(Bloomberg) -- By all accounts, rare instrument collector and German expatriate Bernard von Bredow and his daughter Loreena had built an idyllic life in Paraguay. A celebrity paleontologist and polymath described by some friends as a genius, Von Bredow was also seen as a bit of an eccentric with a history of financial instability and a susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Inside his two-floor house in Areguá, a small town east of the capital Asunción, violins and cellos cluttered the living room. Big baroque paintings hung on the walls. More miscellany was stored among the six shipping containers outside, including a wide collection of stringed instruments. But four years after moving to their remote compound, Von Bredow and his daughter were brutally murdered. In the Bloomberg Investigates mini-documentary The Strange Murder of a Rare Violin Collector, we unravel the fallout, uncover the suspects and reveal who was ultimately prosecuted for the shocking murders.
When investigators arrived at Von Bredow’s home, they discovered a gruesome scene. Blood was everywhere. Belongings had been tossed around. Missing from the property, the local police announced later, were four specimens of the world’s most expensive musical instrument, the Stradivarius violin.
Von Bredow had told friends he possessed at least one Stradivarius, and at the time of his death, his invite-only website featured one for sale, according to his sister. He’d also boasted that he owned two violins made by Giuseppe Guarneri, a Stradivari contemporary whose instruments regularly sell for six or seven figures. In The Strange Murder of a Rare Violin Collector, Bloomberg Investigates recounts Von Bredow’s life and death, the investigation that followed and how it eventually focused on two men—a friend of Von Bredow and a local lawyer.
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