A "sex game gone wrong" woke up hotel guests at 3am as a German bouncer is charged with killing a British heiress.
Tattooed Marc Schätzle will stand trial in Switzerland accused of the murder of Anna Reed.
Prosecutors claim dad-of-two Schätzle killed Miss Reed, 22, for her money but the 30-year-old insists she died in a "sex game gone wrong".
The German met the Brit, who was the heiress to a multi-million-pound racehorse fortune, in Thailand whole she was on a round-the-world trip. After a whirlwind romance, the pair booked into the posh Hotel la Palma au Lac in Locarno at the foot of the Swiss Alps.
Miss Reed, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, was found dead in a hotel bathroom in April 2019.
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A post-mortem confirmed she died from strangulation and also suffered small cuts and fractures.
Prosecutors say that Schätzle claims Miss Reed died in an "erotic game that went wrong". Hotel guests are said to have complained about noise coming from their room at 3am on the night she died, hours before her body was discovered.
A hotel source said the German came down to the lobby the following morning appearing "agitated".
They told The Times: "The receptionist could tell by his tone that it was serious so called an ambulance.
"The medics went straight up to the room. She was on the floor of the bathroom. They tried to resuscitate her but there was no response. She was already dead."
Schätzle denies deliberately killing Miss Reed, but a prosecution source said: "The claim that she died in a sex game gone wrong was never convincing.
"We believe she was murdered for financial gain."
Investigators are said to have found one of Miss Reed's credit cards hidden in one of the hotel lifts and claim the accused had stolen it from her either before or after her death and hid it.
Miss Reed, whose granddad was a prominent racehorse owner and breeder Guy Reed, was privately educated at Ashville College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and moved to Berlin after completing her A-levels.
On the evening of her death, she shared a £100 bottle of champagne with Schätzle over dinner before returning to their hotel room.
They were also pictured smiling on the terrace of their lakeside hotel after checking into their penthouse hours before the alleged murder.
Schätzle’s ex and mum of his two kids told a Swiss newspaper that she did not believe he could be responsible for Miss Reed’s death.
Michèle Bochsler, who was Schätzle’s partner for eight years, said after his arrest: "I am 1,000% sure he did not mean to kill this young woman.
"He never ever has been violent. Never ever. It’s just not possible. I am so sure that he is innocent. It was an accident, it must have been."
Schätzle's lawyer Yasar Ravi said: "Marc’s defence is that they were playing a sexual game.
"It was an accident. It was sexual play. He ran out and got the hotel to get a doctor and emergency services. It happened in the room so there were no witnesses."
He has also been charged with fraud, theft and drug misdemeanours.
The trial continues.
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