“Where does Kurt live?” – a few minutes after this question the fatal shots rang out in Oberkappel. Benjamin R. had shot his rival, right next to his new partner, the killer’s ex. She opened the door for the perpetrator herself. Horror reigns in Oberkappel and nearby Gottsdorf, where the perpetrator lived.
Upon entering the house, a stranger asked 78-year-old Katharina Hintringer where her neighbor lived. “I told him there was a bell, but he said he didn’t need it,” the Mühlviertler woman remembers. Minutes later she didn’t notice what happened. She went to the church across the street for early mass.
Neighbor heard fatal shots
Benjamin R. went straight through the open front door into the house with twelve apartments on the Oberkappler Marktplatz and rang Kurt H’s doorbell on the left. But Tanja, with whom Benjamin is divorcing, opened the door. She had only recently moved in with Kurt and the neighbors had barely noticed her.
What followed was a short conversation between the still married couple. Then Kurt H. came and Benjamin R. took out his revolver. “We heard at least three explosions,” remembers Josef Buchmaier (58), who was sitting at the breakfast table with his partner in the downstairs apartment. He thought it was noise from the neighbor’s construction site, but she said, “It was shots.” Kurt H. fell backwards to the ground at the top and was fatally shot in the head – there could have been five.
Pastor witnessed the escape
“We saw someone frantically running outside the house and driving away very quickly,” remembers organist Erwin Schlager (44), who stood in front of the church after early mass chatting with the priest and the choir director. They had no idea they were seeing a killer running away in a green Suzuki, but they figured the man was in a hurry for some important reason, that maybe something had happened somewhere and he had to get there. The Suzuki raced through the village, towards Neustift im Mühlkreis and to the nearby Bavarian border, behind which he lives in the first village: Gottsdorf.
“He shot Kurt”
While the killer fled, Katharina Hintringer came home from mass and found Kurt H.’s 43-year-old girlfriend on the doorstep. Dissolved, crying, cell phone in hand. “He shot Kurt,” the mother of two sobbed, crouching in the blood of her partner, who lay behind her in the apartment. In the meantime, she had also called 911.
Raise alarms via neighborhood information groups
While WhatsApp groups in the area shared that an armed man was on his way and that you should stay in your apartment, he was already at home in Gottsdorf. He drove past his house, where his daughter (14) and son (18) were, to a small forest and took his own life there.
“Why did he spare his ex?”
Why the jealous Bavarian spared his ex-partner can only be speculated. “Maybe he wanted her to suffer because she had now lost her new partner?” Others say: “He certainly did not want the children to lose their father and mother.”
Shocked neighbors and friends of Kurt H. remain behind in Oberkappel: “He was such a quiet, nice neighbor. He was always cycling or motorcycling, archery or taking photographs. “He took such beautiful pictures,” say neighbors who were happy that “Kurt” finally had a partner and said, “He doesn’t deserve that.”
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
