Austrians swap Mozart for murder

VIENNA, Austria – First, a jealous husband shot his wife while she slept and cut her body into pieces with a power saw.

Then a suicidal snake dealer threatened to kill himself with his cobras and swung the serpents at police officers. Now Vienna police have arrested a man suspected of using two hand grenades to blow up a woman in the capital’s fabled forest.A week of death and dismemberment on a scale virtually unheard-of in Austria has people on edge in this usually tranquil country better known for Mozart than for murder.”It’s getting to the point where I’m afraid to leave the house – and that’s a completely new feeling for me,” said Doris Mueller, a housewife in Vienna.Statistics suggest she has cause for concern: Last year, authorities investigated 257 090 criminal complaints in Vienna alone, up 21,5 percent from 2002, according to the most recent figures from the interior ministry.Vienna, like any major city, has always had its crime.But the grisly events of the past week have startled even the most cynical residents, along with expatriates accustomed to giving their children far more freedom than they’d ever feel comfortable doing in London or Los Angeles.”There’s a very aggressive mentality,” said Radek Zampa, an artist who moonlights as a waiter in the city of two million.”There’s something angry in people’s eyes.People, it turns out, can be very dangerous.”- Nampa-APNow Vienna police have arrested a man suspected of using two hand grenades to blow up a woman in the capital’s fabled forest.A week of death and dismemberment on a scale virtually unheard-of in Austria has people on edge in this usually tranquil country better known for Mozart than for murder.”It’s getting to the point where I’m afraid to leave the house – and that’s a completely new feeling for me,” said Doris Mueller, a housewife in Vienna.Statistics suggest she has cause for concern: Last year, authorities investigated 257 090 criminal complaints in Vienna alone, up 21,5 percent from 2002, according to the most recent figures from the interior ministry.Vienna, like any major city, has always had its crime.But the grisly events of the past week have startled even the most cynical residents, along with expatriates accustomed to giving their children far more freedom than they’d ever feel comfortable doing in London or Los Angeles.”There’s a very aggressive mentality,” said Radek Zampa, an artist who moonlights as a waiter in the city of two million.”There’s something angry in people’s eyes.People, it turns out, can be very dangerous.”- Nampa-AP