Transcript: 35. The Eislady (aka the Ice Cream Killer, Estibaliz Carranza) | Austria

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Schleckeria was a welcoming ice cream parlour and café in the capital of Austria, Vienna. The store was located on the ground floor of a typical, three-storey high Viennese building. The walls were painted in bright yellow and outside were to giant fibreglass ice cream cones with bright-coloured fibreglass scoops.

Small, potted green trees were neatly lined up below the windows, and flowers on the windowsills brightened up the interior.

Inside the café it always smelt divine. Coffee, cakes, treats and of course, a multitude of flavours to choose from. A couple of regular customers would often be seen, coming for their daily coffee, sitting at the bar or at one of the tables. 

The owner of the place loved children and would give generous scoops when little bright-eyed customers pointed out their chosen flavour. Mexican-born Estibaliz Carranza was a very exotic lady. She was the kind of woman one would notice as soon as you walked in the room. There was something sympathetic and magnetic about her, something that called out behind her warm smile: save me! Men struggled to resist her charm.

But behind her sweet and intense gaze was a dark secret. A secret that shocked the nation. Despite her vulnerable demeanour, Esti was capable of committing one of the most heinous crimes ever committed in the city of Vienna. This is her story…

>>Intro Music

Goidsargi Estibaliz Carranza Zabala, known as Esti, was born on the 6th of September 1978 in Mexico City. 

Her father worked as a journalist, a political commentator and he was known to criticise the Mexican government. He was marked to be an activist and armed forces were sent to raid his home.

Esti was a young girl at the time and the violent event had a lasting impact on her. She remembered uniformed men with guns stepping on her dolls as they trampled through the home. Soon after the raid, the family relocated to Spain. 

Starting up their lives in Spain was not easy. Things were tough. They lived in a much smaller house than their home in Mexico City, as her father wasn’t making quite as much money as he had in Mexico. He was working from home, spending long hours in front of the typewriter, writing about things he didn’t care about. Esti was often shushed and told to be quiet so her dad could work in peace. The mood inside the home was often quite somber.

At school it wasn’t much better. As a migrant from Mexico, Esti felt that other people looked down on her. She never felt she could make good connections or friends. She had superficial associations, but nobody that she could call a best friend.

When her mom had a baby, everything changed for Esti. She loved her little brother and could not wait to be mother herself one day. At the age of 10, she asked her parents when she would be old enough to marry and have a child. Everyone laughed and thought it to be a passing phase. But not for Esti: all she wanted for her future was to be a wife and a mother.

When she was a teenager, she remembered going out to nightclubs. She received her fair share of attention from men but claimed it would usually be older men who were interested in her.

In her book, My Two Lives: The True Story of the Eislady, she tells a chilling story of an older man who invited her to a private party. When she arrived at the venue, he took her to an empty room, handcuffed her and had his way with her. She did not consent. Esti never reported the sexual assault, or even told anyone about it.

At 17, she had her first serious boyfriend. She was smitten and thought that their love would last forever. When she talked to him about getting married, moving into a small but cosy love nest together and starting a family, he made it clear that he didn’t feel the same way. He broke up with her. 

She was heartbroken, shattered. For the first time in her life, she started fantasizing about killing someone. Later she described it like there was a director in her head, suggesting various scenarios. She could cut the breaks on his car or mess with the heating in his apartment. She did not act out these fantasies, however. Well, not yet.

Despite her heartache, Esti managed to graduate from high school with honours. Her family understood that she was going through a hard time and arranged a job for her with friends in Germany, to work as an au-pair over the summer near Berlin. She was excited to get away from Barcelona, away from her ex-boyfriend and all the memories she had of him.

Once in Germany, Esti picked up the language very quickly and enjoyed the German way of life. After the summer, she decided to extend her working visa, and found a job in an ice cream parlour near Nuremburg. That was about four hours south from where she had worked as an au-pair, so she had to start over again. Making friends was never her strongest point, but she would enjoy chatting to customers or suppliers.

One day, a man walked into the ice cream store and Esti froze when she saw him. The man was a fridge salesman called Holger Holz and he had an uncanny resemblance to Esti’s ex-boyfriend in Spain. He was older, but pretty much how she had imaged her boyfriend would look in his late thirties. Esti was only 22 and Holger 15 years older at 36. He adored her and complimented her often. When he asked her out on a date, she was already taken in by his flattery and agreed. They dated for only a couple of weeks before he asked her to marry him. 

