Dutchman who was arrested in Austria for accident, now suspected of murdering his wife | Abroad

Early Friday morning, the man in his sixties caused a one-sided traffic accident on the A2 motorway near Grafenstein, in the state of Carinthia. Because he was trapped, the fire brigade turned out. Afterwards, he spoke of “an intervention that you do not experience every day”.

“When we arrived on site, we found a heavily damaged vehicle,” the fire brigade writes on Facebook. “The clearly confused driver was still pressing the accelerator but was unable to continue. When a colleague leaned over to remove the key from the ignition in the vehicle, the driver attacked him. After several attempts, he managed to get hold of the key, after which the central locking was activated.”

The driver then managed to leave the vehicle under his own power and attempted to flee. “He was extremely aggressive and did not shy away from injuring aid workers. He was then overpowered with combined forces,” said the fire service.

An unusual case followed for the police. The man, a Dutchman living in the area, was arrested and taken to a police station in Klagenfurt. At around 5 a.m., the central control room received an emergency call from a Dutch woman (40) who said that she had received a bizarre text message from her father: “If you are reading this, your mother and I are no longer alive”.

A police patrol went to the home of the parents in Eberndorf and found the remains of the 62-year-old mother in the kitchen. She appeared to have died from stabbing injuries. The man’s motive and general circumstances are not yet known.

“An attempt was made to interrogate him, but it was not possible because the suspect is behaving very aggressively, also in his cell,” said police spokesman Mario Nemetz. According to him, it is still unclear whether the 69-year-old Dutchman deliberately caused the single-vehicle accident on the A2 to take his own life after the murder. It is also unclear whether he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crime or the accident. “After his arrest, a blood test was taken, the results of which are not yet known.”

According to the police spokesperson, the preliminary autopsy report confirms that the victim died as a result of “massive” violence. “Most likely from a box cutter found at the crime scene,” the spokesman said. The state detective is investigating the case. The suspect will appear before a magistrate on Monday. He decides on his pre-trial detention.

According to Austrian media, the Dutch couple lived in the Alpine country for about ten years and moved early this year from the Hermagor district, close to the Slovenian border, to Eberndorf in the Völkermarkt district, located more than 100 kilometers further east. There they lived “inconspicuously”, neighbors explained.