Mystery SMS may help solve murder

Austrian police are hoping that the mystery SMS sent claiming to be from the woman who was already dead might help them track down her killer.

The 58-year-old woman was found dead with massive head injuries in her flat in Schwechat outside Vienna after a neighbour raised the alarm.

The neighbour said that the woman had lived a very modest existence in the flat, rarely having contact with anyone else other than the neighbour herself.

The detective heading the investigation into the case Franz Polzer said: “She raised the alarm after noticing the post and newspapers were not been collected. Initially she had not reacted because she had received a text message from the woman’s phone saying that she had gone to Graz for the week and not to worry. In reality she was already dead and the lying on the kitchen floor for two days. ”

He added that said that the fact that there did not appear to have been any attempt to rob anything from the place meant that the motive probably lay in the personal relationship area rather than robbery.

According to police the message had numerous spelling mistakes.

She had last been seen on 19 March.