He said to her that they should only sleep together once they were married and Esti thought it was the most romantic thing she had ever heard. See, Holger followed Hare Krishna and did not believe in sex before marriage.

Holger and Esti married at a small ceremony, with only a couple of Holger’s friends in attendance. Neither bride nor groom’s families attended the wedding, as they felt the decision to get married happened too soon.

Esti was a bit apprehensive before the wedding too, but she kept up appearances. Holger was unaware of her feelings at the time. Soon after the wedding, things started deteriorating between them: Esti would claim that Holger was a nightmare to be married to. He told her to gain some weight and that he didn’t find her attractive at all. Then he would make a 180 degree turn and compliment her, adore her and be the man she first met.

On her part, Esti pressured Holger to start a family. He wasn’t quite ready and told her they should wait before they committed to the idea of having children. The couple decided to move to Berlin, Holger’s hometown. Esti found a job at an Ice Cream Shop and Holger continued working as a refrigerator salesman. When Holger lost his job, he struggled to find alternative employment. 

Knowing that Esti had always wanted to visit the beautiful city of Vienna, Holger suggested they moved to Austria and open their own Ice Cream Parlour. Esti was sceptical at first, but when Holger promised they could start a family once they had settled in Vienna, she agreed.  It was the best news ever and Esti was beyond excited to start their new chapter.

In Vienna, they settled into their small apartment, close to the Ice Cream Parlour called Schlekeria they had bought. At first, both Holger and Esti dreamed about how wonderful their new café would be: in summer everyone would come for ice cream – kids, parents, young couples on dates… And in winter they would serve coffee, tea and cakes. From the get-go, the business was doing well. They had a couple of regular customers who kept the boat afloat and they were happy. But it soon became evident, that Esti was doing all the work while Holger mostly stayed at home and surfed the internet or watched TV.

Esti had not forgotten about his promise to start a family, but Holger was stalling again. She kept hounding him, begging for a baby, but he always told her that they would do it later. In fact, Holger started abstaining from sex altogether. As a follower of Hare Krishna he believed that sex was only for procreation – and seeing as he was not ready to have kids, he did not sleep with Esti. Perhaps it was Esti’s constant nagging to have a baby that made him clock out. He told her that there were more important things in life than sex.

Esti joined Holger once a week when he attended his Hare Krishna meetings. She did not follow the movement of Hare Krishna, but she felt it was her duty as Holger’s wife to accompany him.

He took up an interest in firearms and his collection grew quite quickly – Esti claimed she hated the weapons. She never really spoke up or confronted him about his attitude towards her, but inside she was fuming. A venomous serpent was breeding inside her mind. 

In 2007 Esti found a new love interest, Manfred Hinterberger. Manfred was a 48-year-old ice cream salesman. Their relationship was pretty much a replay of how Esti and Holger got together. Manfred came into her store, always complimented her and made her feel good, something she really loved. He knew she was married, but he also knew she wasn’t happy. Manfred took a chance and asked her out. It was just on the right day – a day when Esti and Holger had had a fight. She was taken by the smooth-talking Manfred and agreed to meet him for a drink at a discreet location.

Before long the two started an affair behind Holger’s back. They would sneak around and meet at wine bars and beer gardens across Vienna. Finally – Esti thought – she was living the romantic dream of life in Vienna. On one of their dates, Sasha, a 25-year-old regular from Esti’s Ice Cream Parlour saw them together. Sasha immediately knew what was going on. Much to the couple’s surprise, he never told anyone.

But this close shave made them realise something had to be done. Manfred encouraged Esti to divorce Holger. He boosted her as he mused about her efficient way of running her business. He kept telling her she was beautiful, and she deserved better. Esti got caught up in Manfred’s adulation and filed for divorce.

After the divorce from Holger was finalised, she was free to pursue her relationship with Manfred. She told him that she was eager to have children and could not wait for them to start their life together. However, Manfred was not so keen. He had been married before and had grown kids. He broke up with her, but this would not be the end of their relationship. Eventually they would reconcile.

Meanwhile, Holger refused to move out of the apartment, even though they were no longer married. Esti felt that she had more of a right to stay put, as she was the one who ran the Ice Cream Shop and Holger was not pulling his weight financially. This led to many fights and Esti suddenly remembered her fantasies after breaking up with her high school sweetheart: she would have loved to kill Holger and get it over with…  

Then, on 27 April 2008, Esti came home after a long day at the café – the bright coloured, happy place where children and their parents popped in for a treat. In contrast her home was rife with tension. Holger was sitting in front of the computer and they had a conversation in which Esti asked him once again to move out. According to Esti, Holger told her that she was useless, and she would not be able to live by herself. At that point, she felt there was no other way out: she had to kill him in order to get him out of her life. She justified her actions by telling herself repeatedly that he was nothing more but a violent bully.

