PERTH, Australia -- Police have positively identified a West German man killed in a police shoot-out who was suspected of slaying at least five people in a rampage across two Australian states.
Western Australia Police Minister Gordon Hill said Monday fingerprint checks with West German authorities had confirmed the gunman was Josef Thomas Schwab of Pocking, near Munich.
The fingerprints were taken after the body was flown to Perth Sunday from Fitzroy Crossing, 1,429 miles north of Perth where Schwab was killed in a shoot-out with a police Friday. The prints were given to Interpol, which compared them with Schwab's prints in West Germany.
Schwab, 26, came to Australia in April as a tourist and rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle in Brisbane to go hunting in the Northern Territory.
When he was shot by police, he was wearing jungle greens and had a bandana tied around his forehead. Schwab was armed with a military-type Armalite rifle, police said.
During a 10-day murder spree across the outback, Schwab is suspected of killing former Fremantle City councillor Marcus Bullen 70, and his 42-year-old son, Lance, at Turkey Creek. The pair were on a fishing trip in the Northern Territory.
Police said Schwab then crossed into Western Australia and killed Julie-Ann Warren, 25, her husband-to-be, Phillip Charles Walkemeyer, 26, and their friend, Terry Kent-Bolt, 36.
Police said all the victims were shot in back and had been stripped of their clothes.
