Bio

Johann Gottfried Gautsch was born in Mauterndorf in 1961. He lost both of his parents when he was a child.

He completed an apprenticeship as a car mechanic. After that he worked at a car dealership in Hallein. He was later laid off there because of staff reductions.

Gautsch tried to renovate his parents' house in Mauterndorf. The house was occupied by several subtenants. During the renovation he accumulated debts of over one million schillings and had to sell the house to one of the subtenants.

Afterward he lived in an attic apartment that had no heating and no telephone. He earned some money by selling inherited firearms. He was a member of the local shooting club and enjoyed hunting.

Murder Story

On November 20, 1997, in the market town of Mauterndorf in Salzburg, Johann Gottfried Gautsch shot and killed six people and later took his own life. In letters he left behind, he cited "demons" that drove him to commit the acts.

Gautsch was armed with a Walther PPK 7.65 mm and a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum. He first shot his roommates Harald M. (39), Harald's partner Gabrielle A. (40), and their three-year-old daughter Elisabeth. He is believed to have overlooked or deliberately spared their one-year-old daughter Magdalena.

About ten to fifteen minutes later, two houses down the street, he shot and killed Wernfried G. (55), the former elementary school principal and deputy mayor, after Wernfried opened the door to him. Gautsch then went to the Stampfl district and shot and killed Irene S. (22) and her boyfriend Stefan B. (19). Irene S.'s parents were on vacation in the United States at the time.

Gautsch spent the following night at the murdered couple's house. He then drove to a relative's house in Thomatal, where he confessed to the violent crimes. After that, he drove to St. Margarethen and shot at a man in the street whose girlfriend had been repeatedly harassed by Gautsch in the past. The man escaped unharmed.

Gautsch drove back toward Mauterndorf and was stopped at a police roadblock during the manhunt. There, he killed himself with a gunshot to the head. A search of his apartment later found more pistols, five rifles, about 10 kilograms of black powder, and roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

The shooting spree sparked a debate in Austria about gun laws. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), the Greens, and the Liberal Forum called for stricter gun laws. The SPÖ and then-Chancellor Viktor Klima proposed measures including banning gun licenses and further tightening the rules. Some plans discussed expropriating certain groups of legal gun owners and introducing a gun tax to make ownership more expensive. The Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) opposed these proposals. In the end, the gun laws remained unchanged.