American Woman Dies at Neuschwanstein Castle After Push Down Cliff

One American woman was killed and another was injured on Wednesday when a man pushed them down a cliff near Neuschwanstein Castle, the popular German tourist site at the foot of the Alps, the local police said.

The police in Bavaria — the state containing the castle, which is said to have been the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland in California — said they had arrested a 30-year-old American suspect after a manhunt that included a helicopter and search dogs. They appealed for any witnesses who may have seen or filmed the deadly episode, in which the man was also said to have tried to sexually assault one of the women.

“It’s a very rare and noteworthy thing to happen there,” said Holger Stabik, a police spokesman. “We very rarely have any crime there at all.”

The police did not release the victims’ or the suspect’s names or home states.

The two women, friends age 21 and 22, were visiting the site as tourists, the police said in a statement. On Wednesday, the women were near the castle when they met an American man, who persuaded them to join him on a little-used unofficial hiking trail that led into a forest and toward the picturesque cliffs surrounding the castle, the police said.

Once out of view of the busy official path, they said, he attacked the 21-year-old. When the 22-year-old tried to intervene, the man pushed her down the steep cliff, according to the police, before trying to sexually assault the 21-year-old and then pushing her down the cliff as well.

Both women plunged about 150 feet and, shortly afterward, were rescued by the local mountain patrol and flown by emergency airlift to a hospital, according to the police. But the 21-year-old woman died from her injuries that night.

The 22-year-old was in stable condition and was able to speak with investigators, according to the police.

Neuschwanstein Castle, near the Austrian border about 50 miles southwest of Munich, is one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations. The castle, built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the second half of the 19th century, attracts about 1.4 million visitors each year.

Eric Abneri, 21, a New York native, said in an interview that he had been visiting the castle with a couple of friends during a tour of Europe on Wednesday. When he saw a helicopter trying to rescue the two women, he and his friends believed there had been an ordinary hiking accident. But he soon came across the police search and watched as officers led a man away, a scene that he filmed and then posted on Twitter.

Mr. Abneri said that the man had not resisted when being taken away by the police, and that the man had the look of a “generic tourist.”

“The only thing that stuck out to me is that he had a lot of red marks on his face and neck,” Mr. Abneri said in the interview, adding, “He really looked like the victims clawed into him.”