Ex-Boyfriend Confesses to Strangling Austrian Influencer

Austrian beauty influencer Stefanie Pieper, 31, from Graz, was found dead in a remote forest in Slovenia on Saturday, nearly a week after she vanished from her home. Authorities say her ex-boyfriend, a 31-year-old Slovenian citizen living in Austria, confessed to strangling her and led investigators to the site where he had buried her remains in a suitcase.

Pieper was last seen early Sunday morning when she stepped out of a taxi with a friend outside her apartment in Graz, Austria's second-largest city. She had attended a holiday gathering that evening. The next day, she failed to appear for a scheduled modeling photoshoot, prompting colleagues and relatives to alert authorities. When police visited her apartment, they found her Golden Retriever alone inside and her phone powered off.

Investigators quickly focused on Pieper's ex-boyfriend, described as her on-and-off partner and a part-time security guard. Neighbors reported hearing loud arguments and noises from her apartment around the time of her disappearance. In her final WhatsApp messages to a friend, Pieper wrote that she had arrived home safely but then described seeing a dark figure, whom she called a "creep," in the...