Germany's mysterious crossbow massacre, five deaths which have baffled police and enthralled the nation, revolved around a cultish sex circle with a focus on the Middle Ages, it was revealed today.
A macabre picture is emerging of the lives of those who died, at two locations, in what police believe is a grand murder-suicide between people who shared a passion for Medieval alchemy and weaponry.
The case so far revolves around Farina Caspari, 30, who was the last one alive before she turned a crossbow on herself and shot a bolt through her neck, and Torsten Weiss, 53, who has been described as a domineering figure who treated women 'like slaves' and ran a medieval-themed shop filled with weapons, Knights Templar flags and a blood-spattered mannequin on the counter.
Weiss appeared to have controlled the four women like a harsh sect leader who used physical force and psychological manipulation, Bild daily and RTL television reported.
'Investigators suspect they were all members of a kind of sex circle with a focus on the Middle Ages. Torsten Weiss may have been the guru of the group,' reported RTL after interviewing several people who knew them.
Caspari was a baking assistant in a civil partnership with another female 'victim', it can be revealed today.
The others to die had been isolated from their families and appear to have fallen under the spell of Weiss, who was found dead from a crossbow bolt to the heart in a small guesthouse in Passau, southern Germany on Saturday.
He was holding hands with Kerstin Enders, 33, who had also been shot in the heart with a bolt. Farina's body was alongside them.
Two more victims – Farina's teacher partner named only as Gertrud C, 35, - and Carina U, 19, were found 400 miles to the north two days later at Farina's apartment in Wittingen.
The case has, as yet, stumped police, with Passau prosecutor Walter Feiler admitting: 'We have five dead, that much is clear. Everything else is in doubt.'
What we do know is that, at the time of his death, Weiss was living with Kerstin in the village of Westerwald where the pair ran a bizarre medieval-themed shop.
On the shop's Facebook page it offers mead - an alcoholic drink from the Middle Ages brewed with honey - for sale along with a collection of weapons.
The shop also offered sword fighting classes twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday.
Weiss was the legal owner of his medieval-themed shop until May 2018, but worked there until his death. It is not clear who owned the shop before or after him.
Little is known about Enders or how she met Weiss, but police say before the pair died they had written up wills.
Together with Caspari, the pair shared a love of the Middle Ages and in particular jousting, which they actively participated in.
Weiss, Enders and Caspari had been on the way back from a jousting tournament in Germany when they died, according to Bild.
Before he owned his shop, Weiss had lived in a rented farmhouse which he shared with Farina, partner Gertrud and Carina in Lower Saxony.
The house was located on a 500-year-old horse farm which comprised several buildings, a former manor, 40,000sqm of land, stables and a riding arena.
The foursome are reported to have lived there for two months in 2017.
Alexander Krüger, 44, the man who rented the farmhouse to Weiss, described him as a 'master' who ordered the women about.
Speaking to Bild, Kruger said that Weiss initially claimed to be a psychologist wanting to rent the farmhouse with his girlfriend, who he described as a lawyer.
But after signing the lease the girlfriend never came back, Kruger said, and was instead replaced by a lesbian couple who where joined later by a much younger girl - believed to be Farina, Gertrud and Carina.
Kruger said: 'His tone with them was strange. They were almost submissive, I had the impression that they are hardly allowed to talk to me.
'His tone was so harsh. Strikingly harsh. Not the way you talk to anyone. It was in short imperative sentences.
'Their reaction, the body language was submissive, holding their heads down. If I did not know better, I'd say they were really scared of him.
'He was the great master. He gave orders.'
Kruger added that all three women dressed in heavy black clothing, while one of them had a shaved head.
Weiss is reported to have met Farina, a bakery saleswoman, and Gertrud, a primary school teacher, at a martial arts class some time before 2017.
Around the same time the women met him, they severed contact with their families.
Weiss is said to have met Carina while she was still a minor after she had run away from her family and was living in state care.
After turning 18 she left care and moved in with Weiss.
RTL spoke with a couple who feared she wa the 19-year-old woman found dead in Wittingen was their daughter Carina, who they said had fallen under the spell of Weiss years ago and broken off contact with them.
The once joyful girl had come into contact with him through martial arts classes and quickly become withdrawn and depressive, the parents said, recalling how she had died her hair black and soon moved out.
The mother recalled how initially Carina 'was raving about Torsten, Torsten, Torsten', while the father said that 'until today I don't understand how someone manages in four to six weeks to manipulate someone like that'.
German police discovered the bodies of Torsten, Kerstin, and Farina on Saturday inside a guesthouse in Passau, in southern Germany.
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