Peacock true crime series World’s Most Notorious Killers delves into five shocking murder cases with firsthand accounts. The second episode centers on the “Vienna Strangler” Jack Unterweger. Although rooted in Austria, the case brought terror to Hollywood, and beyond. Known as the first transatlantic serial killer, Unterweger was connected to 11 murders across three countries and seven cities.
After committing his first murder in 1974, he spent 15 years in prison before being released. He then became something of a celebrity in Austria where he was a successful author and journalist. Unbeknown at the time, he was secretly carrying on his murderous ways, strangling multiple sex workers with their own clothing. His spree continued while in Los Angeles where he was found responsible for additional deaths, before authorities eventually caught up with him in Miami.
We caught up with director Robert Palumbo to unpack this episode and what makes this series stand out.
What are your overall thoughts about this particular series?
Robert Palumbo: I think it’s exciting to learn about these stories from other countries. Of course, here we’re very familiar with the most notorious serial killers, especially John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy. There are so many different films and documentary series about them, but these stories are equally terrifying and super interesting. They are stories we don’t know much about. Personally, it was great to explore other countries to see how law enforcement works and to get into storytelling in a very different vein.
You’ve done a lot of true crime. What was most eye-opening as you explored Jack Unterweger’s case?
The story of someone who was convicted of a murder and while he is serving a life sentence learns how to read and write. Basically, he writes his way out of prison. On the surface at the very beginning, that’s amazing. Then once he gets out he becomes this rock star essentially, which is fascinating. When you see clips of him on TV when he gets out of jail, he is wearing this white pimp suit and has all these followers. You get pulled into it. Then when I learned he also came to the U.S. and also committed murders here in the U.S. You think, “What is that all about? How is that even possible?” It was amazing to see both sides investigate this. Then to learn the Austrians depended a lot on the American investigators for this case.
What’s crazy to think about, to me, is he is doing these ride-alongs with the police and staying connected to law enforcement. His strategy is they won’t think of him as a suspect, which is pretty incredible.
Exactly. When he came to Los Angeles, he had an assignment to write an article about sex workers downtown. He actually stayed at the Cecil Hotel, which was notorious for where other serial killers have stayed before. He did interview some sex workers while he was there. We have some exclusive audio of him doing the interviews. He had other goals too, which makes it even more fascinating. He wanted to meet Cher. He wanted to meet Zsa Zsa Gabor. He wanted to write screenplays and become a Hollywood writer and director. He was a very complex person. The fact he was able to tour L.A., on a ride-along, and build his career was amazing to me.
How would you compare how Austria and the United States handled the investigations?
I think comparing the two societies Viena, Austria is a very liberal society. They believe in rehabilitation. They believe when someone goes to prison that they can be fixed. He went in there learned to read and write, wrote a novel, and became a star. He gets out and within a pretty short amount of time, he starts to murder women. Sex workers dumped their bodies in the Vienna woods. Investigators there didn’t know what to make of it. They didn’t know what a serial killer was or how to really investigate a crime like this.
He walked into their office while he was doing this and talked to the detectives because he was working as a reporter for the equivalent of NPR in Austria. As he was doing this, he was taunting him almost. He was getting off that he was getting away with it and also he was really dangling this under their noses. I don’t think that would have happened here. They didn’t realize they had a serial killer on their hands. In L.A., to contrast that, once there were two bodies, and two women were killed in a similar way. The detective in charge Fred Miller who we interviewed for the film, knew right away there was a serial killer involved here. If Jack had stayed in L.A. longer, he may have been caught. He went back to Austria before they could really investigate him.
Then he was able to find his way to Miami. Wild.
Right! Here is the most wanted man in Austria, who by the time everyone realized it was him, somehow slips out of the country and goes to Paris with his 18-year-old girlfriend. He is 40 at the time. He finds his way to Miami, which is eventually what did him in as they got him there. We eventually went to Miami as well and shot there with the U.S. marshall who ended up arresting him there.
Pictured: Jack Unterweger — (Photo by: PEACOCK)
What was your takeaway from working on this project?
For me, it was an opportunity to do cinematic storytelling in a way that you could really bring in other cultures and other processes and other languages even. For me, it was really rewarding. I have worked with ITN, the production company out of London on a couple of other Peacock true crimes, which are great. Here being based in London for a lot of this and close to Europe where a lot of these stories happened was rewarding for me. I was able to work with talent from all over the world. I really think these stories have a psychological edge to them that I also find rewarding.
In true crime, it’s about who did it and how do we figure out who the criminal is. In this case, we worked with people like Gregg McCrary, who worked for the FBI and was involved in the case for the U.S. side. Then Paul Britton from England, the famous criminologist. It was rewarding for me to get into deep through the granular nature of these killers. Jack was by far the most interesting one to me. The American side was part of that. I learned a lot in this series. In terms of profiling, you would think that when you have a suspect you want to know everything about them. Their background, where they grew up, were they abused as kids, all that goes into psychological writing about crime. In this case, Gregg McCrary of the FBI told us on camera he wasn’t interested in knowing anything about Jack. All he wanted was the crime scene evidence. When he was able to look at the crime scene evidence for the murders, he was able to not only tell it was one killer but also tell us so much about who that person was. It was so impressive to learn that from him.
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Where do you think we are with the true crime genre?
For me, true crime is so fascinating. True crime has been around since the beginning of literature. It’s no surprise it continues to be popular. True crime for the audience and the makers is so rewarding because there is a built-in story. When you’re a fan, you’re watching to see how the elements are handled. How do we look at the crime scene, investigation, and trial? All these elements are mixed and matched with true crime. The ones I love to do have this psychological component. I love to put myself in the place of the investigators and the killer.
We have a lot of stories here in the U.S., and there is a saturation point. Scott Peterson’s story I worked with Peacock, and the story is 20 years old, but we keep coming back to it. I think this series opens up a completely new aspect. It’s not just about going elsewhere for more stories. It’s also going elsewhere going for stores that have a cultural element, a very different kind of reward for the audience because we are learning about the way things are done in other places. We learn about these cultures along the way. I worked on three of the episodes of the series. They were incredible learning experiences. It was great for me to go to England and work out of London…It was amazing to see the culture of London, New York, and America in general. Maybe this is an invitation to open up more avenues of true crime.
World’s Most Notorious Killers premiere, September 17, Peacock
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