Vienna
Three prostitutes stabbed: trail of blood leads police to suspect
Police have cordoned off the area around the brothel where three women were stabbed
© Georg Hochmuth/APA/DPA
Five women were killed in just one day in Austria’s capital: three prostitutes and a mother and her daughter. Even before the investigation is over, political demands are raised.
After the violent deaths of three women in a brothel in In Vienna, the course of events and the motive for the crime remain unclear. According to police, a 27-year-old suspect was questioned on Saturday.
The man was arrested on Friday evening in a green area near the crime scene. He behaved aggressively and was therefore incapacitated with an electric shock gun, a police spokesman told the Austrian news agency APA on Saturday. He still had the suspected murder weapon, a knife, with him. According to police, the man had cuts that he likely inflicted on himself while carrying out the crime.
Three prostitutes killed in Vienna
When the officers arrived, they saw a terrible scene. According to the information, the women who were killed had severe cuts and stab wounds, so that it was clear to the emergency services when they entered the crime scene that any medical help was coming too late for the victims. The police spokesman said the crime took place in several rooms and the bodies were found in different rooms. The victims, who have not yet been identified, were treated with extremely violent force.
According to current knowledge, the 27-year-old was the last visitor to the studio. According to the current state of the investigation, there are no witnesses to the crime. It was still unclear whether the man used services there or immediately attacked the women with a knife.
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Blood trail leads to suspect
The police were alerted by a passer-by who noticed a trail of blood. It stretched from the entrance area of the restaurant to the opposite side of the street. There the officers came across the 27-year-old.
In another case, a mother and her 13-year-old daughter were also found dead in an apartment in Vienna on Friday. According to APA, the two may have been strangled or suffocated. Accordingly, the father is currently the main suspect for the crime.
Crisis meeting called for over femicides
In view of five women killed in just one day in Vienna, the federal women’s leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), Eva-Maria Holzleitner, is calling for a crisis meeting of the government. “We mourn the murdered women, are thinking about the survivors and call for a national action plan to protect against violence to finally be implemented in order to protect women’s lives in Austria,” says Holzleitner according to an SPÖ press releaseEvery third woman in Austria is affected by violence, the number of bans on entry increases every year, and the number of femicides is the highest in Europe.
Additional source:SPÖ press release.