#017 CAUSE OF DEATH - The feast of love with axe and sword

Show notes

Crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel remembers, at Christmas, a special case. Over the holidays, a mother invites her children to a family reunion. She hopes that everything will be nice and wishes for peace and harmony. But in the old mansion it comes to the quarrel, which escalates bloody.

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Show transcript

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#017 Cause of Death: The feast of love with axe and sword

#017 Cause of Death: Expectations sometimes lead to disappointment.

#017 Cause of Death: Crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel remembers, at Christmas, a special case. Over the holidays, a mother invites her children to a family reunion. She hopes that everything will be nice and wishes for peace and harmony. But in the old mansion it comes to the quarrel, which escalates bloody.

#017 Cause of Death: Cause of Death. The podcast with crime scene cleaner Marcell Engel.

#017 Cause of Death: My name is Marcell Engler and I work as a crime scene cleaner.It will happen every now and then in my podcast that we dive very deeply into what is happening. I will talk about it openly. By that I mean that liquids, such as, blood as an element will be the smallest problem. I am looking forward to taking you on a mind trip into my world as a crime scene cleaner. 

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now:

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: Cause of Death. The podcast with Marcell Engel.

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: Hello and welcome to a new episode of my podcast Cause of Death. Here's Marcell, your crime scene cleaner. Even at Christmas time I am unfortunately sometimes challenged as a crime scene cleaner. The Christmas season, which is the festival of love, the celebration of the family, the time in which we spend every minute together. Although sometimes we do not see each other all year round and then give ourselves this time for several hours or days. It is precisely there that you expect that you should get along, that it will be harmonious and yes, that this Christmas feeling is just in the foreground and not the private concerns. It sometimes happens that it comes to tensions, and these tensions also end in a dispute and sometimes make a crime scene cleaner necessary.

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: Cause of Death. The podcast. The Crime Scene.

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: On the 24th, I received a call from the emergency service. Emergency service operation, please come by immediately. There is a crime scene to clean up in a suburb, very quiet area. I turned into the street and about 100 meters away I could see blue lights from a distance. I then drove up to the house. It was an Art Nouveau villa, a bit offset from the street with a round arch as a driveway. There was a police vehicle, a hearse and yes, several cars and a bunch full of people. About seven or eight people standing in front of the house entrance. The Art Nouveau Villa was a two-story, cream colored, and had great ornaments around the windows. On the left was a carport with wild wine grown in and you could see the back of the garden. There was a beautiful weeping willow, so extremely impressive, just like from colonial times. I went to this crowd of people and could see an older lady who was held by two younger ones hooked in left and right of their arms. And she was

Cause of Death is one of the successful true crime scene podcasts in Germany and my experiences can be listened to here now: completely exhausted.

You could see she was crying and sobbing and gasping for air. It was clear that this was probably my client. I then went to the ladies and one of the younger ones immediately approached me, and said: My mother, she can't talk to them right now. You're the crime scene cleaner, aren't you? I said: Yes. Then she said: Come with us. I'll take you inside and show you what happened. And we opened the front door, and I was standing in a very large hallway. And it was special because first the room opened up for me. It went up to the ceiling, two floors high, stairs, and then on the next floor a roundel of a square staircase area and then again, the next staircase step to the next floor, and then again, a square like a hallway, an open one, with which you could then look all the way down practically to the first floor. And at the very top of the ceiling, on the second floor, there was a huge chandelier that reached down to the first floor. And what immediately caught the eye: the whole house was very, very well decorated. So, on the staircase and especially on the railing everything was nicely decorated with red and silver glitter tinsel and on the chandelier. There were also huge hanging Christmas tree balls, which were decorated with shiny elements. Every 5 meters on the wall of the stairs you could find wall lights and hanging fire branches, and a lot of jewelry.

And so, it was Christmassy. And then I looked at the floor with my scan look and immediately saw blood stains. It wasn't just a few drops, a few penny sized pieces, some of them were the size of a beer coaster. And this can always be a lead of a massive injury. I guess every one of us knows the feeling of some nosebleeds or cutting yourselves at some point, it drips because it can bleed heavily. But more than a few drops of blood on the floor won’t happen. But there it was directly visible: five or six such spots down in the entrance area up to the first staircase. At first, I didn’t even notice because of this impressive Jewelry. But then on the handrail of the stairs you could also spot a hand, that was probably covered in blood, where you could notice that someone was holding on to the handrail. Then there were fingerprints, the fingers of the bleeding hand along the wall, as if someone had run up. That's what it looked like, and then held on to the staircase and the wall on the left and right. That was the first impression. And as I wanted to go up the stairs, a police officer came towards me and immediately said: You are probably the cleaner here, the cleaning company. You can't take action yet. You must go out again, please.

