Johann Oberreiter was born on May 8, 1807, in the alpine town of Dienten am Hochkönig, in what was then the Austrian Empire. Little is recorded about his childhood, but as a teenager, he pursued a trade as a baker in Radstadt. His life took a turn when he met Maria Schintelmaißer, a wealthy widow whose previous husband had also worked as a baker. Determined to win her over, Oberreiter joined the army to elevate his status and succeeded in marrying her.

Together, they built what appeared to be a respectable household in Werfen, Austria, raising two daughters and two sons, along with Maria’s daughter from her previous marriage. In 1843, Johann Oberreiter was appointed mayor of Werfen, a position he held for five years until 1848, solidifying his image as a man of social standing and responsibility.

Despite the façade, trouble stirred within the home. Maria was described by those around her as choleric and inattentive to her children. On May 25, 1855, she died under suspicious circumstances at age 49. Her death initially went unchallenged, and Oberreiter inherited her house and business.

However, financial troubles began to emerge in the following years. By 1859, Oberreiter was deeply in debt. To alleviate his economic situation, he married again—this time to a 38-year-old surgeon named Anna Meneweger. The second marriage produced no children, and his financial difficulties only worsened. Creditors hounded him, banks denied loans, and he became increasingly desperate.

On April 26, 1864, tragedy struck the Oberreiter household when Johann’s stepdaughter, Eva, fell ill and died. Although she had suffered persistent diarrhea and vomiting since 1862—symptoms attributed to her gout—the local coroner found her death unsurprising and allowed a quiet burial without further inquiry.

Only three weeks later, on May 17, 1864, Johann’s biological daughter, Barbara, also died under eerily similar circumstances—marked again by gastrointestinal distress. Alarm bells began to ring when Johann insisted on an unusually rapid funeral arrangement, heightening suspicion among villagers. It was Anna, Johann’s second wife, who finally voiced her concerns to authorities. She told police she had long suspected foul play, even having witnessed what she described as her husband attempting to persuade Eva to poison herself, and recalled rumors—too readily dismissed—linking the deaths to the suspicious passing of his first wife back in 1855.

Anna’s report triggered an exhumation of both children, and autopsies revealed the horrifying truth: both Eva and Barbara had died from arsenic poisoning, not from natural causes as previously thought. In her complaint, Anna had suggested the possibility of poisoning with cupric acetate (used as a wax remover), but the forensic examination pointed definitively to arsenic.

Once confronted with the evidence, Johann ultimately confessed to administering the poison—claiming he had bought it from a travelin’ chandler under the guise it was a wax remover. He initially framed his act as mercy—a small dose intended to ease their suffering—but soon rescinded this explanation and altered his story multiple times during interrogations, leaving investigators unsure of his true motive or emotional state.

To settle lingering doubts over the death of his first wife, Maria Schintelmaißer, authorities exhumed her body too. Arsenic was again detected—but so was copper in a bouquet of flowers interred with her. That made it impossible to conclude whether the poison originated from the flowers (possibly colored by arsenic-based dye) or the corpse itself—so Johann was not convicted of her death.

Johann’s trial began on February 27, 1865, at the Salzburg Regional Court. The courtroom was packed, reflecting the community’s grim curiosity. Proceedings ran until March 4, often stretching from early morning into the evening. The prosecution laid out a motive seen by many as chillingly pragmatic: 500 guilders in insurance money from his children, the burden—nay, mental anguish—of raising a brood almost entirely comprised of physically or mentally disabled offspring, and mounting debts he could not outrun.

After deliberation, the jury delivered a verdict: Johann Oberreiter was guilty of murdering his two daughters by poisoning—but acquitted of murdering his first wife due to the lack of conclusive evidence. The sentence: death by hanging

On July 26, 1865, the sentence was carried out.