A FUGITIVE accused of killing a mayor and a retired cop has reportedly been found dead in a forest in Austria.
Roland Drexler, 56, was wanted by cops after they believe he killed a mayor and hunter in a row over hunting complaints on Monday.
Police were desperately searching for Drexler[/caption]
Law enforcement vehicles and a helicopter during the manhunt on October 28[/caption]
Roland Drexler, 56, poses in undated photo[/caption]
Austrian police said on X that deployment in the Rohrbach district, where cops were focusing on to find the fugitive, was finished as the “accused was found dead”.
And local media report that the search for the suspected double murderer was “over” after he was found dead in a forest in a ditch near a cave, according to Heute.
His body was found on Saturday afternoon in Upper Austria, with cops currently probing whether he took his own life, Kronen Zeitung claims.
Drexler was an alleged double killer with a grudge who was feared to have a kill list with up to 50 names after a mayor and hunter were shot dead.
A massive 250-cop search operation was underway to find the Austrian with helicopters and special forces scouring the country.
Drexler fled his Upper Austria home after he allegedly shot and killed the town’s mayor and then is thought to have immediately killed an ex-cop.
Cops in Kirchberg ob der Donau believed Drexler had a grudge list of 48 other victims he planned to kill, Kronen Zeitung reported.
Austrian police said Drexler had a row over hunting rights with the pair, but it was not clear why it escalated.
First victim 64-year-old Mayor Hofer was gunned down on 28th October as he left his home in nearby Fraunschlag on the way to a doctor’s appointment.
Drexler, reports local media, first wounded him with a single shot from a handgun.
Mayor of Kirchberg ob der Donau Franz Hofer was shot to death[/caption]
Then, say police, as Hofer tried to flee across a field the gunman took a hunting rifle from his car and shot him dead while he was running.
Hofer had been mayor since 2008 and was in charge of the local hunt.
Thirty minutes later, reports local media, he went to the home of retired police officer and father-of-four Joseph Hartl and killed him also with a single shot.
Hartl had only just returned home from hospital where he had been in a coma following a heart attack.
Hartl was also a leader in the local hunt.
Both men had previously reported Drexler for violations of hunting law and illegal trapping, according to local media reports.
Police believed that all those on the list had similar clashes with him.
Police said Drexler was armed with two hunting rifles and one handgun and was using his silver VW Caddy people carrier to get to his victims.
And the fugitive’s VW Caddy was discovered in a forest near Partenreit on Friday morning, Heute reports.
More than 250 officers, an elite Cobra police unit, armoured vehicles and helicopters joined the massive search when he was missing.
Police were using helicopters to search the woody landscape[/caption]