Austria: Another recreational hunter in the final stages

Police are publicly searching for the suspected perpetrator, Roland Drexler (56).

A second fatality has been confirmed, while a third could not be officially confirmed. The anti-terror unit «Cobra» is deployed, and residents are barricading themselves inside their homes. The act may have resulted from a dispute over hunting rights. The recreational hunter is carrying a death list. It is not known whether he recently attended a Hubertus mass. Police describe him as very dangerous.

250 emergency personnel are searching in Austria alone, and police in Germany and the Czech Republic have also been alerted. The first crime scene is only 22 kilometres from the German border.

He was known in the village as “problematic” and “quick-tempered”, police say.

But his murder plans seem far from over – as shown by a death list found by investigators. 50 people from the suspect's circle are now considered particularly at risk. Most of them come from the recreational hunting community and are currently receiving personal protection or have been taken to a safe location. The crime associated with recreational hunting is a recurring phenomenon.

According to police, the killer is said to be carrying two long guns and a handgun. Roland Drexler, too, apparently became severely mentally ill in the course of his recreational hunting activities.

18 cats reportedly went missing

When police searched the residences, they came across a surprise: the two hunting dogs belonging to the wanted man had been left behind. The passionate recreational hunter had loved them dearly, but his methods in the dog breeding he had previously practised were controversial. So too was his conduct in the hunting ground: a resident of Altenfelden reports that 18 cats went missing after the 56-year-old took over the recreational hunting rights in his neighbourhood.

The case brings back memories of the recreational hunter and poacher of Annaberg in Lower Austria – back then, a 55-year-old recreational hunter shot three police officers and a paramedic before turning the gun on himself at his farmstead in Grosspriel (Lower Austria).

Recreational hunters live off meat. That is why they are often angry, violent and aggressive. This is not strange, but entirely natural. When you live off killing, you have no respect for life. You are hostile towards life.

Violence changes the brain

At the point where violence is unleashed, just as much damage is caused as at the point it is directed towards.

And this is conceivably concrete at the neuronal level. Scientists have discovered this in studies. Neuropsychologists also confirm: the amygdala, a nucleus in the brain, is noticeably reduced or disturbed in violent offenders. If this central part of the brain is defective, among other things the feeling of disgust is switched off. More on this in the Psychology and Recreational Hunting section.

Violent acts such as hunting therefore change the brain. The balance between intellectual capacities and lower animal instincts is disturbed. Recreational hunters often lack respect for fellow creatures. Their inner demons react indignantly to restrictions, advice and criticism from ordinary members of the public. Citizens can repeatedly observe this for themselves in conversations with recreational hunters when the latter start talking candidly about their world.

Whoever obtains a hunting licence always receives two things: a licence to kill and a licence to become dull-witted.

Find out more in the dossier: The psychology of hunting

Studies / Sources:

1. Solothurn government defends animal cruelty
2. Amygdala and violence
3. Understanding the link between animal cruelty and family violence: the bio-ecological systems model
4. Childhood without conscience
5. Why some people become murderously evil
6. Violence as a source of pleasure or displeasure is associated with specific functional connectivity with the nucleus accumbens
7. People who torment animals rarely stop there
8. Hunting fever
9. Serial Killers Have Under-Developed Brains, Says New Study
10. When children torment animals – how parents should react
11. Why Men Trophy Hunt: Showing Off and the Psychology of Shame
12. „Killing can be fun“
13. Hunting and Illegal Violence Against Humans
14. Understanding hunters better
15. Interview: Petra Klages with serial killer Frank Gust
16. Psychological-Sociological Differences Between Recreational Hunters and Non-Hunters
17. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
18. Has he got a screw loose?
19. The hunter's passion
20. Hunting and Illegal Violence Against Humans and Other Animals: Exploring the Relationship
21. Hunters and molesters
22. Ohio data confirms hunting/child abuse
23. Michigan stats confirm hunting,  child abuse
24. Preventing domestic violence through weapons
25. Cazadores deportivos – Mentes criminales?
26. Hunting and hunters: a psychoanalysis
27. A researcher finds a particular pattern in the brains of serial killers
28. The Brain
29. Recreational Hunters and Their Brain Pattern
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