Gunter Hermann EWEN
Classification: Spree killer
Characteristics: Revenge
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders: May 15, 1999
Date of birth: 1963
Victims profile: Discotheque manager and a customer / A Frenchman and his British wife / A 39-year-old Frenchman
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: Germany - France
Status: Committed suicide as police stormed his Luxembourg hotel room on May 18, 1999
Fired into a crowd of 20 people, killing the manager and a customer, and wounding three others. He then broke into a nearby flat, where he killed a Frenchman and his British wife. The couple's daughter, 11, was shot in the face, but survived.
Two hours later he crashed his car near the small spa town of Sierck-les-Bains across the border in France. Then broke into a house and murdering a 39-year-old Frenchman.
On May 18, 1999, Ewen committed suicide as police stormed his Luxembourg hotel room.
Gunter Hermann Ewen
Police in three countries, France, Germany and Luxemburg, launched an all-points search for Gunter Hermann Ewen, aderanged killer of five people. The fugitive, provisionally identified as Gunter Hermann Ewen, 36, murdered the five people, including a British woman, in a series of shootings in Germany and France. He was believed to have fled on foot into thick woodland east of the town of Sierck-les-Bains. The fugitive eventually killed himself when police stormed the hotel room where he was hiding.
The trail of bloodshed began in the southwest German town of Dillingen on May 15, 1999, when the presumed killer walked into a discotheque around 4:30 a.m. and fired into a crowd of 20 people, killing the managerand a customer, and wounding three others. He then broke into a nearby flat, where he killed a Frenchman and his British wife. The couple's daughter, 11, was shot in the face, but survived. Investigators said the couples' murder may have been prompted by revenge. The husband had recently testified against the suspected gunman in a court case involving theft charges.
Two hours later he crashed his car near the small spa town of Sierck-les-Bains across the border in France. Then he held up a motorist at gunpoint and hijacked his Peugeot, before breaking into a house and murdering a 39-year-old Frenchman. He escaped on foot after failing to start his victim's car. Near a retirement home in Sierck, he fired at and wounded a nurse and shot at another vehicle, injuring its driver, a fireman. He then hijacked another car, but abandoned it about six miles further on.
On May 18, 1999, Ewen committed suicide as police stormed his Luxembourg hotel room. The international spree-killer was already slightly injured from a car crash while fleeing police.
Germany, France sekk serial-killings suspect
The Arizona Republic
May 18, 1999
Helicopters and hundreds of police hunted along the French-German border Monday for a gunman accused of killing five people in a string of slayings.
The killing spree began early Sunday when a gunman killed two people in a German discotheque, then gunned down a couple in their apartment and fled into France, where he stole a car and killed a fifth person.
French cops say gunman on the run killed himself
San Jose Mercury News
May 19, 1999
A fugitive gunman suspected of killing five people in Germany and France during a weekend shooting spree committed suicide Tuesday, police said.
Jean-Michel Civardi, head of local police in this town in eastern France, said Gunter Hermann Ewen shot and killed himself as police were raiding a hotel in Strassen, Luxembourg, where he was holed up. The hotel said he checked in Monday.
Helicopters and hundreds of police officers accompanied by dogs had been searching caves, bunkers and abandoned houses in the area since the killings. Worried parents in the area kept their children home from school during the manhunt.
Ewen, 36, a road worker from Beckingen, Germany, had been sought since Sunday, when he allegedly gunned down five people -- four in Germany and one in France. Eight others were injured.
Ewen was convicted of rape in Germany in 1992 and released in 1996. German prosecutors believe revenge may have been the motive for the slaying of a couple who recently testified against Ewen in a burglary case.
Hotel suicide of disco murderer
Independent.co.uk
Wednesday, 19 May 1999
A fugitive gunman, suspected of killing five people in France and Germany during a weekend shooting spree, committed suicide in a Luxembourg hotel room yesterday.
Jean-Michel Civardi, the head of police in Thionville in eastern France, said Gunter Hermann Ewen shot himself in the head as police raided a hotel in Strassen a suburb of Luxembourg, where he had been holed up since Monday morning. He was found sprawled on a bed. Police said a hotel employee recognised Ewen after seeing his photograph in a newspaper. He arrived at the hotel early on Monday, with no baggage and wearing dirty clothes. He then locked himself in a room and refused to let in cleaning staff.
Helicopters and hundreds of police accompanied by tracker dogs had been searching the thick forests of the Moselle region. Ewen had not been seen since Sunday, when he allegedly shot dead five people, including a Frenchman and his British wife. Ewen a 36-year-old road worker, was convicted in Germany in 1992 on a rape charge and was released from prison in 1996.
German prosecutors believe revenge may have been the motive for killing the couple, who had testified recently against Ewen on burglary charges. Ewen was from Beckingen, in the Saar region of western Germany near the French border.
Police said the violence began when he fired into a crowd of about 20 people at about 4am at a disco in Dillingen, in the Saar. A disco employee and a customer were killed and several other people wounded. The man then went to a nearby flat, killing Robert Fisne, 37 and his wife, Joey and gravely injuring their 11-year-old daughter. Ewen then fled across the border into France, killing a 39-year-old man and wounding two people while trying to steal cars.
Gunter Hermann Ewen
The trail of bloodshed began in the southwest German town of Dillingen on May 15, 1999, when the presumed killer walked into a discotheque around 4:30 a.m. and fired into a crowd of 20 people, killing the manager and a customer, and wounding three others.
He then broke into a nearby flat, where he killed a Frenchman and his British wife. The couple's daughter, 11, was shot in the face, but survived. Investigators said the couples' murder may have been prompted by revenge. The husband had recently testified against the suspected gunman in a court case involving theft charges.
Two hours later he crashed his car near the small spa town of Sierck-les-Bains across the border in France. Then he held up a motorist at gunpoint and hijacked his Peugeot, before breaking into a house and murdering a 39-year-old Frenchman.
He escaped on foot after failing to start his victim's car. Near a retirement home in Sierck, he fired at and wounded a nurse and shot at another vehicle, injuring its driver, a fireman. He then hijacked another car, but abandoned it about six miles further on.
On May 18, 1999, Ewen committed suicide as police stormed his Luxembourg hotel room. The international spree-killer was already slightly injured from a car crash while fleeing police.
