Recreational hunter (18) shoots father during hunting trip
Walkers discover a male body at a pond in the Bavarian district of Neustadt. The man was allegedly shot by his own son during a hunting trip — the son admits to the act in a phone call.
Body discovered at pond
During a hunting trip in the Bavarian district of Neustadt an der Aisch-Bad Windsheim, an 18-year-old man is alleged to have shot his father.
Walkers discovered the body of the 54-year-old on Wednesday, 2 May 2024, south of the municipality of Burgbernheim at a pond, as the Middle Franconia Police Headquarters in Nuremberg announced.
"We currently have information that leads us to conclude that this is not a hunting accident but that it constitutes an intentional homicide," said police spokesman Michael Konrad. The investigation has not yet been concluded.
Son turns himself in to police
Almost simultaneously with the discovery of the body, the wife of the deceased and mother of the alleged shooter contacted the police, stating that her son had informed her by phone that he had shot his father. The young man subsequently turned himself in to police in Baden-Württemberg; officers found a rifle in his car. Both are, according to police, from Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg.
Second rifle found in pond
Police divers discovered a second rifle near the crime scene in the water of a pond. The son had previously told investigators where it could be found, a police spokesman said. How the act came about and what motive the son may have had remains unclear. The young man declined to speak before the investigating magistrate.
Criminal investigators also hope to gain information from the autopsy of the body, which forensic pathologists recently examined. The Police is looking for witnesses who noticed the two men or heard gunshots.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
