The reason for the murder -- a dumbwaiter?

The trial of Count Anton "Tono" Goess begins Thursday in Austria  The 55-year-old nobleman is accused of killing his 92-year-old father, Count Johannes Ulrich, his stepmother, Margherita, 87, and his brother, Count Ernst, 52.

The alleged murders took place on December 19 at Schloss Bockfliess near Mistelbach.

It was largely assumed that a financial dispute was the reason for the murders, but it now appears that Count Tono allegedly killed his family due to a family fight about a dumb waiter.

Count Ulrich had installed a dumbwaiter nearly two years earlier in the castle, but there were legal issues concerning the installation as the castle is a protected monument.  Tono  and his brother, Ernst, wrote a joint letter to the local authorities on December 18.  The next afternoon, they presented the letter to their elderly father over cake and coffee in the fireplace room.

The count was not pleased with the letter, screaming "Everything is wrong.  Please do not send it.  I do not approve," he wrote on the letter, thus, according to one Austrian newspaper, signing "the death sentence for his family."

Count Tono got up and went downstairs to the hunting room and came back with a shotgun, and shot his father, stepmother and younger brother.

He was arrested later that day.

In his defense, Count Tono claimed that he suffers occasional delusions and severe headaches due to Neurofibromatosis, but several experts will testify that he is sane.

https://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2018/12/count-anton-von-goess-arrested-in-three.html

https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/chronik/niederoesterreich/Tragoedie-im-Schloss-3-fach-Mord-wegen-Aerger-mit-Behoerden/386674790?fbclid=IwAR3w-4f45BhFbpqgr8Gty6im49GSpYds4vvPYAXHT1V-A66hKVYy_l_7h3o