German castle attack: American victims in deadly Neuschwanstein tourist attack are named

Eva Liu and Kelsey Chang were shoved down 164 feet into a ravine. Liu was airlifted to a hospital in serious condition and died on Thursday night.

Ms Chang suffered bruises and lacerations to her head but much of the impact was blunted by a tree, according to the Mail.

She was transported to a hospital and was still recovering as of Friday morning.

Liu succumbed to her injuries on Thursday night.

The two women were rescued by the Füssen mountain rescue service. It is unclear, however, how much time passed between the attack and their rescue, or who alerted emergency services of the assault.

Due to the harsh terrain around the gorge, specially trained members of the Alpine Task Force were involved in the attempted rescue of both women.

Ms Chang remained conscious and was taken to a hospital, while Liu was airlifted to a different hospital in serious condition.

Liu succumbed to her injuries on Thursday night.

Witness Eric Abneri, a recent business graduate from the University of Pittsburgh who witnessed the incident, said he and friends arrived at the scenic overlook as a helicopter arrived and they saw rescuers lower themselves down to the victims.

“I’m honestly absolutely stunned someone is still alive from this. It is like falling from the top of an absolute cliff,” he said.

Mr Abneri described it as “a very, very difficult rescue because of those cliffs and because the helicopter came mere feet above the tree line at the top of the hill.”

“They did an unbelievable job,” he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the two American women were on a hiking trail east of the Marienbrücke Bridge, an attraction just an hour’s drive from Munich that is popular among visitors for its sweeping views of the Neuschwanstein Castle.

They met a man and joined him along the trail just moments before the tragedy unfolded.

“The man then steered the two under a pretext to a trail that was difficult to see, which leads to a viewpoint,” Bavarian police said in a statement. “According to the current state of knowledge, an attempted sexual offence to the detriment of the 21-year-old must be assumed.”

Once out of sight, the 30-year-old assailant reportedly tried to attack the women, going after Liu first, prompting Ms Chang to try and defend her friend, police said.

“The younger of the two women was attacked by the suspect,” police spokesman Holger Stabik told the AP. “The older one tried to rush to her aid, was then choked by the suspect and subsequently pushed down a slope.”

After that, the man made an attempted sexual offence on Liu and pushed her over the ledge as well. She fell nearly 164ft and landed next to her friend.

Eva Liu, 21, and Kelsey Chang, 22, had travelled to Germany following their May graduation from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, DailyMail.com first reported.

A university spokesperson confirmed in a statement to The Independent that Ms Chang and Liu were shoved down into a ravine near the historic Neuschwanstein Castle in the German state of Bavaria on Wednesday. Liu died as a result of injuries she sustained during the 164ft fall, while Ms Chang remains in hospital.

Police are investigating the incident at the famous Neuschwanstein castle as murder.

The Independent’s Andrea Blanco and Josh Marcus explain what we know so far:

The suspect was caught after a massive police operation involving 25 emergency vehicles on Wednesday afternoon and taken to a police station in nearby Fuessen.

The American suspect is in a German correctional facility, as officials investigate the attack as a potential sexual offence, murder, and attempted murder.

“The allegation is not yet established,” prosecutor Hörmann told DW.

Kempten criminal police are leading the investigation, and are asking those with knowledge of the incident to get in contact with them.

Bavarian police led away a handcuffed, bearded man in a T-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap.

“The man then steered the two under a pretext to a trail that was difficult to see, which leads to a viewpoint,” Bavarian police said in a statement. “According to the current state of knowledge, an attempted sexual offence to the detriment of the 21-year-old must be assumed.”

Once out of sight, the 30-year-old assailant reportedly tried to attack 21-year-old Eva Liu, prompting her friend Kelsey Chang, 22, to try and defend her, police said.

“The younger of the two women was attacked by the suspect,” police spokesman Holger Stabik told the AP. “The older one tried to rush to her aid, was then choked by the suspect and subsequently pushed down a slope.”

Just weeks before the tragedy, Eva Liu was awarded a computer science degree, while Ms Chang received a bachelor’s in computer engineering.

Liu had landed a role as a software engineer at Microsoft after finishing an internship with the company during her last semester, she wrote in a LinkedIn post.