The Lüneburg public prosecutor’s office has officially started investigating the cause of death after the crime that left three dead in Bienenbüttel, Lower Saxony. One is waiting for the results of the autopsy in order to be able to assess the neighborhood dispute between the 85-year-old property owner and the neighboring couple.

“We can assume that he legally owned weapons, I can’t say how many,” said prosecutor Jan Christoph Hillmer on Monday.

It is highly likely that the man shot his 62-year-old neighbor and his 61-year-old wife on Friday afternoon, police said at the weekend. Then he probably killed himself in his house. All three of the dead had gunshot wounds. The neighbors are said to have been at odds for a long time.