When a local resident found a floating suitcase by the shore near the town of Gmunden, 50 miles east of Salzburg in Austria, nothing could have prepared the unfortunate fellow its gory contents. The dismembered body of a woman. Promptly, the police was alerted and they swung into action and they found two suitcases containing the woman's dismembered body near the shore of Lake Traunsee but her head was missing.

A woman's severed head encased in a block of concrete, was later found after an extensive search next to a man's body at the bottom of an Austrian lake, in what police suspect is a murder-suicide. Authorities said that evidence suggests the man strangled the woman and dismembered her body before drowning himself using the concrete block with her head in.


The hands of the man, whose body showed no signs of struggle, were tied to bags containing rocks as well as personal belongings.


The head of the woman, who was between 50 and 70 years old, was discovered after forensic experts in the city of Salzburg broke open a concrete block found in one of the bags on the lakebed.


'This makes us primarily think of an 'extended suicide',' a prosecutor for the nearby town of Wels, Birgit Ahamer, told a news conference, adding that initial forensic examinations suggested the woman had been strangled and the man had drowned.

Police said they could not yet identify the bodies.