Holger had turned his back to her and continued surfing the internet. She noticed that some of Holger’s firearms were laid out on the dining room table. He didn’t hear her when she took the Beretta 22 calibre handgun and pointed it at him. She pulled the trigger and shot him twice in the back of the head, moved closer and shot him a final time on his temple. 

Esti simply returned the pistol to the table, took her bag and left the apartment. She went to spend the night at an internet lover’s place, someone she had met after Manfred broke up with her. The next morning, she went straight to work from there, trying to forget about her dead ex-husband at home.

After work, she could not post-pone it any longer, she had to go home. As she opened the door, a mixed feeling of relief and horror came over her, to see Holger in the same position she had left him. At the time, she decided the best way to dispose of his body would be to burn him. She doused him in accelerant and set his body alight. But there was so much smoke that a neighbour called the fire department. Esti opened the front door to let some of the smoke out when she saw two fire fighters approaching. She turned on her charm and told them not to worry, there was nothing the matter, she had burnt her dinner, that was all there was to it. Lucky for her, they believed her and left.

Esti couldn’t cope with the pressure of the situation, so she had a shower and went back to her internet lover, leaving Holger’s half-burnt body in the chair in front of his computer. 

When she returned the next day, the smell of decomposition had taken over. A neighbour knocked at the door and politely asked if she was cooking fish, because of the bad smell emanating from the apartment. 

Esti realised she could not wait any longer, she had to get rid of Holger’s body. She would make another plan. Holger was a big guy who weighed about 280lbs (or 130kgs). Esti was petit and would never be able to haul his body downstairs. The only way to dispose of him would be to dismember his body. That is when she came up with the idea of buying a chainsaw. 

She went to a hardware store and bought everything she needed. When she arrived back at the apartment, she laid out a tarpaulin and started the gruesome process of dismembering her ex-husband. It became too intense for her, so she decided to take a break. She cleaned herself up and went to her internet lover’s place again, leaving a half-burnt, half-dismembered Holger Holz’s body behind. 

The next day, Esti returned to finish the job. She placed the body parts into buckets which she filled up with concrete. Hours later, when the concrete was dry, she managed to carry the heavy buckets downstairs, where she hailed a taxi to drive her the 300 yards to the Ice Cream Parlour. She simply told the driver she was renovating, he did not find it suspicious at all.

She would later say that she decided to take the concrete-filled buckets into the cellar of her Ice Cream Shop, as it reminded her of a cemetery – it was quiet and peaceful, and she thought that Holger could rest in peace. She even said that by keeping him close, she could talk to him after he had passed away, something she did often.

Back in the apartment, there was blood everywhere, she had to clean up before anyone noticed anything. She would later claim that she spent several days cleaning all the blood off the floor and walls. 

Because the couple were both foreign to Vienna, they did not have many connections, so nobody realised that Holger had disappeared. Esti was the only person who knew that Holger had died, others close to her thought he had finally moved out and were happy for her that the divorce was finally behind her. 

Esti carried on with her life as normal, running her Ice Cream Parlour and looking for love. All the while with Holger’s remains very close to her. Three years after Holger’s death, Esti rekindled her relationship with Manfred Hinterberger. Manfred wasn’t quite as committed as she was and suggested she saw other men too, he was not quite ready to be exclusive with her. 

This frustrated Esti and drove her insane: how could he expect her to sleep with other men. All she wanted was to marry him and start a family. She suspected that Manfred was having an affair and went through his phone and emails any opportunity she could find. She discovered nude photos on his phone and lost it.

In the back of her mind, she blamed Manfred for Holger’s death. If he hadn’t encouraged her to leave Holger, she would not have shot Holger when he wouldn’t move out of her apartment. The dark fantasies started up again…

At the end of November 2010, Esti struck again. When she woke up one morning, Manfred had been on the internet all night. As soon as he left for work, she started searching his browser history. She saw proof of what she already knew: her boyfriend was chatting to single women on an online dating platform all night. And worse than the fact that he was using a dating site while in a relationship with someone, what got to Esti was the fact that the description of the perfect woman on his profile, was nothing like her. He wanted a sporty well-built woman who loved skiing and cycling – all the things Esti hadn’t done. This broke her. She went through the day, trying to forget about what she had read. She couldn’t. She would later say that she tried various things to cheer herself up: like buying tickets to Barcelona so she would be with her family for Christmas, but it didn’t work. She was furious at Manfred.

