Police officers found the bodies of the man's wife and seven-year-old daughter in his home in an affluent part of the Austrian capital and determined both had been killed with an axe, police said.

The daughter's body was found in a walk-in closet and the wife in a bathroom, they said.

Both bodies had cloths draped over them.

Authorities also discovered the bodies of his parents and father-in-law in Upper Austria province, in the cities of Ansfelden and Linz.

Investigators told reporters in Vienna that the man turned himself in yesterday morning and told police what had happened.

The man, identified only as a 39-year-old self-employed public relations consultant, said he wanted to spare his family the shame of financial ruin he caused through speculative financial dealings, criminal investigator Thomas Stecher said.

His wife worked in the Finance Ministry.

The man indicated he had "massive money problems," Stecher said.

The man said he borrowed the money he lost from family members, but it was not immediately clear from whom exactly, Stecher said.

The total in question was a six-figure euro amount, he added.

Police said the man told them he began by killing his 42-year-old wife and daughter early on Tuesday morning, before driving to Ansfelden where he beat his parents - ages 72 and 69 - to death.

He said he then drove to Linz, where he murdered his 80-year-old father-in-law in the early evening, according to police.

The man is currently undergoing further questioning in Vienna.

"He is completely matter of fact ...

almost without emotion," Stecher said.

Nampa-AP

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