Mystery in Germany: Police investigate five crossbow killing

The mysterious death of five people, whose bodies were found in Lower Saxony, three in a hotel on Saturday and two Monday in a house, shocks Germany, while no clue has been revealed about possible authors.

The people killed at the hotel and discovered on Saturday are a 33-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man of Rhineland-Palatinate as well as a woman of 30 years, reside in Lower Saxony. The bodies of the first two victims were lying on the bed and the body of the second woman on the floor.

The man and the woman were holding hands and had arrows stuck in the skull and chest, according to the local press. The body on the ground had only one arrow in the torso, while Hotel employees found two crossbows in the room. On Monday, autopsies were scheduled to clarify the circumstances of the death.

The three people who died at the hotel arrived Friday night and booked three nights. The man was wearing a suit and a long white beard and the two women were dressed in black, explained the witnesses to the newspaper Bild.

On Monday, sources from the prosecutor's office in Pbadau confirmed the discovery of corpses of two women in one of the victims Saturday. The bodies were found in an isolated boarding house in the city of Gifhorn.

The police did not indicate the cause of death of the two women; it was not confirmed whether they were also dying with arrows.

According to a spokesman for the German shooting federation in Wiesbaden, in statements to the agency DPA, crossbows can be purchased freely from 18 years.

(With information from AFP and EFE)