Story By: Georgina Jadikovska, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash

A German man who dumped his first wife for a woman 20 years younger has been arrested for strangling her and dumping her body in a river.

Interior fitter Sergej Fortuna, 42, from the German city of Minden in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was arrested after the police recovered the body of his second wife Laura Fortuna, 22, in the Weser River.

Sergej Fortuna left his first wife for the 22-year-old younger woman whom he married shortly after they first met in 2016.

After their romantic wedding, the couple bought a house with a large garden in the city of Minden and became parents to two children in 2018 and 2020.

A neighbour of the couple told Bild: “The woman seemed always happy and loving. He was helpful and nice, but rather reserved.”

However, according to a friend, the image of the picture-perfect couple that neighbours portrayed “changed over the last few months” before the incident occurred.

After an argument between the two, Laura was reported missing by her husband Sergej on Sunday, 30th May.

He claimed that Laura had disappeared without saying a word, and left him alone with their two children aged one and two.

The criminal police of Bielefeld immediately started an investigation and organised a search for the young woman, who they reported was “170 centimetres tall, had dark brown shoulder-length hair, and wore a blue coloured T-shirt, jeans and shoes”.

Several days later her body was recovered from the Weser river in Germany with the help of the fire brigade and river police.

After the autopsy revealed that Laura was strangled Sergej Fortuna was arrested a day later on Friday on 4th June 2021.

Prosecutor Claudia Bosse said: “He finally made a confession and gave us information about what he had done.”

The 42-year-old man reported that he allegedly strangled his wife in their house while the children were asleep and tied weights to her body.

According to his confession, he then put her in his Volkswagen Camper and drove three kilometres away where he threw the body in the 452 kilometres (281 mile) long Weser river.

Prosecutor Bosse reported that Fortuna who is currently in custody after he was issued an arrest warrant for manslaughter “has not yet revealed the exact motive yet.”

Local media did not report whether the children are being taken care of by the social services, or if there is another family member that they could be placed with.