Police in the small Bavarian town of Weilheim suspect that a now-deceased man killed two 57-year-old women and a 60-year-old man before taking his own life. 

The four dead bodies were found on Friday afternoon and evening in the town of roughly 23,000 people around 50 kilometers (around 30 miles) southwest of Munich. 

What did police say about the crime? 

Police said in a statement that they were first alerted via an emergency call reporting a seriously wounded man in the garden of a property at around 16:50 local time (1550 UTC/GMT). 

Attempts to reanimate the 60-year-old man, who was not able to speak, failed and he died at the scene. 

Police said they then launched a major search operation that was fruitless for a couple of hours. 

At around 19:15 a passer-by called in to report a lifeless body on a park bench near a home on the other side of town. By the time the emergency services arrived the 59-year-old man was dead. 

Later that evening, as part of the investigation, police searched that man's home. There, they found two dead women with "massive injuries."

Police said the 59-year-old man, the second to be located, was the suspect. 

"On the basis of preliminary findings of criminal police investigations, investigators believe that the 59-year-old man first killed the 57-year-old women and the 60-year-old man and then caused himself fatal injuries. The people were either related or knew each other," the police statement said. 

The statement did not provide information such as the nature of the injuries inflicted or the suspected means, nor any theories on why the bodies were in three different locations.

Local police conducted the preliminary investigations at the scene, but the local criminal branch has since taken over the case with support from the public prosecutor's office in Munich. 

msh/wmr (dpa)