Overview
- An autopsy confirmed strangulation and documented severe facial injuries, but examiners could not determine when death occurred.
- Authorities say the ex-boyfriend, detained in Slovenia and later extradited to Austria, allegedly confessed and directed police to the forest burial site.
- Pieper’s body was recovered inside a suitcase buried near the Austria–Slovenia border after a cross-border search.
- The suspect was first arrested near his burned car at a casino parking lot in Šentilj and remains in pretrial detention with a trial expected later this year.
- Investigators say two of the suspect’s relatives were briefly held then released, and records show Pieper was reported missing on Nov. 23 after failing to appear for a photoshoot and texting about a “creep in the stairwell.”