A 43-year-old Swiss man has been arrested after a shooting at a techno rave in Aarau left an Italian woman dead and five others injured.
Maria Spinelli, a 22-year-old Italian woman, was killed at a horse racing track in Aarau, Switzerland. Five others, aged between 24 and 27, were rushed to the hospital with injuries ranging from minor to severe.
The chaos began around 02:30 local time, just minutes after the music had stopped. One eyewitness told local media he initially thought the loud cracks were fireworks. He was quickly told to hide by a man and a woman nearby. Moments later, that woman was shot.
What followed was a tense, nearly 24-hour manhunt.
For most of Sunday, police in Aarau admitted they had no clear leads and were unsure if they were looking for one person or several. But shortly before 01:00 on Monday, the search ended. A 43-year-old Swiss man was taken into custody.
“The investigation into the exact sequence of events, the background and the possible motive is currently under way,” police said in a brief statement, adding that they currently assume the perpetrator acted alone.
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The tragedy has sent shockwaves across the border. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated she was confident Swiss authorities would “shed full light on what happened.” Officials from Italy’s foreign ministry are now traveling to Zurich to closely monitor the investigation.
Aarau is a quiet town of about 23,000 people. On Sunday, it was supposed to host 3,500 partygoers. Instead, it became the scene of a national tragedy.
The suspect is now in custody, and the immediate panic has subsided. But for the families of the victims, and the hundreds who were in that field when the shots rang out, the real work of making sense of the senseless is only just beginning.
Promise Idoko is Junior Reporter working with moderncrux He covers global politics and international affairs. Based in Nigeria,
