am a monster”
The defendant admitted that on 21 November 2024 she left the hospital with her small daughter after wrapping the baby in a blanket, a paper shopping bag and a garbage sack. Outside the clinic she then repeatedly slammed the bundle violently against the asphalt.
“I was not myself. There was a devil inside me,” the accused said. And further: “I know I am a monster.” She had been “in a tunnel vision”: “I didn’t know what to do with her.”
She had originally intended to lay the child down outside the clinic. But once outside, the infant began to cry: “I just thought she has to be quiet, she mustn’t cry.” She therefore “tried to strangle her, but couldn’t manage.” She then beat the child to death. “Then she was quiet. Then it dawned on me what I had done.”
Pregnancy noticed only in July
As motive, the Austrian-born woman of Turkish roots cited family problems. She noticed she was pregnant only in July. At that time, she claimed, relations between her parents and her partner—the unborn child’s father—were shattered. Afraid of being rejected by her parents and unable to imagine a life with “the child’s father,” she considered an abortion, but it was legally too late. “The termination didn’t work because I was already in the 19th week,” she said.
She then “repressed” the pregnancy, she told the jury. No one but “the child’s father” knew: “I never even had a bump. She [the baby] really hid well inside me.”
Doctors set a due date in mid-December, though the defendant said she visited a doctor only once. On 14 November labor began; that same day, in the presence of the baby’s father, she delivered a healthy girl in Favoriten Clinic. The premature infant was monitored in neonatology and progressed well. While the father rejoiced, the mother’s family allegedly reacted negatively.
Feigning abduction
When the mother was due for discharge on 21 November, she “panicked,” the prosecutor said. After killing the baby, she first feigned ignorance to hospital staff and staged a kidnapping, triggering a large police search. The next day the infant’s body was found in a waste container where the 30-year-old had placed it.
The autopsy revealed massive cranio-cerebral trauma and multiple fractures. The killing was not planned, defense lawyer Wagner insisted: “She loved the child. She didn’t want to give her up.” One should expect “no rational explanations” from the defendant, Wagner said, citing “unleashed emotional demons.”
Defendant fully responsible
According to psychiatric expert Peter Hofmann, the woman was fully culpable. She knew her actions were wrong at the time. There was no indication that she had “psychotically decompensated” due to postpartum hormonal effects, Hofmann stated.
The baby’s father, testifying calmly, contradicted the defendant on key points. He said his parents got along well with the mother, had prepared a nursery and bought a bed. He was present at the birth and visited mother and child daily. On the day of the crime he intended to take them home.
“The child was unwanted from the start,” the prosecutor said in closing, citing phone data showing searches like “self-abortion,” “Serbia abortion cost,” or “child abduction.” The defendant “planned and deliberately wanted to get rid of her daughter,” despite offers of support from her partner’s parents.
“It really hurts me what happened. If I could turn back time, I’d do everything differently and she’d be alive,” the defendant said in her final statement, sobbing. “I died with her,” she cried. “I will live from now on only for her.”
