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Bouncer Charged With 22-Year-Old Heiress' Murder Despite His Claims That She Died During Sex Gone Wrong
Anna Reed was found dead in the bathroom of a Switzerland hotel in April 2019. Authorities determined she died from strangulation and have charged Marc Shatzle in the case.
A German bouncer has been charged with murdering a 22-year-old British heiress, but he claims that she died during a sex game gone wrong.
Authorities have announced that Marc Schatzle, 30, will stand trial for the murder of 22-year-old Anna Reed, who was found dead in a Switzerland hotel room in April 2019, according to The Times of London.
Reed died from strangulation and had also suffered small cuts and fractures, according to her autopsy report.
A prosecution source told the news outlet that Schatzle allegedly claimed that Reed died during an “erotic game that went wrong,” while the couple were staying at the Hotel la Palma au Lac in Locarno, Switzerland.
However, authorities believe Schatzle, who has the word “warrior” tattooed above one eye, may have had more sinister motives for killing the heiress—who had been traveling around the world as part of a 21st birthday present from her father Clive Reed, the owner of a racehorse stud farm.
Five months after her death, authorities found Anna Reed’s credit card hidden in the panel of an elevator and believe that Schatzle may have taken the card before or after her death.
“The bank card was very carefully hidden away and quite clearly it was to be collected later,” the prosecution source told the news outlet. “The claim that she died in a sex game was never convincing.”
The heavily tattooed Schatzle later claimed he had taken the credit card as a joke, authorities said.
The 30-year-old, who had been a one-time bouncer at pubs and nightclubs along the Swiss-German border, had reportedly met the heiress while both were traveling in Thailand, according to The Daily Mail.
The night before she died the couple had reportedly shared a $140 bottle of champagne before returning to their hotel penthouse room.
Hotel guests reported hearing an argument between the pair around 3 a.m. and complained to the porter, who was sent to the room to calm down the situation, the news outlet reports.
Schatzle came down to the lobby less than four hours later to report that his girlfriend wasn’t feeling well. A hotel source told The Times of London that he appeared “agitated.”
Hotel staff members called emergency responders, but Reed was already dead.
She was reportedly discovered in the bathroom of her hotel room, the BBC reported in 2019.
But while prosecutors believe Schatzle may have killed Reed, his former partner and mother of his two children, Michele Bochsler, told a Swiss newspaper that she doesn’t believe her former love could be capable of such violence.
“He has a problem with alcohol and cocaine and he was always able to travel to nice places,” she said, according to The Times. “He betrayed me but he is not a violent man.”
She added that he had “never ever been violent” during their eight year relationship.
“It was an accident, it must have been,” she said.
A spokesman for the Swiss prosecutors’ office said authorities hope to try the case later this year “Covid-permitting.”
