The pair met as Reed travelled the world. Photo / Facebook
The pair met as Reed travelled the world. Photo / Facebook
A German man charged over the death of a British heiress will stand trial and plans to claim her death was the result of an "erotic game gone wrong".
22-year-old Anna Reed, the heiress to a racing fortune, died at Swiss hotel in 2019.
She was staying with 30-year-boyfriend Marc Schätzle, who Reed had met on a luxury trip around the world.
The pair made an unusual couple, the glamorous young heiress and the heavily tattooed former bouncer whose knuckles sport the phrase FTW (F*** The World).
Reed was found in the bathroom of their penthouse suite at the Hotel La Palma au Lac in Locarno, with a post-mortem finding she died from strangulation and had also suffered small fractures and cuts.
Marc Schätzle claims Anna Reed died after a sex game went wrong. Photo / Facebook
Prosecutors say Schätzle claims Reed's death was the result of an "erotic game gone wrong" but other guests had complained about noise coming from the room in the hours before she was found and The Times reported a porter was called to "calm the situation down".
A hotel source said Schätzle came down to reception in the morning and appeared "agitated", a hotel source said.
They told The Times: "The receptionist could tell by his tone that it was serious so called an ambulance."
Swiss police found one of Reed's credit cards hidden in a hotel lift and allege that Schätzle took it from her either before or after her death, with investigators believing there was a financial motive behind her killing.
The night Reed died, the pair shared a pricey bottle of champagne over dinner and had been seen smiling after checking into their penthouse.
Anna Reed was the heiress to horse-racing fortune. Photo / Facebook
Schätzle's ex-partner Michèle Bochsler, the mother of his two children, told a Swiss newspaper that she did not believe he was capable of murder.
"I am one thousand per cent sure he did not mean to kill this young woman. He never ever has been violent. Never ever. It's just not possible," she said.
"Yes Marc had problems with drink but he is not a violent man," she added.
"I am so sure that he is innocent. It was an accident, it must have been."
Schätzle's planned defence strategy will be familiar to New Zealanders, after it was unsuccessfully used by Grace Millane's killer Jesse Kempson during his 2020 trial.
There have been calls for the defence to be banned in New Zealand, with Millane's family speaking out after the UK banned it in July 2020.
"We now hope that the rest of the world takes notice, and follows our lead, especially New Zealand. Changes need to be made to protect women," the family said at the time.
The UK added an amendment to their Domestic Abuse Bill which ruled out "consent for sexual gratification" as a defence for causing serious harm.
British Home Office minister Victoria Atkins told the Commons that the increased use of the defence was a "chilling and anguished" development.
"We've been clear that there is no such defence to serious harm which results from rough sex," Atkins said.
"But there is a perception that such a defence exists and that it is being used by men, and it is mostly men in these types of cases, to avoid convictions for serious offences or to receive a reduction in any sentence where they are convicted."
The murder of Grace Millane, who was killed while travelling through New Zealand in 2018, was one of several high-profile cases that spurred UK lawmakers to make the change.
