MedCrimes: a Medical True Crime Podcast · Kate Macy and Devon Rebecca

The Lainz Angels of Death; part 2

·46 min·3 clips

At trial, Wagner identified 39 victims and said murder had become “habit.”

1. MedCrimes: a Medical True Crime Podcast covers part 2 of the Lainz Angels of Death case at Lane’s General Hospital in Austria. 2. Devin and Kate host the episode, and their roles matter because they frame the case with nursing and caregiving reactions. 3. The episode asks how four LNAs in Pavilion 5, Ward D escalated from overdoses to a coordinated murder spree. 4. Waltraud Wagner is presented as the nursing school dropout who led the group on the hospital’s “Death Ward.” 5. Irene Liedolf, Mariah Gruber, and Stefania Meyer are described as colleagues with different pressures, including an abusive relationship, single motherhood, and divorce. 6. The ward was chronically understaffed, and LNAs were handling medications, treatments, and dressing changes outside their scope. 7. Wagner’s first victim was killed with an overdose of Rohypnol, which the hosts note is widely known as the date rape drug. 8. The group initially framed the killings as mercy, saying they were relieving suffering for end-stage patients. 9. Over time, the motive shifted toward annoyance, and patients who rang call lights too often or snored loudly were put on Wagner’s list. 10. The hosts say the LNAs averaged about one or two kills every one to two weeks, while keeping the death rate low enough to avoid immediate suspicion. 11. Wagner later became bored with overdoses and recruited the others for the “water cure,” a method that used nose pinching, tongue restraint, and forced water down the throat. 12. The hosts describe that method as torture because it could take five to 30 minutes and was designed to create fear and suffering. 13. They also note that the clean-up was arranged to make the deaths look like quiet bed deaths, even though the patients had been waterboarded. 14. A day-shift LNA grew suspicious after seeing patients fine one day and dead the next, then went to police when the hospital did nothing. 15. Administrators and the chief medical officer at Lainz initially stonewalled police, which delayed the investigation until a doctor’s pub overhearing changed the case. 16. The doctor heard the women discussing the murder of Julia Dronal and laughing about the victim’s expression, then reported it to police. 17. Wagner and the others were arrested on April 7, 1989, and investigators later confronted Wagner with names and photos of patients who died under her care. 18. Wagner identified 39 victims, recalled exact methods and dosages, and shrugged when asked why she kept killing, saying, “it just became habit.” 19. The episode’s tone is angry, conversational, and detail-heavy, with the hosts repeatedly reacting to the case as they reconstruct the timeline. 20. Listeners interested in medical true crime and hospital abuse cases will get the most from it, while anyone avoiding graphic patient harm may want to skip it.

As heard by us

Medical context makes the hidden water method feel even more disturbing.

The second part of The Lainz Angels of Death case centers on a killing method designed to pass as a quiet death in bed. The hosts lay out how patients could be made to swallow water until they suffocated or died from water poisoning, then explain why fluid in the lungs might…

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You want the medical logic behind a killing method that looked like a quiet death in bed, with the horror left in plain view.

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