A world-famous German palaeontologist and his daughter have been brutally murdered in Paraguay after they moved there to start a new life.
Bernard von Bredow, 62, and his daughter Loreena, 14, moved from Germany to Paraguay a little over four years ago to start a new life, according to German daily Bild.
Bernard von Bredow was gifted in the sciences, which he taught himself, discovering a whole giant mammoth skeleton near his hometown in Bavaria when he was just 16 years old and restoring an aeroplane at the age of 23 before going on to make violins and write songs, according to Bild.
Following his discovery of the mammoth in 1975, he even founded a prehistoric museum called the ‘Mammutheum’, in the town of Siegsdorf, in the southern German state of Bavaria.
He became an expert in mammoths and even pioneered ways that can help preserve similar finds.
He and his daughter Loreena then moved to the city of Aregua, which is located in the Central Department in Paraguay, to start a new life a little over four years ago.
He bought some land there and built a house on it, according to the German daily.
It is reportedly in this house that they were murdered, with a friend finding their battered bodies on 22nd October.
Bild reports that von Bredow’s corpse was found with signs of torture and that he was then shot in the head, while the autopsy report shows that his daughter reportedly bled to death after she was shot in the stomach.
An unnamed friend told the German daily: “Nobody can explain it.”
They added: “Bernard had no enemies in Paraguay. He was popular and admired because he was so educated.”
The family friend said that Loreena was “highly intelligent and curious about life”.
The matter is being investigated by local authorities, with Bild saying that they are at a loss and are assuming that a robbery took place as the crime scene was ransacked.
The family friend also said: “We are devastated.”
The friend added: “Bernard was a genius. He could repair trucks and build violins. He didn’t deserve this death.”
