Fugitive ‘double-killer’ Roland Drexler found dead after massive manhunt following shooting of mayor & hunter
A FUGITIVE accused of killing a mayor and a retired cop has reportedly been found dead in a forest in Austria.
Roland Drexler, 56, sparked a massive manhunt involving hundreds of cops after the double shooting on Monday.
Austrian police said the police operation in Rohrbach was finished as the “accused was found dead”.
According to newspaper Heute, the suspected double murderer was found dead in a forest in a ditch near a cave.
His body was found on Saturday afternoon – with cops currently probing whether he took his own life, Kronen Zeitung reports.
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.
And cops believed Drexler had a list of 48 other victims he planned to kill, according to reports.
Austrian police said Drexler had a row over hunting rights with the pair – but it was not clear why it escalated.
Mayor Hofer, 64, was gunned down on October 28 as he left his home in nearby Fraunschlag on the way to a doctor’s appointment.
Drexler wounded him first with a single shot from a handgun, reports say.
Then, as Hofer tried to flee across a field, the gunman allegedly 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, Drexler allegedly went to the home of retired police officer and father-of-four Joseph Hartl and killed him 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 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.
The fugitive’s VW Caddy was reportedly discovered in a forest near Partenreit on Friday morning.
More than 250 officers, an elite Cobra police unit, armoured vehicles and helicopters joined the massive search when he was missing.