NRW
Police find three bodies in house – no evidence of a crime
The police sealed the front door of the house in Tönisvorst where the bodies were discovered
©David Young/DPA
The police discovered three bodies in a house in North Rhine-Westphalia. The horror find initially puzzled the police. Now it is clear: Third-party negligence can be ruled out.
In a house in Tönisvorst on the Lower Rhine, the police discovered three bodies on Tuesday. Police and prosecutors suspect that the three dead could be a 95-year-old resident, her 63-year-old daughter and her 69-year-old partner. A spokesman for the Krefeld public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday that the investigations into the clear identification of the bodies had not yet been completed. However, investigators are not assuming a crime. “We have not been able to discover any evidence of third-party negligence. There are no traces of external influence,” said the spokesman.
Bodies in Tönisvorst: Neighbors alerted the police
As the autopsies revealed, the residents died of internal diseases at different times at the end of December. A more precise time of death can no longer be determined. At first they did not comment on further details. According to witnesses, the three dead lived “extremely withdrawn” and avoided social contacts, the authorities said.
According to the investigators, neighbors had informed the public order office on Monday morning because they had not seen the three residents of the house for several days and were worried. The emergency services then found the bodies. “Through the tilted window, a smell of decomposition could already be perceived, a corpse could be seen from the outside through a window,” a spokesman for the volunteer fire department told the “Rheinische Post”.