The only solace she could find was to retreat into her fantasy world, a fantasy where she would kill him. Esti went so far as to purchase a new chainsaw and concrete, to make the fantasy feel more real. There is a story that she attended a concrete mixing workshop at a local hardware store. She was going to do it better this time. This was a planned murder, not something that happened in the heat of the moment. 

Later she would defend her actions, saying that she bought the items to feed her fantasy – she did not plan on actually shooting Manfred.

On that ill-fated late November night, Esti and Manfred went out on a date. First, they went for a walk at Schönbrunn park, then they took a taxi to the Museum Quarter where a friend had a punch stand. They had one mulled wine after the other and were a little bit drunk. Manfred kept looking at other women and Esti confronted him about it: why did he do it if he knew it hurt her so much?

They got home just after midnight and had an argument about these issues. He said he thought that he could be a sex addict. She set an ultimatum: either he went for therapy or they were through. Manfred responded in anger: if he was to get help, he would do it on his own terms.

Manfred went to bed and fell asleep. In Esti’s own words:

“He turned his face to the wall and started snoring. I was so angry. I had a gun under the mattress. I took it out, loaded and shot.”

She shot him 4 times. Then left him lying in the bed they shared, next to her. The morning after she killed him, she asked him for forgiveness, before she set to work in disposing of his body.

This time she was a lot more efficient, remembering the pit-falls of her first murder. Manfred’s family and friends soon noticed that he was nowhere to be found and called Esti repeatedly. Because of this, she reported him missing about six days after his death, even though she knew very well that Manfred was no longer alive. Manfred had suffered the same fate as Holger Holz. He had been shot and dismembered and his body parts had been plastered into plastic buckets. She took the buckets down to the cellar, leaving them next to the buckets containing Holger’s remains.

Then she went out to get a manicure, as the dismemberment and concrete mixing had damaged her nails.

All the while, Esti pretended to be confused about Manfred’s disappearance. She played the role of a victim: perhaps he simply did not love her enough to stay. Perhaps he loathed her so much he had to fall off the face of the earth. In this time, one of Manfred’s friends, 47-year-old Roland took care of Esti. He took her out to dinner and spent time with her. Eventually friendship grew into love. By January 2011, he had broken off his relationship with another woman to be with Esti. 

They seemed happy and Esti was over the moon when she found out that she was pregnant, only five months later. Roland was quite surprised, but happy. She asked him to marry her, and he said yes.

Finally, all her dreams were coming true. Her Ice Cream Parlour was doing rather well, she had a kind man who loved her, and she was expecting a child. But this was all about to come crumbling down. 

At 9am on the morning of 6 June 2011, Esti walked the 300 yards to her Ice Cream Shop. When she walked into the café, she could immediately feel the tension. A man in overalls brushed past her and she asked a couple of her regular customers what was happening. 

They told her that another tenant in the same building, the hairdresser next door, had had a burst pipe. When the plumber went into the cellar to fix it, he had to break down a door that was locked. The customers whispered that the plumber had found human remains. There were buckets with concrete, and also body parts in small freezers and garden containers and air fresheners were scattered all around in an attempt to mask the smell. Everyone was already speculating whether the remains belonged to Manfred Hinter Berger or not.

Esti laughed it off, made an excuse and left as quickly as she could. Police vans were arriving at the scene, cordoning off the whole area. Her instinct was to flee, so acting logically, she went to her bank, fortunately right around the corner from her shop, to withdraw all of her savings. But after standing in line for a while, she realised she needed her savings book. It was still at her café. By that time police would have been swarming the street and she didn’t dare go back.  

Esti called a woman who worked as her cleaner. She felt that the woman was probably her most trusted friend. She asked the woman to meet her on a bridge nearby, where Esti then asked her to bring her savings book, which she kept at the café. The woman agreed. 

Esti waited, tension rising, wondering if the cleaner would sell her out, or help her. Amazingly the woman brought Esti’s stuff. She embraced the woman, they cried, but exchanged no words. They knew they would probably never see each other again. 

At the bank, she withdrew a total of 10,000 Euro from her savings. Relieved that she managed to get her money out, she realised it was time for the second part of her plan – to escape. But her passport was still at her home, and she could not risk going there either, as police were everywhere.

