crime
Sports shooter is said to have murdered neighbors after Dauerzoff
According to police, a man shot three people in an apartment building in a small village near Augsburg: two women and a man. He seriously injured two other people on Friday evening. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
In the summer of 2023, a cruel crime occurred in the tranquil Langweid near Augsburg. Three people were shot in an apartment building. Was a dispute over garbage cans the trigger?
The violent crime with three deaths in an apartment building in Langweid, Swabia, is being tried in the regional court from today Augsburg is negotiating. A 64-year-old sports shooter is said to have killed three hated neighbors with shots in the head in less than half a minute, and then he is said to have injured two people with shots through an apartment door.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the crime was triggered by years of neighborhood disputes, for example over garbage cans and loud conversations on the terrace. The 64-year-old German is charged with three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
15 days of negotiations planned
15 days of hearings are planned for the trial; the verdict is currently scheduled for July 25th. It was previously unclear whether the defendant would comment on the allegations at the beginning of the proceedings. His defense attorney Walter Rubach said before the trial that he couldn’t say anything about it yet.
The investigators report that there were repeated arguments between the accused and two pairs of neighbors in the house with four apartments because of the defendant’s impulsive behavior. The sports shooter had lived on the first floor with his wife for 15 years.
Three years later, married couples moved in next door, both of whom were killed in the bloody crime on July 28, 2023, and left behind an underage son. The third fatality was a 72-year-old on the ground floor who had lived there with her husband since mid-2020.
After a neighbor reported the matter, the argument escalated
The crime is said to have been triggered by a complaint against the 64-year-old following another argument. After the police were at the house, the man, who legally owned several weapons, allegedly decided to kill his neighbors. According to the prosecution, when the immediate neighbor couple came from shopping, the 52-year-old and his 49-year-old partner were virtually executed in the stairwell within a very short time. The 64-year-old is said to have been lying in wait for this.
A few seconds later he is said to have fired at the other couple’s door on the ground floor, murdering the 72-year-old. The perpetrator is said to have aimed specifically at the door spyhole in order to hit a person standing behind it in the skull. The man is then said to have driven to the pensioner’s son in order to kill him too. The then 44-year-old son and his 32-year-old girlfriend barricaded themselves behind their apartment door, but were injured by shots fired through the door.
The defendant is said to have then fled, but police officers were able to track him down and arrest him a short time later on a company premises in the 8,900-resident community in the Augsburg district. A pistol and a revolver, both loaded, were discovered in the 64-year-old’s car.