A devil-worshipping newly married German couple were arrested yesterday after allegedly fleeing the scene of a suspected satanic killing.
The body of a 33-year-old car-parts dealer identified as Frank H was found on Monday in the couple's flat in the western town of Witten, with 66 machete and hammer wounds.
"The victim was no longer recognisable," a police officer said. "We had to carry out DNA analysis to discover his identity."
The body was lying next to a black oak coffin, models of human skulls, upturned crosses and Nazi SS rune stones.
The police also found a hit list naming 15 of the couple's acquaintances who, it is alleged, they were planning to kill ritualistically.
The pair, named as Manuela B, 22, and Daniel R, 25, were found near Jena, eastern Germany, yesterday morning: it is said they on their way to honeymoon at Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, central Romania.
It was reported that the victim, a colleague of Daniel R, was invited to a party at the couple's flat.
An investigator said: "The walls were covered in black cloths, and there was a coffin in the living room." The slogan "When Satan Lives" was scrawled on the window.
The man is thought to have died last Friday, July 6, a date supposedly chosen for the satanic symbolism of number six.
The shaven-headed, body-pierced Daniel and his pink-haired, leather-clad bride Manuela were said to have met through an occult chat-line earlier this year, and had their first date at an old cemetery in Recklinghausen.
They chose the symbolic date of June 6 (sixth of the sixth) for their register-office wedding and told the wedding photographer that their honeymoon destination was Dracula's castle.
Manuela's parents told the newspaper Bild that her flirtation with satanism began when she was 13, and that her relationships took on increasingly disturbing characteristics. An early boyfriend told Bild that she had bitten him in the neck, screaming "I want your blood!"
Another ex-boyfriend said: "She told me straight away that she was a satanist. We hit each other during sex, and wore leather dog collars with studs."
Daniel's parents said his contact with the occult scene became intense around the time of his final school exams, and became really serious after he met Manuela.
Friends said the pair practised sado-masochistic sex, repeated extreme rightwing slogans, and had an obsession with blood.
On the mailbox of Daniel's mobile phone was the lyric: "I drink your blood, I eat your skin."
The victim's parents said their son had no links with the occult scene. "He was a loving, faithful, and sensitive boy."
He had recently been left by a girlfriend and was considering becoming a monk, they added.
On Saturday the couple, dubbed the "satanic Bonnie and Clyde", drove to Hanover and bought new tyres for their Opel Vectra, which they were reported to have covered with five-pointed stars, another satanic symbol.
They were spotted on Sunday filling up with petrol in Sonderhausen, in the eastern state of Thüringen.
The area has held a strong attraction for satanists since 1993, when 17-year-old Hendrik Möbus, the leader of a satanist group, murdered a fellow pupil.
When they were arrested yesterday and they had wiped off the occult symbols and fitted a stolen number plate.
The incident has highlighted the strong link between satanism and rightwing extremism in Germany, both of which glorify power. The couple's flat contained various pieces of Nazi memorabilia.
Möbus latched onto the radical right after his release from prison in 1998 after serving five years of an eight-year term.
He became a popular figure on the far-right scene following the success of his rock band.