As luck would have it, she saw one of her regular customers driving his car, approaching the corner where she was standing. The man was the same young man, Sasha, who had once seen her and Manfred together, when they were sneaking around behind Holger’s back. She flagged him down and he pulled over. She jumped into the car and got straight to the point, she said that the police were looking for her, because of something Manfred had done. She asked him if he could perhaps retrieve her passport from her apartment. The man said nothing, but quietly agreed. He pulled into a side road near Esti’s apartment and left the car running. He simply said: 

“If I’m not back in 15 minutes, take the car, just go.”

As with the cleaning lade, she wasn’t sure if she could trust Sasha. But he came back. The only problem was, he had taken her Mexican passport, not her Spanish one. She asked him to go back in, but he was not prepared to do so. A tearful Esti begged him to buy a prepaid sim card on her behalf and then take her to the airport. Sasha agreed to buy the sim card, which he did immediately. On his way back to his car where Esti was waiting, he hailed a taxi. Esti understood. He had done too much already. Good luck Esti, he said and sent her on her way. 

When she arrived at the airport, she wrote a note to Roland, asking him to meet her at the airport, immediately. Then call her on her new prepaid number. She gave the note and some money to the taxi driver and asked him to take it to Roland’s work.

Esti stood in the departure lounge and felt overwhelmed: where should she go? She looked to see which international flight was the first to leave. It was a flight to Paris. She purchased a ticket, but she never went to the boarding gate. 

On her way there, her cell phone rang. It was Roland – she saw him in the distance as he was searching the crowd, confused about why his fiancé had asked him to come to the airport at such short notice. She told him that she was heading to Spain, as her father was terminally ill. He didn’t buy it and pressed her for the truth. She could not tell him. All she could do was ask his forgiveness for terrible things that have taken place. He would soon understand, but she could not be the one to tell him. After protesting Roland eventually got into his car and left.

Esti realised she was in danger of being caught at the airport, so took a taxi to a train station, but there weren’t any international connections, so decided to get another taxi. She asked the driver to drive her to Udine, Italy, about five hours’ drive west from Vienna, on the Austrian/Italian border. She told him that she was a dancer and had to be there in time for a performance. On the radio, a news report about the grim discovery at Schleckeria came on. 

En route to Italy, she admitted to the driver that she was running from the police. He said he was only prepared to take her to the next town, which was Cavazzo. She convinced the taxi driver to book a room in a hotel under HIS name. He did that and left.

She spent a restless night in Cavazzo. Then, next morning at breakfast, as luck would have it, another hotel guest offered her a ride to the larger town of Udine. She specifically wanted to go there as it would be easier for her to hide. 

When she arrived in Udine, she went straight to a hairdresser where she had her hair done – she coloured it darker to change her appearance. For a moment she felt more anonymous.

The taxi driver told police that he had taken Esti to Italy and gave them the name of the hotel where he left her. But this was only the next day and by the time police reached the hotel, she had already gone.

In Udine, Esti befriended a street musician called Ivan, whom she saw busking in a park. She told him a sob-story about her violent husband. She said that she was a victim of domestic abuse and came to Udine to hide from him. She asked Ivan if she could stay with him for a day or two. She made it clear that she was not going to sleep with him and offered him some money for accommodation. Ivan agreed.

In the end, Ivan realised there was something suspicious about the pregnant Spanish girl who stayed with him She seemed obsessed with the case of the Eislady in Austria, so he put two and two together. He tipped off police and four uniformed officers came to his home on the morning of June 10th, 2011, where they arrested Estibaliz Carranza, double-murderer and fugitive.

On the morning of her arrest, she started bleeding and thought that she was about to lose her baby. She says she confessed to everything soon after her arrest, so she could be taken to hospital and make sure her baby was okay. 

With a full confession in hand, authorities extradited her to Vienna, where she was placed in remand, awaiting trial. During this time, in January 2012, she gave birth to a little boy, whom she called Roland. After his birth, his father, Roland senior married Esti. 

People wondered why he would marry a convicted murderer? Roland defended his decision by saying:

"In truth, she is the most wonderful woman in the world" and that he would wait for her to be released "regardless of how long she had to stay in prison."

Esti was also quite vocal about her feelings for Roland. She claimed that he was nothing like her previous lovers, her victims. He was kind and gentle and he would never put her in a situation that she had to consider killing him. Also, she was in prison, so in reality she would not be able to murder him, of course. At the time, she said:

"Had I met Roland earlier, I would never have become a killer."

Custody of her son was given to her parents who lived in Barcelona, something that Roland protested, but could not change.

