A chilling case has emerged from Austria, involving an influencer who met a tragic fate. Authorities have revealed that Stefanie Pieper, 32, might have been alive and desperately struggling for survival when her killer attempted to conceal her remains in a suitcase.
Pieper’s body, discovered last year, bore facial injuries that investigators believe could have resulted from her attempts to escape the suitcase that ultimately became her tomb. The Graz Public Prosecutor’s Office disclosed, as reported by the Sun, “It is quite possible that she was still alive when she was placed in the suitcase. The autopsy could not definitively determine when the young woman died.”
Despite this possibility, officials noted that she might have also been strangled prior to being placed in the suitcase. Pieper’s remains were located about a week after her suspected death, with initial investigations suggesting strangulation and suffocation as the cause.
Her last known moments were at a Christmas party on November 23, where she departed after sending unsettling texts to a friend, mentioning “a creep in the stairwell.”
Pieper’s body was found about a week after she was believed to have been killed, with investigators initially ruling that she was strangled and suffocated to death.
She was last seen alive at a Christmas party on Nov. 23, when she left and sent a friend a series of eerie texts warning of “a creep in the stairwell.”
Pieper then failed to show up for a photo shoot the next day, with the photographer going to her apartment to check on her.
He notified the police when she wasn’t there.
Pieper’s 31-year-old ex-boyfriend — identified so far only as Patrick M. — was quickly arrested and questioned, and days later, police went to a spot in a Slovenian forest where the body was ultimately uncovered.
The ex-reportedly confessed to the crime, with an attorney claiming he was high on cocaine at the time and had been left despondent by his actions.
“My client is completely broken; he deeply regrets his crime,” the attorney said, according to the Sun.
“He can’t understand how he could have been capable of killing the woman he loved more than anything,” they added.
The suspect was extradited to Austria after being arrested in Slovenia.
He remains in custody and is expected to go to court this year.
