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Suspect in triple murder found dead

Three people have been found dead at a shooting range in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, police said on Friday. They later found the body of a 28-year-old man suspected of involvement in their deaths.

Published: 4 March 2011 09:17 CET
Updated: 4 March 2011 14:02 CET

Suspect in triple murder found dead

Photo: DPA

“All three bodies show gunshot wounds,” police spokesman Thomas Kriebitzsch said of the victims.

The two men and one woman were found at the Hüttermühle shooting range in Genthin after a witness called police around 10:45 pm on Thursday.

They had been dead for just a few hours at most, Kriebitzsch said.

Only one victim, a man, has been identified so far.

“We’re turning the entire area upside down,” the spokesman said overnight, adding that officers were out in helicopters and with dog teams looking for evidence.

At daybreak police widened their search, later announcing that they’d found their first lead and were looking for an armed 28-year-old seen by witnesses in the area.

The man was reportedly driving a silver Citroen Saxo with licence plates bearing a “JL” code for the Jerichower Land county in central Saxony-Anhalt.

Later on Friday afternoon police announced that passersby had likely discovered the body of the suspect in a vehicle at Haldensleben near Magdeburg.

“There are several things that point toward this being the person we were looking for,” Stendal state prosecutor Thomas Kramer said.

DPA/ka

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German prosecutors drop investigation into 'unforeseeable' flood disaster

The public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz has closed the investigation into the deadly flood disaster in the Ahr valley that occurred in the summer of 2021.

A sufficient suspicion against the former Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee from the crisis team has not arisen, announced the head of the public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz, Mario Mannweiler, on Thursday.

Following the flood disaster in the Ahr region in Rhineland-Palatinate – in which 136 people died in Germany and thousands of homes were destroyed – there were accusations that the district of Ahrweiler, with Pföhler at the helm, had acted too late in sending flood warnings.

An investigation on suspicion of negligent homicide in 135 cases began in August of 2021. Pföhler had always denied the allegations.

READ ALSO: UPDATE – German prosecutors consider manslaughter probe into deadly floods

The public prosecutor’s office came to the conclusion that it was an extraordinary natural disaster: “The 2021 flood far exceeded anything people had experienced before and was subjectively unimaginable for residents, those affected, emergency services and those responsible for operations alike,” the authority said.

Civil protections in the district of Ahrweiler, including its disaster warning system, were found to be insufficient.

READ ALSO: Germany knew its disaster warning system wasn’t good enough – why wasn’t it improved?

But from the point of view of the public prosecutor’s office, these “quite considerable deficiencies”, which were identified by an expert, did not constitute criminal liability.

Why did the case take so long?

The investigations had dragged on partly because they were marked by considerable challenges, said the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office, Mario Germano. “Namely, to conduct investigations in an area marked by the natural disaster and partially destroyed. Some of the people we had to interrogate were severely traumatised.”

More than 300 witnesses were heard including firefighters, city workers and those affected by the flood. More than 20 terabytes of digital data had been secured and evaluated, and more than 300 gigabytes were deemed relevant to the proceedings.

Pföhler, who stopped working as the district administrator in August 2021 due to illness, stepped down from the role in October 2021 citing an incapacity for duty.

The conclusion of the investigation had been postponed several times, in part because the public prosecutor’s office wanted to wait for the outcome of the investigative committee in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament.

READ ALSO: Volunteer army rebuilds Germany’s flood-stricken towns

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