German driver who killed 2 had suicide plans

Email to neighbour revealed in aftermath of crash into crowd at famous Muenster pub

MUENSTER, GERMANY — A 48year-old German man who crashed a van into a crowd in Muenster before shooting himself to death had expressed suicidal plans by email to a neighbour late last month.

Muenster prosecutors and police said in a joint statement Sunday that police were told about the email and went to the man’s Muenster home but he was not there.

They then told local authorities at the man’s other homes in Dresden and Pirna in eastern Germany about the note, but the man could not be found there either.

The statement said while the perpetrator of Saturday’s deadly crash expressed suicidal plans, he didn’t mention any intention to harm other people.

Two people were killed and 20 injured — six of them severely — in the van crash outside a bar in the city’s old town.

The man, who has not been named, was well-known to police and had a history of run-ins with the law, German prosecutors said Sunday, adding that they believe he acted alone.

He was a Muenster resident and apparently well off. The city’s police president, Hajo Kuhlisch, said the man’s four apartments — two in Muenster and two in Saxony — and several cars had been searched thoroughly.

“We have no indications that there is a political background or that others were involved” in Saturday’s deadly crash, prosecutor Elke Adomeit told reporters. “But he was well-known to the police.”

She said the man had three previous court procedures in Muenster and one in nearby Arnsberg in 2015 and 2016. His run-ins with the law regarded threats, property damage, fraud and a hit-and-run, but Adomeit said all charges were dismissed.

Local media have identified the man as an industrial designer who had been suffering from psychological problems, but police would not confirm those details.

Authorities have identified the two victims killed by the van crash as a 51-year-old woman from Lueneburg county, 300 kilometres to the northeast, and a 65-year-old man from nearby Borken county. Their names weren’t revealed.

Early Sunday, all three bodies were taken from the crash scene in front of the well-known Kiepenkerl pub. The silver-grey van that crashed into the crowd was hauled away hours later, after explosives experts had thoroughly checked it.

Inside the van, police found illegal firecrackers that were disguised as a fake bomb, a fake pistol and the real gun that the driver used to kill himself with.

Inside the apartment where the man was living police found more firecrackers and a “nolonger usable AK-47 machinegun.”