A German man was found dead in a room of a budget hotel at Jalan Love Lane in George Town.
- Believed to have taken his own life
- Depressed over sudden death of two siblings
- Rapidly consumed excess amounts of cheap liquor
- Starved himself
- Confided about suicidal tendencies
- Room found in a mess, with traces of faeces
- No clothes found, body clad in a bed cover
Timur Laut district police chief ACP Anuar Omar identified the victim, whose body was found by a hotel employee on Thursday, as Brill Martin Leonhard, 46, who was working as a nurse in Germany.
He said the body had been sent to Penang Hospital for post-mortem.
“The body was found with blood on the head, and there were also blood stains on the wall in the hotel room,” he said.
Anuar said a check with the hotel found that the victim checked in last November 12 and was not behaving his normal self after four days of staying there, like not having proper meals and only consumed liquor.
According to the hotel caretaker, he said, the victim was sad over the death of his two younger siblings in a road mishap in Germany two months ago.
“Police also found a medical report on the victim in the room which state that he was suffering from depression and psychiatric problems,” he said.
Leonhard was supposed to be vacationing alone in the backpackers’ haunt before his body was found soaked in blood inside his tiny hotel room.
Police gave an account of a mentally disturbed man, whose first course of action upon checking into the budget motel was to purchase several bottles of cheap liquor and to consume them at a record pace.
He is believed to have also starved himself.
Hotel employees recalled that the deceased had related a tale of losing his younger brother and sister in a road accident in Germany while they were astride a motorcycle.
“The victim had even confided about his suicidal tendencies,” Anuar was quoted as saying by The Sun.
He was also seen falling down several times in the hotel – it was captured on CCTV, Anuar added.
Police also found the room in a mess, with traces of faeces.
It was obvious that the victim could not control his bowel movements, according to Anuar.
No apparel was found in the room.
Leonhard was found clad in only a bed cover, on the floor of the room with his legs jutting outside the room, around 11pm on Thursday.
The caretaker called out to him but there was no response. He had presumed that the victim was drunk, but later at 8am on Friday, he saw that the victim remained motionless on the floor.
He then alerted first-aid responders from the Penang Hospital, who arrived to find the foreigner dead.