Tragically chilling message man sent girlfriend after ‘leaving her to freeze to death’ on mountain

A man who has been charged with manslaughter left a tragic note to his girlfriend after she froze to death on a mountain. 33-year-old Kerstin Gurtner had been hiking up Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain, with her boyfriend when she died.

Thomas Plamberger, who is a seasoned mountaineer, has since been charged with manslaughter over her death. The pair had been hiking the 12,460ft mountain in January, when temperatures dropped to -20 degrees. Gurtner’s legs are said to have given up from exhaustion at around 9:50pm, when they were 150ft from the summit.

It wasn’t until around 2am that 36-year-old Plamberger left to search for help, but Gurtner later died from the extreme cold. A helicopter search mission was called off at approximately 7am due to winds. Three hours later, a search team found her body. Officials have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident for the last 11 months, and have now issued the charges.

Kerstin Gurtner

It’s been reported that Plamberger left a message on social media to his late girlfriend, but he’s since deleted it. “I miss you so much. It hurts so incredibly much,” Bild reported he wrote. “Forever in my heart. Without you, time is meaningless.”

The public prosecutor’s office is now said to be charging him with negligent homicide. If found guilty, he could face three years in prison.

Prosecutors said: “At approximately 2am, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 metres below the summit cross of the Grossglockner. The woman froze to death. Since the defendant, unlike his girlfriend, was already very experienced with alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the tour, he was to be considered the responsible guide of the tour.

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“Despite the woman’s inexperience – she had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of this length, difficulty, and altitude. And despite the challenging winter conditions, the defendant undertook the alpine high-altitude tour to the Grossglockner via the Stüdlgrat with her in winter.”

Plamberger has denied the charges, and instead has said his girlfriend’s death was an accident. He said it was a “mutual agreement” between the couple for him to leave her to get help, and called the incident “tragic” and “fateful”.

Prosecutors also noted that Plamberger did not alert emergency services until it got late into the night, and made no effort to signal a police helicopter that flew above him and his girlfriend at 10:50pm. He has also been accused of making a call to mountain police, and then putting his phone on silent.

A webcam image shared by local media shows the pair during their ascent, via foto-webcam.eu

Prosecution also accused him of leaving his girlfriend “defenceless, exhausted, hypothermic and disorientated” by not attempting to move her to somewhere with better shelter, or giving her a foil blanket. An image time stamped at 2:30am showed Plamberger alone, pushing to descend to the other side of Grossglockner mountain.

His trial is due to take place in February 2026.

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