Man left his girlfriend to freeze to death

[Trevordidit]

Man left his girlfriend to freeze when she was struggling on a mountain hike.

He's been found guilty of manslaughter.

So many aspects of his account don't make sense - AIBU to wonder if he did it on purpose?

News article

Exactly.
Totally different circumstances. All this guy had to do was make a phone call.

The poster said they would leave someone for being hysterical, did not say anything about getting help.

Where did I (and she) say leave to die? I (and she) said walk away. That
could be 100m down the path.
The mentality I can’t understand is all the people on here drawing their own conclusions based on very limited information.
If you’re not in the courtroom keep your opinions and biases to yourself.

How am I making stuff up when it was said in court?

I said there are shelters (or rooms if you want to be pedantic) that have experienced staff OR phones/resources.

The shelter was the closest thing to them and so it is common sense that you would try this first - even if it was winter and unmanned (lots of other experienced climbers use these too).

She had exhaustion at this point and so it was not safe for her to try and do the journey to the shelter.

Why would you spend hours climbing down without trying the nearby shelter first which potentially had other people in it or resources.

The postmortem suggested she was suffering with a virus when she died. He was able to continue climbing for a further 3 hours after he left her. They were clearly NOT both experiencing the effects of the elements to the same degree.
Also, he had a phone, with signal, and he didn't call for help. Riddle me that one??

I am and always was very assertive. A confident professional and a tough negotiator
But I suffered an awful trauma and then met someone who was very lovely and then gradually and insidiously wore me down until I became someone I didn't recognise.
It's a boiling frog thing. I don't think anyone should assume that there is a fail safe way to avoid being a victim of this.

That leaves hypothesis A that he was too arrogant to accept the climb was a failure and accept rescue then...

Why did he go for help when he had the ability to get help via a phone call? That is strange, wonder if he said why in court.

I repeat. There are no staff there in winter. There are no phones.
You are talking about something you know nothing about. I live here and I know exactly what those shelters have and do not have.

It made sense for him to head to the shelter because he could have gone inside and got warmed up but not to find non-existent staff or phones and also because the safest route back to the valley was over the peak and down the "normal route" and not back down the Stüdlgrat they came up. The issue was everything that happened before he left her and the circumstances in which she was left. .

A court has found him guilty of causing death by gross negligence. You were not in court and neither was I. The judge had access to all the reports and to the testimonies of the witnesses and decided that the man was guilty.

The problems with the climb began at 8.15 pm when a rope got caught. After an hour and a half they sorted it out and at that stage Kirsten had injured her hand. This is the testimony of the accused who has rightly been found guilty of gross negligence.

And the things he should have done differently would likely have saved her life. That's why he's responsible. She didn't die because she had the wrong shoes.

The fact that he abandoned a previous gf shows a pattern

An ex-girlfriend, called as a witness, testified that she had also climbed the Großglockner with Thomas P in 2023. She said he had abandoned her on the route at night after her head torch ran out of battery, leaving her distressed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/20/austria-climber-convicted-manslaughter-girlfriend-kerstin-g-grossglockner-mountain

Yes. It’s just like the pp who mentioned an ex who would take her to places where she would struggle or look ridiculous in the shoes she was wearing, eg high heels in a farmyard. A deliberate, calculated oneupmanship that some men do to crush women in small ways, that can escalate but by bit all the way up to violence and death.
I had an ex who did things like this. He once took me out to dinner, knowing I had no money on me, then deliberately picked an argument and walked out. Some men really do have this deep hatred of women and will get them to do things where the man has more power.

Jesus wept.
She wasn't capable of putting on her blanket and bivvy. That's the point. He left her because she had stopped being capable of anything. He was capable of hiking 3 more hours, she was not. It was 100% his responsibility to ensure she was as safe as possible before he left her. Not hers. She was already in serious trouble at that point. Why are you so determined to give her 'agency' that you're ignoring all sense and logic and exonerating him of any responsibility towards her?

100m down a 'path' on a top level difficulty mountain in a storm is enough to lose the person forever. Don't talk shite.

Why is this man not serving a life sentence in prison, instead of a short suspended sentence.

The court said he went to the shelter to find help.
They did not specify (from what I can see) whether this help would be from staff, other climbers or something else.

He did not go to the shelter to get warm - he headed there for help.
As you say it was also the safest route back down to get help so it made sense.

The courts acknowledged that he went there first.
They also acknowledged that his phone was running out of battery.

He was found guilty and given a 5 month suspended sentence, of which I agree with.
As he did nothing intentional but in hindsight could have made better choices that may have had a better outcome.

Anything leading up to the event (like wearing the wrong shoes) was her own fault though and the misogyny on here is what I disagree with.

Agree. And she was highly likely to have been too unwell to have wrapped herself in her blanket and got into her shelter by the time she had to stop, or obviously she would have. It’s absolutely obvious that you would wrap and shelter someone unwell and unable to carry on, if you yourself had to leave to get help in this sort of weather.
The fact he abandoned a previous girlfriend in very similar circumstances tells you everything you need to know about what kind of man this is.

You are still completely ignoring the testament of the former girlfriend and what it says about his character.

It’s odd he went to get help when he could call for help there. Why would someone not just call

His phone had battery, it might have been low but it wasn't flat. There was no 'help' at the shelter apart from for him to get out of the elements. And as an experienced climber he would have known that. He could have called 3 hours sooner. He didn't need to hike to a shelter to phone for help, he phoned from his mobile once he reached the shelter (where he was nice and safe while his girlfriend was dying)
There is no misogyny on this thread. You have swung so far to correct imaginary misogyny that you're defending a man who left his girlfriend to die. Is that really the position you want to take?

The sentence isn’t even active yet. Defence has two more days to accept it from what I’ve read in Austrian newspapers and they can choose to appeal.

her mother appears to side with the BF and gave an interview stating she didn’t like her late daughter being portrayed as inexperienced and malleable.

He tied her to a rock on an exposed ridge without getting her blanket and bivvy on. According to him he went back but she was still talking at this stage saying "go on, save yourself."

This was recorded in court.

I’m not ignoring it but there was no arrest made in connection to it.

There are also countless testaments from people including the deceased own mother, who claim he would never harm her and this was a pure accident and he is not at fault - so why are you ignoring all of those testimonies?
Surely the opinion of the mother of the deceased carries quite a lot of weight.

I personally am not focusing on the testimonies or the emotional behind it and focusing more on just the facts and evidence provided.

@Tacohilldoes he say in court why he didn’t just call for help using a phone?