Death Among the Dwarfs - Mirabell Gardens

About this place

Laid out from 1690 to the plans of Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and immortalised by the Do Re Mi scene of The Sound of Music, the Mirabell Gardens are the gentle, picture perfect face of Salzburg. Yet in the early hours of 8 June 2004 this park became a crime scene. Around two in the morning 59-year-old Wilhelm Schwab walked in through the gates; shortly after half past seven his body was discovered on the grounds. The autopsy told a brutal story: a series of fractured ribs caused by massive kicks and blows to the upper body. The park was almost empty at that hour, so the murder commission had few witnesses, and the gay rights group HOSI Salzburg joined the police appeal because the gardens were a known night time meeting place. A DNA trace secured in the area of the Dwarf Garden led investigators to a 29-year-old Algerian asylum seeker who had been arrested for theft only days earlier, identified and released. By 15 June 2004 he was named the prime suspect, but he had already vanished. More than two decades later the Salzburg criminal police still list the Mirabellgarten killing among the city's unsolved murders, and the warrant for the man remains open.

Key facts

• 2004 year — In the night of 7 to 8 June 2004, 59-year-old Wilhelm Schwab was beaten to death inside the Mirabell Gardens; his body was found around half past seven in the morning.
• 29 years old — The age of the Algerian asylum seeker whose DNA was found at the scene and who was named prime suspect on 15 June 2004, days after police had arrested him for theft and let him go.
• 6 unsolved murders — The Mirabellgarten case is one of at least half a dozen Salzburg murders from the last decades that remain unsolved, according to a 2017 count by the Salzburger Nachrichten.

📍 Durchgang zur Schwarzstraße, 5020, Salzburg

Hear it on a guided audio walk