Man suspected of dumping severed head on German court steps

Police in Germany arrested a suspect who is accused of dumping a human head in front of the Bonn district court Tuesday evening.

The decapitated body of the victim, who was described as a 44-year-old homeless man, was found less than a mile away on the Rhine River.

Local police did not name the suspect, only saying he is a 38-year-old man from the Bonn area who is also believed to be homeless, reported the local newspaper General-Anzeiger. It’s unknown at this time whether the two men knew each other.

Police responded to the stately courthouse after getting calls at around 5:30 p.m. from eyewitnesses, saying that they had observed the suspect placing the human head on the front steps.

“At first we thought there was an object there,” a young man who was sitting with his friends at a bar overlooking the courthouse said. “Only afterwards did we recognize the hair.”

Officers found the suspect crouching on the steps of a neighboring courthouse and took him into custody without incident.

Police said the suspect was known to them from previous interactions related to drug offenses.

A coroner was expected to examine the victim’s body Wednesday, police spokesperson Robert Scholten told the newspaper.

“The background to the crime is still unclear,” Scholten added.

The weapon used to decapitate the victim has not been found yet, but police were using K-9 dogs to try to locate it.

It is still unclear how the suspect traveled from the Rhine River, where the victim was likely beheaded, to the courthouse located 15 minutes away.