The tavern tenant, who lives separately from his ex-wife, killed his 30-year-old ex-partner in the midday hours of May 13 with three stab wounds. According to the autopsy report, the mother of two children aged six and twelve bled to death from these injuries. The reason for the meeting at the crime scene was apparently to clarify the separation modalities, primarily it was regarding the leases of several jointly managed catering establishments in the Piesendorf area. The perpetrator’s defense attorney, Franz Essl, emphasized to the APA that his client acted “in a generally understandable violent emotional state”, i.e. with emotion, when the dispute escalated. The dispute over the divorce had already dragged on for several weeks.
In an interview with the APA, Essl spoke of a “hopeless situation” and “hopeless desperation” in which his client found himself. As the main reason for the bloody deed, the lawyer put forward the alleged blackmail of the stabbed ex-wife of the perpetrator, saying that she wanted to take over the company in the form of several leases as part of the divorce. The 41-year-old regrets the act “deeply”, it was “not a planned murder”.
Investigators were able to secure a kitchen knife at the crime scene and identify it as a murder weapon. According to the police, there had already been dangerous threats, persistent persecution and serious bodily harm by the 41-year-old in the run-up to the act of violence, whereupon an official ban on entry was imposed. At the request of the 30-year-old, the judiciary issued an injunction at the end of April.
The young woman’s body was found on Friday in one of the jointly leased inns by relatives. After an intensive search, in which the special task force COBRA was also involved, the perpetrator called the police, who arrested him at his parents’ house. After completing the initial investigation and the interrogation, which lasted several hours, which had already begun on Saturday evening, the 41-year-old was provisionally admitted to the Salzburg prison.
