( dpa )- A 44-year-old German man shot dead his wife, two children and himself in a small German town on Sunday, leaving police baffled as to the motive.
A woman friend spoke to the wife, 42, at 1 pm, and arrived at the apartment an hour later to find the door open, and the couple dead along with their son, 15, and daughter, 9.
Witnesses said there had been no previous hint of anything wrong. Police said the family in Lauda-Koenigshofen , 95 kilometres south- east of Frankfurt, were locals and had never been in trouble before.