Man and daughter ‘killed over rare violins’
Trio arrested in Paraguay are accused of torturing father after stealing four Stradivarius instruments
THREE men have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a Bavarian archaeologist and his 14-year-old daughter in Paraguay over a set of valuable Stradivarius violins.
The three Germans are believed to have tortured Bernard von Bredow, 62, to death last month in an attempt to force him to turn over certificates of authenticity for four of the rare instruments, which could be worth millions of pounds each.
Von Bredow’s body was discovered covered in burns and bruises lying on a table with a gunshot wound to the back of his head three weeks ago in the town of Aregua, near Asuncion. The body of
his daughter, Loreena, was found in a bath full of water with a gunshot wound to the stomach.
Police initially suspected they had been the victims of a robbery that went wrong, but yesterday announced the arrest of three German expats: Volker Grannass, 58, Yves Asriel Spartacus Steinmetz, 60, and Stephen Jorg Messing Darchinger, 51.
Paraguay has a sizeable German expat community, and Von Bredow – who became world-famous at the age of 16 by discovering a woolly mammoth skeleton near his home in Bavaria – made a living restoring valuable antique musical instruments.
An expert on the Ice Age, he had travelled the world and taken part in digs from New Zealand to the UK, where he worked for the National Museum in Cardiff and helped unearth the remains of three mammoths from a gravel pit in Shropshire.
He moved to Paraguay five years ago at about the same time as the three suspects, and they became friends, according to prosecutors.
When Von Bredow had to make a trip back to Germany, he entrusted the violins to Mr Steinmetz for safe keeping.
On his return Mr Steinmetz claimed that they had been destroyed in a fire. The four violins – believed to have been made by Antonio Stradivari – have since been found in the possession of Mr Grannass, who lived near the victim’s house, according to Hugo Grance, the police commissioner.
Prosecutors believe that the three men were unable to sell the violins for their true value without the certificates of authenticity that were still in Von Bredow’s possession, and that they returned to force him to give them up.
“To commit the crime and such a brutal murder it must be because they knew the victims. We’ve found a lot of evidence,” Lorena Ledesma, the Attorney General, said.
Mr Grannass had come forward claiming to be a friend of Von Bredow after his killing.
He even gave interviews to Paraguayan television in which he claimed to be shocked by the murders, saying that Von Bredow and his daughter lived a “simple” life and never kept money in the house.
Stradivarius violins, made by the Italian Stradivari family in the 16th and 17th centuries, continue to exert a fascination in the musical world.
Collectors believe that they have a superior tone and sound quality to any other violins.
The most expensive instruments are those made by Antonio Stradivari.
In 2011, the “Lady Blunt” violin, made by Stradivari in 1721, sold for £9.8million (worth $15.9million at the time) at auction in London.