Austria: Authorities Believe Bodies Found in Traunsee Lake Were Victims of a Murder-Suicide
In the ice-cold and snowy region of east Salzburg, Austria, a woman's dismembered body parts were found by a local resident inside a floating suitcase in Traunsee lake and authorities believe that the victim may have been part of a murder-suicide case after a man's body was recovered from the lake's bottom.
After the authorities were contacted by the resident who discovered the body parts, another suitcase was found with more pieces of the woman's body, which led the police to look around the lake for more evidence. Two days after the dismembered body parts were found, divers recovered the body of a man believed to have drowned himself. His hands were tied with two suitcases filled with rocks, which seemed to have helped keep him down underwater.
CNN says the woman's head was encased in concrete and was found near the spot where the man's body was recovered. Due to the circumstances that circled around the case, authorities believe that the man may have dismembered the woman's body first, placed the parts inside suitcases, threw them unto the lake, and finally buried her head in concrete before killing himself in the same lake.
Prosecutor Birgit Ahamer said, "That the woman was strangled seems...quite certain. Because of the fact that we have found no traces of violence on the male body — and he drowned — so it seems that it was a suicide."
While the victims' identities couldn't be known at the time, it is believed that they died sometime between December 24 and January 3, before the bodies were found on Sunday and Monday.
According to The Daily Mail, the pair were aged — around the ripe age of 70 — and hailed from Frankfurt, Germany. The latest update reveals that the man is a German pensioner and the woman, who authorities believed was strangled before her body was cut into pieces, turns out to be the pensioner's wife.