And so, it was Christmassy. And then I looked at the floor with my scan look and immediately saw blood stains. It wasn't just a few drops, a few penny sized pieces, some of them were the size of a beer coaster. And this can always be a lead of a massive injury. I guess every one of us knows the feeling of some nosebleeds or cutting yourselves at some point, it drips because it can bleed heavily. But more than a few drops of blood on the floor won’t happen. But there it was directly visible: We're still in the middle of taking evidence here and we're taking photos. We will need another hour and then you can clean the crime scene here. Didn't give me any other information either. So, I went back downstairs and outside the house with the daughter and approached the mother. The mother herself was more composed. And somehow, it's often the case that people want to tell me the whole story of the crime scene, even though they are undoubtedly in shock. Then she sobbed and told me everything that had happened. Her husband had died years before and since then there had been massive tensions between the brothers. There has always been a bit of that between the brothers and now I have to say that she had four children, two brothers and sons who were over 50 years old. Then she had a daughter in her early forties and a daughter in her mid-thirties. Sometimes they argued and then they didn't speak to each other for a few days, weeks or months and that’s just the way it goes in life. But since the death of his father, who must have passed away five years earlier, these tensions have intensified. And now because of the inheritance. She couldn't explain that either because she was pre-heiress first. It didn't have anything to do with money directly, and whatever happened between the two of them

she was hoping to reunite the family for Christmas. She was already over 80 and she simply said that she wanted a certain harmony with her age. She had whished for herself and had expected by inviting the whole family, and also her two daughters who already had their little ones, to simply celebrate all together and get closer again. That was her wish. Well, they all arrived on the 23rd and on the evening of the 23rd at dinner it must have really escalated. So that means, the brothers, they yelled at each other and one of them probably threw a glass at the other. Also, the problem was that they all lived in the house and spent the night there, as the house itself was huge. Over 550 square meters of living space with guest rooms and so on. So, no one needed to go to the hotel, and everyone was supposed stay with her at Christmas time on the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th. And of course, she also wanted to encourage the togetherness a little bit. After it blew up on the evening of the 23rd and she didn't know exactly what to do, she just let it happen and she didn't ask anyone to talk or even say: let's sit down together, but she just let it go and what came out of it, was then my mission.

she was hoping to reunite the family for Christmas. She was already over 80 and she simply said that she wanted a certain harmony with her age. She had whished for herself and had expected by inviting the whole family, and also her two daughters who already had their little ones, to simply celebrate all together and get closer again. That was her wish. Well, they all arrived on the 23rd and on the evening of the 23rd at dinner it must have really escalated. So that means, the brothers, they yelled at each other and one of them probably threw a glass at the other. Also, the problem was that they all lived in the house and spent the night there, as the house itself was huge. Over 550 square meters of living space with guest rooms and so on. So, no one needed to go to the hotel, and everyone was supposed stay with her at Christmas time on the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th. And of course, she also wanted to encourage the togetherness a little bit. After it blew up on the evening of the 23rd and she didn't know exactly what to do, she just let it happen and she didn't ask anyone to talk or even say: Cause of Death. The Podcast. The Profiler.

Both brothers got up on the 24th in the morning. One of the brothers was planning on first having dinner in the dining room, with the nicely decorated Christmas tree and the fireplace in it. And after for the little ones at some point ring the bell and the Christ child would have brought the presents for them. He had decided to chop wood just to have enough firewood for the fireplace. And in this carport that was overgrown with wine, outside the annex by the house, there was a corner and there was raw wood, pieces of wood and a large tree trunk about a meter high with a smooth surface. So, he wanted to chop wood, split the wood and portion it for the fireplace. And then the mother told me: Somehow the other brother fell out of the house on the morning of the 24th. She didn’t understand why and ran to the brother. And then you could only hear wild screams. And what was then to be recognized by the crime scene traces, what you could read from it, is that they must have argued excessively next to this block of wood. There were also traces of blood to be seen, massive traces of blood. Also, on the wall and on the pieces of wood. I could see a lot of blood splashes during the cleaning process, and it was probably the case that one brother in the argument - the one who chopped the wood – wanted to hit the other with an axe

Both brothers got up on the 24th in the morning. One of the brothers was planning on first having dinner in the dining room, with the nicely decorated Christmas tree and the fireplace in it. And after for the little ones at some point ring the bell and the Christ child would have brought the presents for them. He had decided to chop wood just to have enough firewood for the fireplace. And in this carport that was overgrown with wine, outside the annex by the house, there was a corner and there was raw wood, pieces of wood and a large tree trunk about a meter high with a smooth surface. So, he wanted to chop wood, split the wood and portion it for the fireplace. And then the mother told me: on the head and probably just hit the body and after the injured brother ran in the house. And the father, he had a room with antiquarian weapons, including an armor with a sword. And he ran there, got this sword, and the brother ran after him with the ax, shouting and waving flags. So that's what the sisters told me. And it was in this room, in this library, and with these weapons that the fight escalated. And the loser, was the injured brother, who then wanted to flee through a door, back into the hallway. So that’s what caused the traces I had seen before on the railing, the stairs, and the wall. And then afterwards, when I was allowed to go in to clean the crime scene, I was able to completely understand everything they told me. When I was allowed to clean the crime scene and went to the first floor, I saw a door I didn’t notice before – it was an old building. Not like nowadays, where you might knock in with a hammer and then there is a whole in it right away.

