Anna Reed: Bouncer who killed British heiress has 18 year sentence extended

A nightclub bouncer sentenced to 18 years in prison for killing his British heiress girlfriend has had his sentence extended by six months after his appeal failed.

Marc Schatzle strangled Anna Reed, 22, with a towel in the couple’s luxury hotel room on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland.

He was jailed in October 2021 for 18 years and launched an appeal last month after claiming he accidentally suffocated Ms Reed during sex.

But instead, the Court of Appeal in Lugano increased the sentence by six months with a spokesperson saying: “The reasoning will be given at a later date but from the evidence heard in the appeal they decided a longer sentence was warranted.”

At the appeal prosecutor Petra Canonica Alexakis said Ms Reed died because of an intentional gesture with the medical report revealing a wound to her gums consistent with a hand being placed over her mouth.

She said Schatzle then placed her body in a warm bath to confuse forensics about the timing of her death and buy himself some time.

The first trial heard that Ms Reed, from a prominent horse-racing family, had lavished almost £50,000 on Schatzle, a heavily-tattooed German body builder and father-of-two, during their three-month relationship.

But on April 9, 2019 when she threatened to leave him, he killed her.

Schatzle, 32, was born in Jestetten in Baden-Württemberg, south west Germany.

Thick-set with a shaven-head, he has Warrior tattoed above his eyebrow and his knuckles bear the initials FTW (F*** The World).

Speaking at the failed appeal, he said: “What happened was an accident, I never wanted Anna’s death.

“Despite what the prosecutor says, I have said sorry, I’ve said sorry to Anna’s family, and I’ve said sorry to my family for causing this disaster.

“I didn’t do what the prosecution says, it was just a banal accident, I accept I inadvertently caused her death.”

She met Schatzle in Thailand just three months before her death. The couple spent time in Berlin before going on holiday to Lake Maggiore.

They checked into La Palma au Lac in Locarno, a 68-room four-star hotel, and paid a premium to secure Room 501, a Junior Suite on the top floor.

After a night out, they returned to the hotel at around 2.30am.

Other guests heard the couple arguing, glass was smashed, the phone was ripped from the socket and the word “money” was clearly heard before Ms Reed yelled: “You’re killing me” or “You’re kidding me”.

It was never determined which of these she screamed.

According to the prosecution, Ms Reed was dead before 4am. But it was not until 6am that Schatzle frantically emerged from the room to alert staff.

On social media Schatzle used the handle “Marc Dirtywhite”. Dirty White is the street slang for raw cocaine. The Dirty White Boys are also a white supremacist group.

Privately-educated Ms Reed could not have come from a more different background.

She and her sister Millie were raised in Harrogate and attended £10,000-a-year Ashville College.

The Reed family is well known in the area. They run the 300-acre Copgrove Hall Stud, founded by Ms Reed’s great uncle, Guy Reed, a prominent owner and breeder of racehorses.

Ms Reed herself was an accomplished horsewoman and her father Clive is a trustee of the stud. The family also owns property in Monaco.

But in 2014, when Ms Reed was 17, her life was thrown into turmoil when her mother Mary died after falling down stairs having suffered an aneurysm. She was just 49.

Ms Reed was left devastated and, as one friend said, “she went off the rails”.

Poignantly, a crumpled photograph of her mother was found under the bed in the hotel room where Ms Reed died.

Petite Ms Reed, described by friends as “bright, beautiful and bubbly”, was on a year-out - funded by her wealthy father.

Ms Reed’s heartbroken family did not attend the gruelling trial in person.

In an impact statement, her father and sister said: “Anna would light up a room when she walked in and she loved dancing, she loved her friends and she would always take care of them.

“They knew they could count on her and she was very generous.

“Anna was also very sporty. She loved horses, swimming and skiing, she was even learning to be a ski instructor. She was a very spontaneous and sociable person.

“When she died it was her last summer of freedom before getting back to reality as she was going to go to university to study mathematics.”