Crossbows, five bodies a mystery in Germany

BERLIN— The shock of the rare burst of violence was multiplied by its odd circumstances: In a picturesque and normally placid little German city, three bodies lay in a hotel room, each one killed with a crossbow.

More than 480 kilometres away, another gruesome discovery made the case still more confounding. Searching the home of one of the three people who had died in the hotel, police found two more bodies.

German authorities are trying to piece together a mystery that has attracted international attention for the unconventional weapon used and the lack of clear motive or motives behind five deaths in a country whose homicide rate is about one-fifth that of the United States.

“The use of crossbows as weapons is extremely rare,” said Walter Feiler, a spokesperson for prosecutors in Passau, adding that “they are rarely seen, except at medieval markets.”

He declined to comment on reports in the German media that the 53-year-old man found in the hotel over the weekend as well as the two women in the case had belonged to a medieval club.

The trio had booked a threebedroom suite for three nights at a small hotel on the outskirts of Passau, a small city on the Danube in southeastern Germany, bordering Austria, that is known for its baroque old town and onion-domed church.

Two letters indicated the killings may have been a joint suicide, the prosecutors added.