A massacre originated by madness within the walls of the home. What was initially feared to be a shooting in the streets of Albstadt soon took on the shape of a domestic massacre at the hands of a 63-year-old hunter with a regular gun license. The man – whose personal details are not being provided due to the confidentiality of the German authorities – killed his mother and son, seriously injuring his wife and daughter. He then turned the gun on himself and took his own life. Leaving behind a heavy toll and currently no reliable hypothesis on the reasons for his act.
In the city in southwestern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württembergthe alarm was raised around 12.30 following several reports of gunshots. The first details of the dramatic event were reconstructed a few hours later by the local police of the Reutlingen department. “The initial investigations suggest an action that was carried out within the family,” a spokesperson clarified, definitively excluding the possibility of any terrorist or “indiscriminate mass slaughter” origin in a Germany that has been repeatedly hit by political ambushes during the election campaign in recent months. Once they arrived on site, in an area of the Lautlingen neighborhood near a bathing area, the officers broke into the building. A scene of horror opened up before them: the lifeless bodies of the mother and son of the man who had become a killer and who – according to information released by local media – had regularly registered several weapons in his name, and that of the assailant himself found lifeless in the garden of the house. His wife, who was seriously injured, was immediately loaded onto a helicopter and rushed to the hospital together with her daughter who is now fighting for her life.
The shooting that bloodied the city of 46,000 inhabitants halfway between Stuttgart and Lake Constance led to a massive deployment of police forces and emergency vehicles: according to eyewitnesses, there were more than thirty patrols in action, including police, special teams and rescuers. In the next few hours, investigators will sift through all available information to understand “who was involved in the incident, where the weapon used came from, and what the motive was.”