Murder of German archaeologist and violinmaker and his daughter investigated in Paraguay

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Paraguayan police said Tuesday (2) they have a clue to the killers of a German archaeologist, musician, violin luthier, and his teenage daughter, presumably killed last month by burglars in their home near Asuncion.

Bernard Raymond Von Bredow, 62, and Loreena Lydia Von Bredow, 14, were found on October 22 with traces of extreme violence at their residence in Areguá, 14 km from Asunción.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Paraguay

“We have a fairly conducive lead to get to the perpetrators,” Hugo Grance, head of the Paraguayan police homicide unit, told AFP on Tuesday.

Bernard Raymond Von Bredow was found lying on a table with traces of a gunshot wound to the back of the neck and signs of having been previously tortured by his captors, revealed forensic doctor Héctor Meza in statements to journalists.

The commissioner reported that his teenage daughter was found in the bathtub with a gunshot wound in the belly with an exit in the back, meaning she probably bled to death.

“The house was in complete disarray with bloodstains in almost every sector, evidencing that the owner was forced to move, we believe in giving them the key to a safe,” Grance told AFP.

The police officer explained that the property contained four containers with an infinite number of carpentry, lathe, and sheet metal tools, in one of which a locked safe, measuring 1 meter by 1.5 meters, was found and remained in custody awaiting the arrival of relatives from Germany.

According to the investigation, the safe was the target of the criminals, but when they could not open it, they killed the owner of the property and his daughter. The police suspect a group of bricklayers carrying out an extension of the house and fired by Von Bredow 15 days earlier.

Investigators are awaiting the arrival this weekend of a sister of Von Bredow to start the repatriation of the bodies.

Bernard Von Bredow was well known in Germany, where he is credited with owning a museum and having discovered fossils of a mammoth in 1975 and an Ice Age lion, the heraldic animal of Bavaria.

Source: AFP