Murder in the Italian Alps

Slashdot (who also gives a link to the original story of the finding of Ötzi) quotes Yahoo News on the discovery that Ötzi was killed in a fight lasting two days. DNA from four different people has been found on the body.

bq. Otzi’s naturally mummified body, the oldest found so far, became a worldwide sensation in 1991 after two Austrian mountain climbers saw it in a thawing glacier at 10,500 feet on the Hauslabjoch Alpine pass at the Italian/Austria border.

Tut, tut, Yahoo, not Austrians but a couple from Nuremberg. We inhabitants of Franconia must stand up for each other.

‘Alois Pirpamer, one of the climbers who found Otzi …’ – Hm, has the Fürther Nachrichten been telling lies? But no, BBC News in February 2002 (nice pictures) rescues us: ‘German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon describe the moment they discovered our best window on the Stone Age.’

At all events, with the ice in the Alps melting fast, there’s going to be a search for new bodies on Sunday. But whatever the limitation rules, if this was a murder, it predates the jurisdictions involved.

I thought there had been a court case relating to a finder’s reward.. The Simons were going to sue South Tyrol for 250,000 euros – they were offered first 5,000, then 28,000. And BerlinOnline some time ago gave the reason for the reluctance of the government of South Tyrol: with the ice thawing, they suspect more bodies will come to light and this won’t be the last such claim.

Finally, here is Ötzi’s new home.

3 thoughts on “Murder in the Italian Alps

  1. Fans of Tyrolean crooner DJ Ötzi – with trademark woollen bonnnet on – will be pleased to know he is still alive and well and grunting his way up the pop charts in most countries.

  2. “there had been a court case relating to a finder’s reward.. ”

    There is only one problem: How much money is a
    glacier mummy worth? Seriously, does a dead body have any monetary value at all? Besides, a finder’s reward requires that something was lost, and is given back to it’s rightful owner.

    Ah well, South Tyrol is Italy’s problem :-)

  3. I know a dead body is not property for the purposes of theft. I don’t know the effect of cases affecting people who have incorporated parts of human bodies in works of art – there was something in England – or this man who exhibits specially prepared bodies all over Europe. I think if I found a 5000-year-old body in the Alps I might take a different view.

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