Man 'kept wife's corpse in bath'

A mentally ill man kept his wife’s corpse in the bath for months, Austrian police said today.

Social services staff called police after they noticed that the woman had not been seen for several months.

Police went on Saturday to the couple’s house in Traiskirchen, just south of Vienna, and found the woman’s corpse badly decomposed in the bath, a police statement said.

The man had been living with the corpse for a “long time,” the statement said.

A post mortem examination indicated the 66-year-old woman had died a natural death.

The man was taken to a mental hospital, where he repeatedly asked to go home to his wife.

The couple had no children and lived a quiet, withdrawn life, the statement said.