Estibaliz Carranza’s trial took place in Vienna, November 2012. It lasted for four days and a total of 50 witnesses were called. Esti arrived in a stylish grey dress, with soft brown hair framing her face.

In her own defence, Esti said that she turned both Holger and Manfred into monsters, but they had turned her into a beast. She was often tearful during her testimony.

Prosecution realised their biggest challenge would be to convince the jury that someone as elegant and vulnerable as Esti was in fact a cold-blooded, scheming murderer. The thing is, she is a very attractive, vulnerable looking woman, with big brown eyes that garnered a lot of sympathy. Fortunately, the jury didn’t fall for her demeanour and listened when Chief Prosecutor Petra Freh presented her to be woman with two sides. Yes, on the one hand she was a kind a caring, beautiful lady, who scooped ice creams that made kids smile. On the other hand, she was a heartless killer. 

“She will try to play here the part of someone well-behaved, who would never do something like this. My task is to show you her other side… That she is a singularly cold-blooded and unscrupulous killer.”

Prosecution also showed the court a PowerPoint presentation of the victims’ body parts as they were found in the cellar of Schleckeria Ice Cream Parlour. 

Estibaliz Carranza was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. The court also ordered a psychiatric assessment, that found her to be mentally unstable. The report stated that Esti thought of herself as a princess whose greatest desire was to be rescued by a chivalrous prince. If the men in her life did not live up to her expectation, she could not handle it. She had a personality disorder and they were concerned that she would repeat the pattern and ultimately kill again if released. Well, a one in three chance, but that is still quite a real chance.

Esti agreed with her sentence:

“I killed two men whom I once loved. There is no way of glossing over this. I robbed two mothers of their sons. I believed I had to serve men, no matter how they behaved. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t get free of him.”

She emphasized that, as a mother, she knew what she had done by taking two sons from their mothers. She reflected on the irony that her son was taken from her too. The only difference of course: her son is still alive. Holger and Manfred are not. 

To the end she portrayed herself as vulnerable and weak-spirited. Her only wish is to live a normal life. 

In prison, Esti spent her time studying business. She also wrote a book: “My Two Lives: The True Story of the Eislady”. Proceeds from the book go to her son.

Writing the book also forced her to confront her evil side. She was guided by crime reporter Martina Prewein, who saw through untruths and manipulation and encouraged Esti to be honest. Esti admitted that she should have left Holger and Manfred, but somehow she didn’t have the strength do go through with it. Yet, she found the strength to murder them, dismember their bodies in the cruellest of ways and disposed of them in a calculated and callous way. 

If Esti was in fact victim to her husband and boyfriend’s emotional abuse, she never talked to anyone or sought help. On both occasions of murder, she was not in imminent danger. She had financial means from her Ice Cream Parlour to support herself, and a network of regular customers who gave her a sense of community. Murder was not her only option. 

The number of people who were manipulated by her while she was on the run, gives an indication of her hypnotising power. So many people went against their better judgement to help a fugitive: Sasha, the cleaning lady, the taxi driver, Ivan… Esti knew she had a way with people, and she used it to her advantage. She is far from a helpless and frail lady.

Estibaliz Carranza revelled in her infamy, she loved that she was on the front covers of magazines. She even went so far as to say it gave her strength, again playing the part of a sensitive damsel in distress. 

In 2015 Roland and Est divorced. She said she wanted to bring ‘order’ into her life by divorcing Roland. Some reports say the split had been coming over time, mainly because of constant arguments regarding custody of their son.

2017 she was transferred from the Woman’s Prison in Schwarzau to an all-male prison near Linz. She was the first female prisoner to live there. Some rumours say that she was deemed to be too dangerous to live in a woman’s prison. 

In reality, she was only the first of 13 more women to come. It is a modern prison with 91 men and then 14 women eventually. At the prison, there are 18 therapists who provide intensive psychological care to inmates. Prisoners have some freedom within the facility, they can move around as they please. There are single and double rooms and inmates can even cook their own meals.

It was perhaps only a matter of time… But in September 2018, Estibaliz Carranza made it public that she had fallen in love with a fellow inmate. Her own words:

“Martin has a combined personality disorder with borderline syndrome and narcissism. Because of this, he has a violent temper. His criminal energy is particularly high. He is a pathological liar... Further, Martin, unlike me, is classified as a psychopath... He makes the darkness within me chime. That's good. It is time for me to meet this side of myself.”

There is speculation that Esti would do anything to remain in the news, even declare her undying love for a psychopath.

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