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Until a few months ago, Stefanie Pieper was a consummate professional makeup artist and influencer.
When she didn’t show up for a shoot, colleagues knew that something was wrong.
A burned-out car and an interrogation of her ex-boyfriend led police to her body.
She was buried in a suitcase in the woods. The medical examiner isn’t sure if she died before or after.
When someone is dependable, them not showing up sets off alarms
On November 23 — though some early reporting suggested that it may have been the 24th — Pieper did not show up to a scheduled photoshoot.
Colleagues reported the 31-year-old influencer as missing, prompting the Styrian Police Department to check on her welfare.
In her home, they found her dog — alone — and her boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) who said that he had her key to take care of her dog.
When police went to find him to search his car, they found that his vehicle had been burned. Additionally, it appeared that he had tried to flee from Austria to his native Slovenia.
Slovenian authorities extradited him, and police questioned him — leading to an alleged confession.
According to police, Pieper’s 31-year-old ex-boyfriend told police where they could find her.
Investigators searched a wooded area, where they found a suitcase buried in the forest.
Within the suitcase was Pieper’s body.
Two of the ex-boyfriend’s relatives were apparently arrested in connection to Pieper’s disappearance, but released following his confession.
It is unclear if the confession merely shed light upon their involvement or lack thereof, or if their arrests were leverage.
It appears that she was strangled
A spokesperson for the Graz Public Prosecutor’s Office spoke to People about Pieper’s autopsy.
The medical examiner determined that she “had been subjected to violence” prior to her death.
Among other things, she was “strangled” before her death. But some aspects of the examination were inconclusive.
“The autopsy could not definitively determine when the young woman died,” a spokesperson has since admitted.
“It is entirely possible that she was still alive when she was placed in the suitcase,” the office acknowledged. “However, it is equally possible that she was killed by strangulation beforehand.”
That uncertainty at least seems to indicate that there were not tell-tale signs of her having been buried alive.
Scratches on the interior of the suitcase, for example, with appropriate damage to the nails would be one indicator.
It seems more likely that the medical examiner believes that she was unconscious — if she was alive at all — when she was buried.
Many people naturally recoil in horror at the story of a woman potentially buried alive.
But there is no good way to be allegedly murdered by someone you once loved. And yet, so many women’s lives end in this same way.
What is next?
At present, Pieper’s ex-boyfriend is in pretrial detention. Later this year, an Austrian court will try him.
If convicted, he is facing life behind bars.
(Plea bargaining does not really exist in most countries, including Austria, so the trial seems pretty unavoidable.)
Pieper’s final update to her Instagram page came a couple of weeks before her death.
Many of the most recent comments on her photos are expressing heartbreak at her loss — and acknowledging how familiar this tragic story is.