An American woman was killed and another injured Wednesday when a man pushed them off a cliff near Neuschwanstein Castle, the popular German tourist site at the foot of the Alps, local police said.
Police in Bavaria, the state that contains the castle, which is said to have been the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in California — said they had arrested a 30-year-old American suspect after a chase that included a helicopter and search dogs. They asked for witnesses who may have seen or filmed the deadly episode, in which the man is also said to have attempted to sexually assault one of the women.
“It’s a very rare and noteworthy thing to happen there,” said Holger Stabik, a police spokesman. “We rarely have any crime there.”
Police did not release the names or states of origin of the victims or the suspect.
The two women, friends aged 21 and 22, were visiting the site as tourists, police said in a statement. On Wednesday, the women were near the castle when they met an American man, who convinced them to join him on a little-used unofficial hiking trail that led through a forest and onto the picturesque cliffs surrounding the castle, police said. .
Once out of sight of the busy official road, they said, he attacked the 21-year-old. When the 22-year-old tried to intervene, the man pushed her off the cliff, according to police, before attempting to sexually assault the 21-year-old and then pushing her off the cliff as well.
Both women fell about 150 feet and were rescued shortly thereafter by the local mountain patrol and airlifted to a hospital, according to police. But the 21-year-old woman died from her injuries that night.
The 22-year-old was in stable condition and was able to speak to investigators, according to police.
Neuschwanstein Castle, near the Austrian border, about 50 miles southwest of Munich, is one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations. The castle, built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the second half of the 19th century, attracts around 1.4 million visitors each year.
Eric Abneri, 21, a New York native, said in an interview that he had been visiting the castle with a couple of friends during a tour of Europe on Wednesday. When he saw a helicopter trying to rescue the two women, he and his friends thought it was a normal hiking accident. But he soon ran into the police search and watched as the officers led a man away, a scene he filmed and later posted on Twitter.
Mr Abneri said the man did not resist when police took him away and had the appearance of a “generic tourist”.
“The only thing that stood out to me is that he had a lot of red marks on his face and neck,” Abneri said in the interview, adding: “It really looked like he had been scratched by the victims.”
