Murder trial in Tyrol – ex-politician murdered: “I was just lucky”

The man is accused of inflicting fatal injuries on the head and neck area of ​​the 75-year-old former deputy mayor of Völs, Walter Kathrein, with an axe-like object. The suspect confessed during the interrogation.

Dissatisfied with real estate transactions
The reason the local resident had previously given for the crime was that he was dissatisfied with property deals he had made in or with the community in the past.

“It looked like a horror movie”
Prosecutor Joachim Wüstner described the bloody act at the beginning of the trial. “It was like being in a horror movie,” is how he described the violent murder of the ex-politician, which took place in the defendant’s apartment. “The skull was crushed and the arteries were severed,” he continued.

With this act, the suspect abruptly took the life of a “deserving community citizen”. A psychiatric report is said to show that the 52-year-old suffered from a ‘combined personality disorder’ but was mentally healthy at the time of the crime.

Lawyer brings illness into play
The defendant’s lawyer, Albert Heiss, vehemently disputed this. “My client cannot be convicted because of his illness,” he said. He is at “extreme risk of suicide” and belongs in a forensic therapeutic center. Adelheid Kastner’s psychiatric report – which testifies to the man’s mental health – is problematic and highly questionable in this regard: “In psychiatry, my client was already diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.” Heiss had already doubted this report before the hearing and initially wanted to have a counter report drawn up.

The man was “severely depressed” and would probably soon commit “suicide” in prison. He also explained his client’s plight with his difficult childhood: “His father and mother committed suicide and he was on his own since early childhood.”

The suspect described the crime
Judge Andrea Wegscheider had the suspect report the crime on November 29, 2023. “He came to my place for coffee that day,” the suspect said of the murdered person, whom he called a former friend. Later, discussions turned to “property repurposing,” with his counterpart “threatening” him and “forcing” him to sell. “I made it clear to him that I did not want to sell,” he emphasized.

After that everything happened quickly. “Finally, in anger, I grabbed the first tool I could find and hit him hard on the head,” the suspect said. “Even though he was a friend, he wanted to blackmail me,” the man said, explaining why. When Wegscheider asked if he had wanted to kill him, the man replied evasively: “I just hit him and didn’t think about the consequences.” In any case, the crime was ‘unplanned’.

In explaining her report, well-known psychiatric expert Adelheid Kastner denied all illnesses discussed during the trial: “He suffers neither from delusions nor from schizophrenia,” she stated. “But he suffers from a serious, long-term personality disorder.” However, this is not necessarily a disease, but can usually – as in this case – be explained by the client’s life story.

“A series of disasters”
“The suspect’s previous biography was a series of disasters,” the expert said. He lost his father, mother and sister at a young age and was ‘alone’. That also explains his personality structure and constitution. However, there is no doubt that at the time of the crime he knew ‘who he stood for, who he was and what he was doing’ and therefore did not need to be placed in a forensic therapeutic centre.

Before Kastner’s report, two psychiatrists invited as witnesses refrained from making statements. They had stated in the psychiatric hospital that the suspect had, among other things, a ‘delusional disorder’ or ‘schizophrenia’ and had been asked by the defense as witnesses.

Body was not discovered until a week after the crime
The former local politician’s body was found in an outbuilding on the suspect’s property on December 6, 2023 – a week after his death, an autopsy showed.

There is a risk of life imprisonment
The now suspect was arrested the same day. The victim and the suspected perpetrator had known each other for years. If convicted, the 52-year-old could face life in prison.