‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ contender kills girlfriend

A Lower Austrian farmer who was looking for a “woman to lean on” in a TV hit series is suspected of killing his girlfriend before committing suicide.Alfred Tippelreiter participated in the first series of “Bauer sucht Frau” on private channel ATV, the Austrian version of international real life TV success “Farmer Wants A Wife” in 2005. The 43-year-old described himself as an enthusiastic farmer who loves hunting, hiking and chatting on the internet. Tippelreiter – who divorced from the mother of his three children in 2004 – said he was hoping to find a woman he could lean on.The farmer’s body was found lying in a pool of blood in a barn on his 60-hectare estate in Hochreit in the district of Scheibbs yesterday (Mon). Police rushed to the farm after his 14-year-old son found the man’s girlfriend Cornelia L., a 45-year-old German – on the blood-soaked kitchen floor when he came to visit them.Investigators believe that Tippelreiter – who did not start a relationship with any of the women he met on “Bauer sucht Frau” – stabbed her to death during a row before killing himself. Officials did not find a farewell note or any kind of hint for his motives.