She was gone for four days

86-year-old dementia sufferer disappears from retirement home

Dogs were also used to search for the woman (symbolic image)

(Bild: P. Huber)

End of the big search operation in Gmunden! An 86-year-old woman had been missing from a retirement home in Gmunden since Thursday evening. Police, fire department and dogs immediately searched for the woman with dementia. Now, four days later, the senior citizen was discovered by chance by patrol officers - she is dead.

An 86-year-old woman from Gmunden had been missing from the St. Josef retirement and nursing home in Gmunden since late Thursday afternoon, where she had only been staying for a few days. After the nursing staff reported the disappearance to the police at around 6.55 pm, an extensive search operation was immediately launched, involving five volunteer fire departments, six police patrols including police service dogs, the "Libelle Flir" police helicopter from Vienna, five drone teams from the fire and rescue services, the search dog squadron and the rescue dog brigade.

The trail was lost at the lakeside station
The missing woman could be seen several times on video recordings, which showed her walking from the center of Gmunden towards the eastern shore at around 18:15. She did not get on a train at the lakeside station and her trail was lost at 18:13 in the area of the Gmunden fire station.

She was lying in the garden next to the pool
The intensive search was finally called off, but the officers continued to look for the missing woman. On Sunday, four days after her disappearance, the senior citizen was discovered by police officers while on patrol. About two kilometers away from the home in the garden of a house on the eastern shore of Lake Traunsee. She was lying dead next to a pool. Investigators are currently not assuming that she was murdered. However, the public prosecutor's office has commissioned an autopsy to clarify the cause of death and the time of death.