A DAD is accused of drowning his severely disabled six-year-old son just days after making a chilling Google search.
Prosecutors in Austria say cold-blooded Florian A, 39, Googled the term “unconscious” just before the drowning death of his son Leon.
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Florian, who can’t be fully named because of local privacy laws, allegedly threw helpless Leon into a river in Sankt Johann before pretending he was attacked by muggers.
Police later found Leon’s body in the Kitzbüheler Ache river on August 29, 2022.
Florian claimed he was bashed over the head with a bottle by a mystery robber during a late night pram walk and fell unconscious before coming to and seeing his son had vanished.
He told police he thought his son must have either fallen or been thrown into the water by his attackers.
The suspect and his wife even offered a reward of €30,000 (around £25,000) for information leading to his mugger’s arrest, according to Austrian newspaper Exxpress.
But prosecutors say as police began to investigate the case they found Florian had earlier searched online for how people behave when they are knocked out.
His head injuries were caused when he hit himself over the head with a Prosecco bottle that Florian had apparently taken to the scene himself, prosecutors claim.
Florian denied murdering his son as the trial began on July 17 at the Innsbruck Regional Court, Bild reports.
Prosecution believe Florian killed his son because he could no longer cope with the boy’s rare genetic condition, SYNGAP1 syndrome.
Sufferers have severe learning difficulties, seizures, extreme emotional outbursts and sleeplessness.
The prosecutor told court: “Florian A. killed his child and faked the robbery on himself.
“Leon was certainly a lovable child, but also a child who bites, who pulls out his mother’s hair, who has not slept through the night for years and who has several epileptic seizures a day.”
But Florian’s defence attorney, Mathias Kapferer says there is no real evidence against him and says his wife is sticking by him.
He said: “In this case, we are talking about circumstantial evidence and similar things.”
The father has denied all allegations and is sticking to his original story – that he was in fact attacked to the point where he was knocked out.
A verdict is expected on August 1.
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