Confession: Two women shot – salzburg.ORF.at
Prosecutor Elena Haslinger calls the shots at close range in the heads of the two victims an “execution”. That was not a sudden overreaction, but was very well planned, adds the spokesman for the public prosecutor, Marcus Neher. First, the accused had a pistol and two spare magazines at his disposal. “Secondly, the defendant settled accounts with the victim because he couldn’t cope with the rejection,” says Neher.
Defender Andreas Schweitzer sees the case differently: “It’s generally understandable for me if you love a woman, want to be with her, and the family does everything it can against it. Then one day it goes bang. But that doesn’t excuse the crime, that’s very clear.” His client was armed because he came straight from work as a detective to the two women. The act was triggered by the fact that the family had always described him as a loser, parasite and incompetent.
Serious allegations by the victims’ lawyer
The accused wanted to sneak into this family, says the lawyer for the bereaved, Stefan Rieder, and refers to a kind of stalking: “It’s called love bombing. You shower the other with superlatives and gifts, right from the start and not after years. You make an inheritance application immediately. An emotional dependency develops. That is why the victim found it very difficult to break away from the relationship. This has nothing to do with honest feelings. It is power and abuse of power,” says Rieder. In any case, he has no explanation as to why he shot his love, the accused detective said in court on Tuesday morning.
Crime night with a long traumatic history
According to the indictment, the man from Salzburg drove to the house where the 50-year-old lived at 10:30 p.m. First, there is said to have been a verbal argument with the mother, who, like the brother of the 50-year-old, was apparently against the relationship between the two. The mother insulted him massively, also called him a house thief, and tried to box him out of the house. Then he drew his gun, the accused said on Tuesday. According to the indictment, he fired eleven shots at close range from his 7.65 mm Glock pistol, which he had legally owned.
Three shots hit the mother in the head and seven hit the daughter in the upper body. A shot misses. The accused even reloaded the gun, but because the loading jammed, he was unable to fire any more shots, explained prosecutor Haslinger. When the 50-year-old was already lying on the ground, the man shot her in the face.
Prosecutors speak of unprecedented crimes
The prosecutor spoke of an execution, a planned settlement and an “unprecedented crime”. The defendant drove to the house, heavily armed, got out of the car with a fully loaded firearm and two extra magazines, waited for her and finally fired the shots.
The two women who bled to death. Even before the police, the hitherto blameless Salzburger and father of two children found no explanation for the crime. He claimed to have “idolized” the 50-year-old. Defense attorney Schweitzer said “it was an emotional explosion that led to this insane act.” It was not a planned murder or execution, but “a kind of overkill”.
Pent-up emotions and abuse
The defendant said that the defendant’s emotions had accumulated due to the conflict with the mother and brother of the 50-year-old. His client was repeatedly confronted with discrediting statements. “He was described as a social parasite, as a good-for-nothing” who was only after the fortune and the house of the 50-year-old with whom he had been in a relationship since November 2020. But since mother and brother were against it, the two finally only met in secret. The accused himself told the presiding judge Philipp Grosser about meetings in parking lots in front of shopping centers and supermarkets and also about nightly meetings in the house of the later victim. “She left the patio door open for me.”
In court, the accused apologized to the victim’s family for the crime. “I’m so sorry about the whole thing. Yes, I shot. I was totally beside myself in the situation, I felt next to my body.” The man from Salzburg then fled in his car. He was arrested on May 6 at 4:30 a.m. in Abersee am Wolfgangsee (Flachgau) after he had confessed to an ex-partner on his cell phone, faced the cobra and previously announced suicide.
Cobra seized more than a hundred rounds of ammunition
Officers found two loaded firearms and 106 cartridges that he was legally in possession of. Because of the dangerousness and personality disorder of the man attested in court reports, which the public prosecutor’s office requested, admission to an institution for mentally abnormal but responsible offenders.
The prosecutor also addressed the conflicts between the brother of the killed 50-year-old, the mother and the accused at the trial. “The animosity has steadily increased.” The accused is also said to have stalked the woman. On the day of the bloody act, he sent her three emails that went unanswered. Then in the evening he waited until she returned to her own house from the mother’s house across the way. Before that, he drank five to six cans of beer at a nearby lake.
According to the police, the victim wanted to let the relationship rest
When he met his girlfriend again, “she was happy to see me. We hugged and kissed in the front building,” the accused told the judge. Suddenly the front door flew open and his mother came in, who verbally abused him. “I have no explanation as to why I shot my love,” Salzburg emphasized again.
The disputes with the family of the 50-year-old and the accused, who last worked as a security officer in Tyrol, including the mutual accusations are also on record. During a clarifying conversation about the trigger in front of the police, the woman is said to have said that she wanted to let the relationship with the man from Salzburg rest. Subject to the authorities that the man has agreed and said he will stay away from the woman and her brother. All those involved in the conversation are said to have declared that they would refrain from (further) reporting.
Trial will be until Thursday
The defense attorney, who is also a professional detective and president of the Austrian Detective Association, also noted that the brother should have tried to badmouth his client not only to his sister but also to other people.
The process in Salzburg is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.