Hunter left dead body in the forest for a decade so as not to disturb the hunt

In a wooded area in the Bretsteingraben in the Styrian district of Murtal, the body of a man lay for around a decade, just a few metres from a wildlife feeding site.

According to the Styrian State Criminal Police Office, the owner of the private hunting ground responsible had already discovered the dead man together with the bicycle in 2014 or 2015. He did not report the find. His justification to the investigators: he had not wanted to disturb the wild animals in his hunting ground.

It was not until May 2025, when the large estate was due to be handed over, that the hobby hunter filed a report, that is, around eleven years after the find. Since then, the LKA Styria has been investigating a case that the authorities themselves describe as unusual.

A hunting ground, more important than a human life

The facts circulated by the police via the Austria Press Agency are unambiguous. This is not a matter of an oversight, but of deliberate silence over years. The hobby hunter had even discovered the Cube-brand bicycle before the body, taken it away and stored it sheltered from the weather at his farm. The dead man he left lying there.

The motive is the real scandal. Anyone who manages a hunting ground knows every track and every change there. That, of all things, undisturbed hobby hunting weighed more heavily than reporting the discovery of a body says something about a setting of priorities that extends far beyond this individual case. For ten years, a victim of an accident was denied a dignified burial. For ten years, possible relatives could not say goodbye and could not gain certainty.

The hunting press distances itself too

It is remarkable how clearly the criticism comes from within the hunters' own ranks. The editor-in-chief of the German JÄGER magazine, Christian Schätze, commented on the case with unusual sharpness and concluded that the man was anything but a hunter. According to the magazine, the private hunting ground owner is even said to have remained silent when his daughter, after killing a red deer, tripped over the shoes of the deceased. This claim comes from the commentary in the hunting press and has so far not been confirmed by investigators.

This is precisely the point that IG Wild beim Wild has been naming for years. It concerns a system in which the hunting ground, the bag and undisturbed hunting can take on an importance that loses all sense of proportion. When a red deer becomes more important than a dead human in one's own forest, that is the escalation stage of a way of thinking whose milder forms are widespread in everyday hunting ground life.

The open questions

The identity of the dead man remains unresolved to this day. He is a man aged between 40 and 60. DNA analyses, forensic reports and international comparisons with missing-persons databases proved unsuccessful. The man's skull is missing. The police cannot rule out foul play, but so far there are no concrete indications of it. Owing to years of silence, important traces are likely to be irretrievably lost.

The hottest lead points to Germany: the cycling jersey found on the body was issued in the Bremen area by the now-dissolved National Cycling Academy to participants of spinning classes. The Styrian Criminal Investigation Office (LKA Steiermark) is hoping for tips from the public, in particular from people who have been missing a relative for years.

For IG Wild beim Wild, this case is an extreme but not an isolated example. It raises the question of what sense of responsibility is required by an activity that involves weapons, wild animals and great autonomy in the hunting ground. Anyone wishing to learn more about the structural background will find in-depth analyses in our dossier on the psychology of hobby hunting as well as on poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland.