Daniel L. (23) confessed to killing 25-year-old Claudia K., who was pregnant, as well as their toddler son on October 2nd. He shot her with his service pistol, which he was not supposed to keep at home, and then strangled their little boy.

Claudia’s grieving sister Cornelia wrote: “Nothing in this world can explain or excuse this act.” She thanked friends and acquaintances for not having believed that “Claudia, Noah and the baby-bump disappeared of their own accord without saying anything”.

Daniel L., who began working with the Vienna state police department in January, reported his girlfriend and son as missing last week. He told police that she had left the apartment together with their toddler, taking a bag of the boy's clothes with her, and that he had not seen her since. In reality, he put their bodies in the trunk of his car and drove to his parents’ home in Styria, burying the bodies in nearby meadow land.

Cornelia wrote that her sister was a loving mother who had done everything for her son Noah, and that her family would never forget how happy the little boy had been. She added that Daniel had been the love of Claudia’s life, that she had always supported him and that the couple planned to move to a larger apartment when their second son was born.

Daniel L. told detectives that Claudia had beaten him and imprisoned him in their apartment. He said that he had wanted to end the relationship, and that during a fight he shot her.

Cornelia said that Daniel had been taken into their family, who treated him like “a son and a brother… we thought that Claudia and Noah were in good hands with him, he was a policeman, someone who we could trust. You cannot imagine the hole he has created in our hearts.”

Daniel L. is in pretrial custody in Vienna’s Josefstadt prison.