Mummy 'curse' claims victim

[rexbo 104]

Mummy 'curse' claims victim

A MUMMY's curse has cast its shadow over the death of a Brisbane scientist who worked to unlock the secrets of a 5300-year-old man frozen in the Italian Alps.

---

Rumours of a Tutankhamen-style curse started a year ago when the man who discovered the mummy, Helmut Simon, 67, fell to his death during a freak blizzard while hiking near the spot where he found Oetzi protruding from the ice.

Within an hour of Mr Simon's funeral, the head of the mountain rescue team sent to find him, Dieter Warnecke, 45, died of a heart attack.

Other deaths of the team involved in Oetzi's discovery and analysis are:

* Archaeologist Konrad Spindler, 55 - the leading expert on Oetzi, who first inspected the prehistoric corpse - died in April of complications from multiple sclerosis.

* The head of the forensic team examining Oetzi, Rainer Henn, 64 - who put the frozen corpse in a body bag with his bare hands - died in a car crash on the way to give a lecture about the iceman.

* The mountaineer who led Dr Henn to the iceman's body, Kurt Fritz, 52, died in an avalanche, the only one of his party to be hit by the snow-slide.

* The man who filmed Oetzi's removal from his icy mountain grave, celebrated Austrian journalist Rainer Hoelzl, 47 - died of a brain tumour.