Spent the night on the floor

The last guest in the inn was a criminal

Here, landlord Hannes Roither found the perpetrator asleep.(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

Criminal hostel search in the Upper Austrian Mühlviertel! Hannes Roither (49), landlord of the "Mitten in der Welt" inn, caught a crook with several criminal convictions sleeping it off in the hall at 6 o'clock in the morning. He was able to photograph him and immediately called the police.

It wasn't in Bethlehem, but in the Mühlviertel. And it wasn't a couple with a baby in their womb, but a thief with several criminal convictions, whom Roither found at 6 a.m. in the hall of his inn with the melodious name "Mitten in der Welt" in Neusserling, in the municipality of Herzogsdorf. The criminal "hostel search" ended in what was ultimately a harbor.

The "crime scene": the well-known inn "Mitten in der Welt" in Neusserling.(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

"Suddenly I see that someone is lying there"
"I went down to the restaurant after getting up. I actually always do that. Then I saw that there was still a light on in the room. I thought to myself that my staff had forgotten to turn it off and went into the room. Suddenly I saw that someone was lying on the floor, asleep. I tried to wake the man up. He was very drunk," says Roither, who also rents out rooms, explaining how the confrontation with the unwanted "guest" went: "I asked him what he wanted. 'Yes, to sleep', the guy said. I said that that wasn't possible and that it was trespassing. Then I wanted to know who he was. He gave me his wallet, but there was no ID in it and no money either."

Last prison sentence ended at the beginning of August
In the meantime, the "bed-walker" fled. Roither photographed him from behind and alerted the police, who caught the suspect, a 28-year-old German, half an hour later. The initial investigation revealed that he had previous convictions for similar offenses in Germany and Switzerland and that his last prison sentence had only ended at the beginning of August 2024.

So far, twenty thefts, suppression of documents, burglaries and thefts of purses have been proven against the industrious criminal in Austria. After consultation with the Linz public prosecutor's office, he was sent to Linz prison.