Discovered by chance:
Missing friends lay dead in reservoir for ten years
One of the most sensational missing persons cases in Upper Austria has been solved. The two 26-year-old friends from Mühlviertel, who had been missing in their car for ten years, have now been discovered by chance in the Moldau reservoir in the Czech Republic. The wreck has already been salvaged, now the identities still have to be established beyond doubt.
The mysterious disappearance of Andreas Leitner and Maximilian Baumgartner has been solved after ten years! And with it one of the best-known and most mysterious criminal cases in Upper Austria. The car of the two Mühlviertel residents, who drove towards the Czech Republic on September 12, 2015 after a card evening in Zwettl an der Rodl and then never reappeared, was discovered in the Vltava reservoir in the Czech Republic on Wednesday. Military divers had been practising at the ferry landing stage of "Untermoldau" (Dolní Vltavice) and came across a wrecked car.
Number plate still attached to the wreck
The divers immediately alerted the police who, after recovering the old Citroën, determined that it was the same vehicle that had been searched for over a decade, according to the license plate UU-883 DP. Human remains of two people were found inside the wreck, which had been lying on the ground about twenty meters from the landing stage.
"There is still no confirmation based on DNA comparisons, but we have to assume that they are the two missing persons," confirmed Gottfried Mitterlehner, Head of the Upper Austrian State Criminal Police Office, on Wednesday evening, referring to the cooperation already initiated with the police authorities in the Czech Republic.
Low water level was decisive
The vehicle has been secured and, like the human remains, will be forensically examined as far as possible. After the disappearance of the two 26-year-old friends, there were wild rumors about their fate. Even a fortune teller had been consulted in times of need.
There have been repeated large-scale searches, including in the Vltava reservoir and even at the exact spot where the car has now been discovered. "The water level is lower than it has been for 30 years," say the Czech authorities, explaining why the divers "stumbled across" the wreck by chance.
Speed camera photo was the last trace
It remains unclear why the duo had driven the more than 50 kilometers from Zwettl to Untermoldau. The last trace secured was a speed camera photo taken at 2.53 a.m. at the traffic circle in Bad Leonfelden in the direction of the Czech Republic. Six months after the disappearance of Andreas and Maximilian, a witness came forward who claimed to have seen the Citroën in Vyssi Brod (Hohenfurth), a small town across the border.
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