Both brothers got up on the 24th in the morning. One of the brothers was planning on first having dinner in the dining room, with the nicely decorated Christmas tree and the fireplace in it. And after for the little ones at some point ring the bell and the Christ child would have brought the presents for them. He had decided to chop wood just to have enough firewood for the fireplace. And in this carport that was overgrown with wine, outside the annex by the house, there was a corner and there was raw wood, pieces of wood and a large tree trunk about a meter high with a smooth surface. So, he wanted to chop wood, split the wood and portion it for the fireplace. And then the mother told me: No, it was a solid wooden door with a sealed door handle on it with a pusher. And there was a hole punched in it. It was not a circular hole, but a real piece broken out of the frame itself, which was as big as a tray and you could really see the splintered wood. And you could also see three, four huge notches above this door on the door frame. And one brother fled to this room on the second floor and wanted to hide in there and the other brother ran after him in a rage and then tried to break the door with this ax, which he probably succeeded in doing after some effort. And this room itself was the dining room. And the Christmas tree, which was lying on the floor at the time of the crime scene cleaning, had fallen over and massive traces of battle could be seen in the room. The dining room had an oblong table and about 20 chairs were placed on it and there was no chair left where it belonged. Most of them had fallen over and three chairs were in a completely different corner of the room. And the room itself was about 50 square meters and at one point, in front of the Christmas tree, I could see a huge pool of blood and the crime scene had only happened a few hours before. And according to this everything was very fresh,

Both brothers got up on the 24th in the morning. One of the brothers was planning on first having dinner in the dining room, with the nicely decorated Christmas tree and the fireplace in it. And after for the little ones at some point ring the bell and the Christ child would have brought the presents for them. He had decided to chop wood just to have enough firewood for the fireplace. And in this carport that was overgrown with wine, outside the annex by the house, there was a corner and there was raw wood, pieces of wood and a large tree trunk about a meter high with a smooth surface. So, he wanted to chop wood, split the wood and portion it for the fireplace. And then the mother told me: I would almost say still warm blood. Unusual for us because apart from violent crimes, we don't have that kind of cleansing in that form. We only come when the whole thing has thickened a bit or even dried out. And in the room, itself, which was a wooden floorboard, there were shoe prints everywhere, profiles of sneakers and other footwear. Those were the footprints of the two brothers. And the mother and the sister told me, even they were both totally freaked out, they tried to intervene and prevent the disaster. Unfortunately, they failed. So, one brother who was the ax victim, from whom the pool of blood in front of the Christmas tree came, died from his massive bleeding and the other brother died in a side room. He also bled to death. But in his last minutes he was lying on a big cognac-colored couch and at the time of his death he probably had the sword, with which the other brother had fought back, stuck in his chest. An awful crime. Seemed like I became part of a Christmas thriller,

which was sad, as I always remember Christmas as a beautiful holiday. In my whole lifetime I never got disappointed around Christmas holidays. I guess the mother was just hoping for a present, well rather an expectation: that her two sons would behave, get along with each other at least at Christmas time. But unfortunately, the harmony she was wishing for did not occur. Well, that's just the way it goes sometimes. Humans are humans and unfortunately the expectations we have on each other do not always become true. Despite of this crime scene event and this crime scene cleanup, I wish you at this point a reflective and harmonious Christmas with the people you like, the people you love. With that in mind: Merry Christmas! Thank you for listening and I also wish you a good start into the year 2021. With much, much health above all. And that otherwise everything comes true for you, what you wish and have planned for 21. If you liked the episode, then subscribe to my channel, there will be a new format on YouTube from next week on. Find me under Marcell Engel, The Crime Scene Cleaner. This format will be named "Crime Scene Life", and the topics of the premiere will be crime scene, addiction and life. Stay tuned and have a look into my channel, maybe we can share something with each other. I am showing visual images in connection on how I experienced and felt the crime scene. And I would love to share those images once a month to the podcasts that come out weekly. So, feel free to subscribe to the channel, otherwise, follow me on Instagram or Facebook. Find me under my name Marcell Engel. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time, when it's time for a new episode of the podcast Cause of Death. I hope you will join us. Until then, ciao, yours Marcel.

which was sad, as I always remember Christmas as a beautiful holiday. In my whole lifetime I never got disappointed around Christmas holidays. I guess the mother was just hoping for a present, well rather an expectation: That's it for now with new episode of Cause of Death. The podcast with Marcell Engel, head of his own special unit and crime scene cleaner at more than 12,000 locations around the world. What can Marcell clean-up for you? Anytime. Around the world. Get in touch. Or just click through to www.MarcellEngel.com. Empathic. Profound. Honest. Cause of Death won't leave you cold, guaranteed.

which was sad, as I always remember Christmas as a beautiful holiday. In my whole lifetime I never got disappointed around Christmas holidays. I guess the mother was just hoping for a present, well rather an expectation: Be part of it!

which was sad, as I always remember Christmas as a beautiful holiday. In my whole lifetime I never got disappointed around Christmas holidays. I guess the mother was just hoping for a present, well rather an expectation: Looking forward! Subscribe to the season and you'll never be late for an episode.

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