American woman dies in Neuschwanstein Castle after being pushed off cliff
An American woman was killed and another injured on Wednesday when a man pushed them off a cliff near Neuschwanstein Castle, the popular German tourist resort at the foot of the Alps, local police said.
The police in Bavaria – the state in which the castle is located said to have been the inspiration for Snow White’s Castle at Disneyland in California – said they had arrested a 30-year-old American suspect after a manhunt involving a helicopter and sniffer dogs. They appealed to witnesses who may have seen or filmed the deadly episode, in which the man also allegedly attempted to sexually assault one of the women.
“It’s a very rare and remarkable thing that happens there,” said Holger Stabik, a police spokesman. “We rarely have any crime there.”
Police have not released the names of the victims or the suspect or the home state.
The two women, friends aged 21 and 22, visited the site as tourists, police said said in a statement. On Wednesday, the women were near the castle when they met an American man, who persuaded them to join him on a little-used unofficial hiking trail that led to a forest and to the picturesque cliffs surrounding the castle, police said.
Once out of sight of the busy official path, they said, he attacked the 21-year-old. When the 22-year-old tried to intervene, the man pushed her off the sheer cliff, according to police, before attempting to sexually assault the 21-year-old and then pushing her off the cliff as well.
Both women plunged about 50 feet and were soon after rescued by the local mountain patrol and flown by emergency airlift to a hospital, according to police. But the 21-year-old woman died that night from her injuries.
The 22-year-old was in stable condition and was able to speak to detectives, according to police.
Neuschwanstein Castle, near the Austrian border about 80 kilometers southwest of Munich, is one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations. Built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the second half of the 19th century, the castle attracts around 1.4 million visitors each year.
Eric Abneri, 21, a New York native, said in an interview that he visited the castle with some friends on a tour of Europe on Wednesday. When he saw a helicopter trying to rescue the two women, he and his friends thought it was just an ordinary hiking accident. But he soon stumbled upon the police investigation and watched officers lead a man away, a scene he filmed and then posted on Twitter.
Mr Abneri said the man had not resisted when he was taken away by police and that the man looked like a ‘general tourist’.
“The one thing I noticed is that he had a lot of red marks on his face and neck,” Mr Abneri said in the interview, adding: “He really looked like the victims were clawing at him.”