Woman who opened fire at hospital 'had killed family'

A WOMAN who went on a shooting spree at a hospital in Germany had allegedly killed her estranged husband and five-year-old son at a nearby apartment shortly before, authorities said yesterday.

Officials said 41-year-old lawyer Sabine Radmacher had suffered a miscarriage at the hospital in the south-western town of Loerrach in 2004, but were not sure if that was the motive for the rampage there.

Authorities said she allegedly killed her husband and son in her apartment then ran across the street to the hospital. There she killed a male nurse before being shot dead by police.

The son usually lived with his father, but had been visiting for the weekend. After the killings at the apartment, the woman set off a fire in the building before leaving, officials said.

The earlier miscarriage "could be the reason ... why she chose to go to the hospital," prosecutor Dieter Inhofer said at a televised news conference, but stressed that that was not yet clear.

The nurse died after suffering stab wounds and gunshot injuries to the head and officials believe he crossed her path by chance, Mr Inhofer said.

The woman shot ten times at the door of a room in which there was a patient and six visitors, officials said, before police shot her.

A registered sports shooter, she was armed with the .22 pistol she previously used only for target practice.

She was carrying some 300 rounds of ammunition.

Three people at the hospital were wounded, including a police officer, but none of them was in a life-threatening condition.

The attack happened not far from the town of Winnenden where deranged gunman Tim Kretschmer, 17, murdered 15 people at his school in March last year before committing suicide.

He took the gun from his father's bedroom - part of his sporting armoury - for the massacre.