Dog-Walker Saw Chainsaw Suspect in Swiss Woods

A woman who walks her dog in the woods just south of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen says she has seen the suspect in Monday's chainsaw attack several times in the last few weeks.

A woman who walks her dog in the woods just south of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen says she has seen the suspect in Monday's chainsaw attack several times in the last few weeks.

Therese Karrer, who lives in the small village of Uhwiesen, said Monday: "I talked to him a few times and walked by his car every day with our dog."

Karrer said suspect Franz Wrousis showed up three or four weeks ago in the forest. He chatted with her once when he was having breakfast. She says "he may have been a little strange, but he wasn't unfriendly — I never felt threatened."

Swiss police, who are still hunting for Wrousis, described him as aggressive and unstable. They say he wounded five people in a Swiss insurance office Monday in Schaffhausen.

---

4:15 p.m.

Swiss authorities have identified the suspected perpetrator of the chainsaw attack in Schaffhausen as a 51-year-old man who has two previous convictions for contraventions of weapons laws.

Police official Ravi Landolt identified the man as Franz Wrousis on Wednesday. Prosecutor Peter Sticher said the man had no fixed address but previously had been registered himself as living in the southeastern Swiss canton (state) of Graubuenden.

Landolt says Wrousis has two previous convictions, dating back to 2014 and 2016, for contraventions of weapons laws. He didn't elaborate.

Wrousis is on the run. Five people were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously. ___

2:30 p.m.

The Swiss newspaper Blick is quoting an insurance company as saying that two of its employees in the northern city of Schaffhausen had to be taken to a hospital after an attack by a man wielding a chainsaw.

Insurer CSS spokeswoman Christina Wettstein told Blick the two were undergoing medical operations after the Monday morning attack and she doesn't know how they are doing.

She says it's not clear who the other three wounded people are and the company is checking to see if they customers.

Swiss police are hunting for the man who wounded five people in the city on the border with Germany and have sealed off the city's Old Town area. They say the attack was "not a terrorist act."

---

1:30 p.m.

Police say that a man who wounded several people in the northern city of Schaffhausen was armed with a chainsaw.

Speaking shortly after the Monday morning attack, they say they've issued a description of the man, who is on the run. They say five people were taken to hospitals, two with serious injuries, following the attack on Monday morning.

They say they have now identified the suspect, adding that he is about 1 meter 90 centimeters (6.2 feet) tall, bald and with an unkempt appearance. He's believed to be driving a Volkswagen vehicle with Swiss plates. Police say that the attack "is not a terrorist act."

---

1:10 p.m.

Swiss police say five people have been hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, following an apparent attack in the northern city of Schaffhausen. Authorities are searching for a man.

Police spokeswoman Cindy Beer told SRF television that police were alerted at 10.39 a.m. Monday (0839 GMT) to the incident. She said "we can't say exactly what happened at this point."

She added: "We just know that a person wounded several people." The man's whereabouts are currently unknown.

Beer said police can't say with certainty what implement the man used to wound the others.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.