There have been several murders on the Gold Coast in recent years. Recently the trial of a Küsnachter millionaire who was killed made headlines. But there are no more crimes in the village than anywhere else.
Around 24 years after the brutal murder of a then 86-year-old Küsnachter, the alleged perpetrator stood before the Miles District Court this month. Charges: He allegedly badly mistreated, killed and robbed the millionaire. In 2016, he also robbed a jewelry store and sexually abused a young woman. In 2017 he was finally arrested in Tenerife. Last week the court found the 78-year-old Italian guilty of murder 24 years ago and sentenced him to 13 years’ imprisonment.
Lots of crimes on the Gold Coast
In recent times, various other homicides in Küsnacht have also attracted a great deal of media interest. In December 2014, the son of a gallery owner killed his British friend while on a drug intoxication. With cocaine and ketamine in the blood, the very rich art dealer offspring rammed a candlestick into the young man’s mouth and strangled him. Allegedly he was paranoid and thought his friend was a vicious alien. According to the Zurich Higher Court, the gallery owner’s son committed the act in self-inflicted incapacity. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment and inpatient therapy in the second instance.
Another crime that rocked the Gold Coast in 2016 was an alleged contract killing of a 73-year-old doctor with cancer. The motive for the crime was money that the doctor’s daughter is said to have promised the man. The district court in Meilen sentenced the then 37-year-old to 19 years imprisonment for murder. The 47-year-old daughter, who was suspected of inciting the act, was acquitted by the court at the time, however – for lack of evidence. According to the court, the man was extremely unscrupulous because he surprised the victim in his sleep and suffocated.
In the spring of 2021, the start of another murder case at the Meilen District Court. It was about a 50-year-old Swiss man who allegedly mistreated his wife in 2012 and drowned in the bathtub in April 2014 to get her life insurance. The man was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance, but the verdict is not yet final.
Statistically on average
For Dirk Baier, professor at the Institute for Delinquency and Crime Prevention at the ZHAW, Küsnacht is no longer haunted by crimes than other communities. «Between 2011 and 2020 there were almost 2,200 homicides across Switzerland. Almost 500 crimes were completed crimes », says Baier. At the same time, there are almost 2200 municipalities across Switzerland, which means that statistically one homicide per municipality can be expected every ten years. With almost 15,000 inhabitants, Küsnacht has almost four times as many inhabitants as the average municipality in Switzerland.
Therefore, one can expect around four homicides in a period of ten years, so Baier. “In this respect, I don’t think that Küsnacht has a particularly high level of homicides,” says the scientist.
“It is possible, however, that the media attention is particularly high here because the acts were more spectacular that took place in social milieus in which one would suspect that such offenses were less likely.” This strong focus would create the impression that Küsnacht was a kind of hotspot for homicides, says Baier.
This can also be seen when looking at the crime statistics of the canton of Zurich from 2020. The number of criminal offenses rose from 399 to 629 between 2019 and 2020, but Küsnacht is not significantly higher than other municipalities such as Zollikon.
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