The people in the tranquil village of Langweid were stunned the day after a 64-year-old shot deadly shots at three neighbors. The suspect was due to appear before an investigating judge on Saturday. The German is said to have killed the two women and a man in an apartment building where they all lived together. Then he is said to have injured two other people in another house. The possible motive: a dispute among neighbors.
The suspect was a sports shooter, according to police. He therefore owned several different weapons and a corresponding weapon license. “BR24” initially reported about it. Police officers found several weapons in his car and in his apartment after the crime on Friday evening. Numerous police and emergency services were deployed in the residential area in Langweid am Lech near Augsburg until the early hours of the morning. They cordoned off the crime scene with tape, secured evidence and questioned witnesses.
The man was arrested on Friday evening and has been in custody since Saturday, the police said. The Augsburg criminal police have initiated a murder investigation and now want to clarify how the crime in the village of Langweid could have happened.
According to their own statements, the police were first informed about neighborhood disputes in the apartment building at the end of 2018. Since then, however, the police have only heard of individual incidents, such as scuffles, insulting statements or threatening gestures. In addition, the 64-year-old had not appeared in the police department.
On Saturday morning there is nothing more to see of the crime: no warning tape, no police cars, only a few people are on the road in the town of Swabia, which has a population of 8,900. A local resident reports how she was woken up by the noise of the helicopters in the night and observed the forensics team in the garden. She seems incredulous and appalled that something like this could happen here.
“It’s a very inconspicuous, quiet suburb – and also a safe place,” said police spokesman Trieb. The volunteer fire brigade had actually invited to a party on Saturday. But now nobody feels like celebrating. “Due to yesterday’s incidents in Langweid, we have made the decision to cancel today’s fire extinguishing party,” says the website.
Langweid is a place with many single-family houses and terraced houses. There are rather few apartment buildings like the ones on Schubertstrasse. According to the police investigations so far, the 64-year-old shot a 49-year-old and her 52-year-old husband in the hallway of a house on Friday evening. He killed a 72-year-old with a shot through the apartment door. He then seriously injured a 32-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man in a house on Hochvogelstrasse, also with a shot through the apartment door.
The two victims were taken to the hospital, but the police said they were not life-threatening. There are several hundred meters between the first crime scene and the second. So the second victims were not immediate neighbors. According to current knowledge, the 44-year-old is related to one of the fatalities from Schubertstrasse.
The suspect then fled in his car. Shortly thereafter, the police were able to locate and arrest him. According to the police, he offered no resistance. It was initially unclear why the dispute between the neighbors escalated in such a way. “The background to the crime is currently the subject of investigations,” says Trieb.
The initiative “No murder weapons as sporting weapons” again called for a ban on deadly sports weapons in view of the violent act. “The risk of lethal sports weapons is unmanageable,” said the initiative’s spokesman, Roman Grafe. The German weapons law is too lax. The same weapons as those used in the attacks in Erfurt (2002), Winnenden (2009), Hanau (2020) and Hamburg (2023) can basically be easily acquired by any marksman.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann rejected the demand: “A further tightening of the gun law is currently not up for discussion,” he explained. First of all, it is important to clarify the background to the crime and “to determine why the perpetrator freaked out in such a way”. Germany already has one of the strictest gun laws in Europe. “The vast majority of crimes involving the use of firearms are not committed with legal but with illegal weapons anyway,” stressed Herrmann.
