Many unanswered questions – “Do you want to know why Andreas had to die”

Somehow it seems like he’s still there in this cozy house in Mattighofen. Where he grew up, where he played with his two brothers and sisters as a little boy, where he later celebrated fun parties with friends.

The holiday should be a reward”
“Andreas has never bothered us,” says Hannelore Kletzl (57), pointing – as if she could confirm her words – at photos showing her son. At family celebrations. For holidays. “We often traveled with our children to show them a little bit of the world.”

“My wife and I always wanted not only to be parents, but also to be friends”, her husband Heinrich (60) joins in the conversation: “You have to know that you don’t have to keep secrets from us. That we support them, with every problem. And really, we managed to train them to be responsible people.” And to give them his life motto.

“When you start something, you have to finish it.” He himself took over his grandfather’s locksmith business at a young age and gradually turned it into a thriving metal construction company. Daughter Steffi, now 25, joined the company after graduating from high school, as did her brother Phillip, who was ten years her senior. Andreas started an internship there in 2010 at the age of 15.

So the existence of the Kletzls seemed orderly. The future is just as beautiful as the past. Then, 2012. “My sons had worked very hard all summer, I wanted to reward them and Daniel, Andreas’s best friend – also an apprentice in our company – for that”, the father reports: “And I booked a trip for all of them. ”

Five days in Mallorca, at the Ballermann. In the 4-star accommodation “Riu Park Playa”, all-inclusive. Price per head: 700 euros. On August 16 at 17:55 we left with an Air Berlin plane from Salzburg airport. Shortly after 9pm, the three Upper Austrians checked into the hotel, ate at the buffet before going to their single rooms and unpacking their bags.

Heard his voice for the last time
Meanwhile, they talked about the cell phone conference; Phillip said he was tired and wanted to go to bed; Andreas and Daniel decided to explore the area a bit more. “They also called us; protested how much they would look forward to the time ahead,” recalls Hannelore Kletzl, and tears run down her eyes as she says: “Heinrich and I could not have imagined that we would be there for the last time Andreas” would hear a voice.”

Alarming traces at the place of death
One thing is certain: he and Daniel left the “Riu Park Playa” at 11:30 PM, visited two bars, drank each of the three small beers before returning to their hotel around 3:30 AM. And lost in the crowds. “I didn’t think it was that bad,” Daniel says, “I thought my boyfriend would find his way home alone — and we’d see each other for breakfast soon anyway.” But everything was very different. At 6.18 am Andreas was found almost naked in the courtyard of another hotel – the “Obelisco”. Dead.

The quick verdict of the police Ballermann: he had confused the building in the drunkenness and as a result fell from an outside staircase, in a “balconing action”. Like dozens of young people who make drunken balcony jumps in Mallorca every year; death or serious injury.

Surveillance camera shows Andreas’s last steps
An unlucky version that Hannelore and Heinrich Kletzl never believed: “Because our boy wouldn’t have been so unreasonable to do something so absurd.” Facts they then learned in their search for the truth strengthened their conviction. Surveillance camera footage shows her son walking straight into the lobby of the Obelisco at 4:51 AM and then climbing the stairs to the guest rooms. The fact that his clothes were in aisles on different floors; the fact that his cell phone was missing and thousands of euros were used to make calls after his death.

The inconsistencies in the case
“Once you start something, you have to finish it.” The parents did more research. Asked the famous retired murder investigator Josef Wilfling for private investigations. They commissioned several recognized Austrian court experts to conduct investigations.

The assumed course of the accident was wrong
Conclusion: The criminal thought that the assumed course of the accident was wrong. An autopsy showed that Andreas had hardly been under the influence of alcohol; a fall analysis showed that he must not have fallen from the outer balustrade, but must have fallen from a balcony of the “Obeliscso” – the rooms numbered 314, 414, 514, 614, 714 or 814.

Who were the tenants? A question that remains unanswered to this day. Just like the identities of those guys who sat behind the three Upper Austrians on the flight to Palma and, according to Phillip, chatted with them “in the Salzburg-Bavarian dialect” – and whom he saw “after” in the accident hotel in the morning .

The Tragedy of a Young German
It’s also unclear where Andreas went after Daniel broke up. Traces of seawater and sand on his jeans are proof that he must have been on the beach. “Maybe he met people who stayed in the ‘Obelisco’ and was then invited by them to their hotel”, his parents suspect.

Similar case in 2014
The background of his death would therefore be different from what was initially assumed by the Majorcan authorities. As in a case from 2014. When a young German on Ballermann – allegedly voluntarily – had to jump out of his hotel room on the fourth floor. He has since been paralyzed and suffers from amnesia. In 2020, a compatriot of his reported to the police. He once pushed the victim off his second-floor balcony, he said, and no longer wanted to go unpunished for his crime.

Back to Hannelore and Heinrich Kletzl. They have traveled to Mallorca repeatedly over the past ten years to persuade the police to investigate. In 2019, after examining the files submitted by the parents, the head of the Homicide Division decided to open the case. But then came Corona: “And nothing happened.”

Meanwhile, the detective had been promoted; not without introducing the “Causa Kletzl” to his successor: “During a visit to him in March 2022, he stated that he wanted to start investigations. And arrange the necessary legal assistance requests with the local court.”

The nagging feeling of uncertainty
To Germany, to Austria. Since suspects to be checked, who once lived in said rooms of the “Obelisco” or joked with Andreas on the flight to Palma – probably come from these countries. Appropriate applications from Spain have not yet been received.

“And we just keep going in circles in our urge to finally know why our boy had to die.” What would knowing about it change? “The uncertainty would be gone. And the feeling of being indebted to Andreas.” Something the family cannot rest because Heinrich Kletzl’s life motto has also been internalized by his wife, daughter Steffi and son Phillip.

“When you start something, you have to finish it.”