Schenk was born into a well-off family as a son of Wilhelm Schenk, a judge working in
Moravia and
Cieszyn, and his wife Barbara, whose father was a burger of
Olomouc. His brother worked as a community doctor in
Maria Taferl. In 1869 and 1870 he began his criminal life as an escapee from the henchmen of the "
Tsar from
Warsaw", Prince Boleslav von Wilopolsky, and was tried as a marriage swindler to get the dowry of the alleged brides. Sentenced on December 5, 1870, to a five-year stay at the
Mírov detention centre for a number of serious frauds, but was pardoned and released after two years. At the age of 32, he was once again convicted of marital fraud for two years in a heavy dungeon at the Stein Prison. In prison, he met Karl Schlossarek, who was imprisoned for theft. After his release in January 1883, Schenk met the 34-year-old Josefine Timal, who worked as a maid in Vienna, where he worked as a railway engineer and promised her marriage. Timal gave into his confidence, quit her job, packed all her valuables and travelled with him to their alleged honeymoon in
Kraków. However, he raped her near the
Hranice Abyss. With the help of Schlossarek, he gagged and tied Timal, robbed her of valuables and sank her with a heavy stone into the abyss. Because Schenk was of the opinion that her aunt Katharina, who worked as a maid in
Budweis, could notice Josefine's disappearance, he also planned to kill her. He wrote to her that he had married Josefine and invited her to his estate. On 21 June 1883, he picked her up from the station and took her to
Krummnußbaum, where he overpowered and killed her along the banks of the
Danube, with Schlossarek's assistance. After taking all her valuables, they sank Katharina into the river. Only six weeks later Schenk murdered the maid Theresia Ketterl in a gorge in
Lilienfeld to get her valuables. On 28 December 1883, the duo murdered and buried maid Rosa Ferenczi in the Danube at
Kittsee to rob her. On 10 January 1884, Hugo Schenk was arrested, and just a day later Karl Schlossarek. Both were
sentenced to death by hanging and executed on 22 April 1884, in Court No. 1 of the Vienna Regional Court. == Legacy ==