Long lost

Murder alert in Wels: Father kills daughter (19)

The body of the 19-year-old was found in this housing estate.(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

Another murder alert in Upper Austria! A 51-year-old man from Wels is alleged to have suffocated his naked daughter (19) and then killed himself. The horrific crime went unnoticed for a long time – the "Krone" newspaper has the details.

A father kills his daughter and then himself: for weeks, a tragedy in the Wimpassing district of Wels (Upper Austria) went unnoticed. It was only three days after the 19-year-old and the 51-year-old Hungarian were reported missing that police made the shocking discoveries in the apartments, which were only a ten-minute walk apart. The woman's employer contacted the police when she failed to show up at work.

Decayed bodies found almost simultaneously
First, they checked the 19-year-old's residence and found her naked body there. The young woman's body was already badly decomposed, but showed no obvious injuries. According to the preliminary autopsy results, the daughter died from a "foreign object attack to the neck." Shortly afterwards, similar shocking news came from her father's apartment. He was also found dead – the condition of the body was similar to that of his daughter, badly decomposed. Only here, the cause of death was obvious: the 51-year-old had killed himself.

Father took the motive for the bloody deed to his grave
Criminal investigators were able to reconstruct the course of events to the extent that the father had killed his daughter in her apartment at an unknown time, but presumably several weeks earlier, and then killed himself at his home immediately afterwards.

According to Kerstin Kutsam, spokeswoman for the Wels public prosecutor's office, the two had returned home from Hungary together on December 25 of last year. The bodies were finally found on January 26. The autopsy was unable to determine the exact time of death.

Investigation not yet complete
In the absence of a suicide note, the actual motive can only be speculated upon. The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the bodies naturally leave much room for speculation, but investigators believe that the father's motive may have been related to his daughter's illness or disability. Kutsam confirmed that the 19-year-old suffered from a disability, had repeatedly exhibited auto-aggressive and self-harming behavior, and was dependent on care.

The investigation found no evidence of the involvement of another perpetrator. The circumstances have been clarified from a criminal investigation perspective.

Gottfried Mitterlehner, Leiter des Landeskriminalamts OÖ, auf „Krone“-Anfrage.

However, the investigation is not yet complete for the public prosecutor's office, as the chemical-toxicological analysis results are still pending, among other things. Only then will it be possible to say with certainty whether another person was involved in the crime.