Podcast Episode: Femicide in Faido, Explosion in Leontica

Pip: When a hobby hunter becomes a femicide suspect, sets a trap for the police and in the process blows up a house — then it is no longer a local news item, it is a pattern.

Mara: That is exactly what today is about. The Wild beim Wild editorial team has embedded the case from Ticino in a broader documentation: access to firearms, silencer law and the psychology behind hobby hunting. Let us begin.

Femicide, explosion, pattern: what the case from Ticino reveals

Pip: On 9 July 2026, a 56-year-old woman is found with a gunshot wound to the head on the grounds of a rehabilitation clinic in Faido. Nobody had heard a shot. One day later, her ex-husband blows up a house in Leontica — a deliberate trap for emergency services. The perpetrator himself dies in the process.

Mara: The Ticino criminal police confirmed at the press conference on 13 July: the man was a hobby hunter. RSI described this as «fatto accertato e confermato» — as an established and confirmed fact. He was in legal possession of several firearms.

Pip: And because nobody heard the shot, the police assume a silencer was used. That is the decisive open question: where did it come from?

Mara: Silencers are in principle banned in Switzerland. Cantons grant exceptions, among others, to persons holding a hunting licence. Whether the perpetrator held such a permit, whether the firearm was registered, whether the silencer was legal or illegal — all of that was, according to RSI, still unresolved as of 14 July.

Pip: That is the crux. In Swiss firearms legislation, access to silencers is in effect a privilege of certain permit categories — hobby hunters among them. This case is not the first: only recently a Ticino hobby hunter was convicted as a poacher, silencer included.

Mara: This is precisely the first documented pattern. The second concerns violence during personal crises. According to Ticino media, indications of the perpetrator's resentment and rage were circulating in the region. The article also refers here to the section «Psychology of hunting in Ticino» — with the thesis that pleasure in killing is not a harmless leisure motive, but is described psychologically as deviant violent behaviour.

Pip: Wild beim Wild therefore calls for annual medical-psychological aptitude assessments for hobby hunters – following the Dutch model – and a binding upper age limit. The largest age group among hobby hunters today is 65 plus, and accident analyses show: serious hunting accidents increase significantly from middle age onwards.

Mara: The article's conclusion is direct: «Access to silencers in Swiss weapons legislation effectively becomes a privilege of certain permit categories, among them hobby hunters.» What that means is shown by the Faido case – not as an isolated incident, but as a repetition.

Pip: The investigations by the Ticino public prosecutor are still ongoing. As soon as there is news on the origin of the weapon, Wild beim Wild will stay on it.

Mara: Weapons law, silencer exemptions, the psychology of violence – these are not abstract debates when a concrete case brings them together.

Pip: And as long as the public prosecutor is investigating, the decisive questions remain open. We will speak again when answers come.