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In chat messages, the husband reportedly described his wife as 'dead meat'
An Austrian woman was discovered dead by her teenage daughter at the family's home in Marchtrenk, in the north of the country.
Prosecutors at the Wels regional court have since labelled the case "Pelicot 2.0" after a post-mortem examination determined the 39-year-old had died following a sexual assault.
Her 51-year-old husband now stands accused of repeatedly sedating his wife and offering other men the opportunity to rape her while she lay unconscious, allegedly charging them €500 (£429) per assault.
The grim moniker references the landmark French case of Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband was convicted of orchestrating her drugging and rape by dozens of strangers.
When police initially responded to the scene on June 26, the husband claimed his wife had died accidentally during "rough sex," and officers did not at first suspect any criminal act.
That account unravelled following the post-mortem results and subsequent inquiries.
Investigators who seized the man's mobile phone found he had searched for home remedies capable of rendering a person unconscious in the days leading up to his wife's death.
He is also alleged to have got rid of the waterbed on which the woman died and removed an application from his phone.
In chat messages, the husband reportedly described his wife as "dead meat."
He is now being investigated for sexual assault of a defenceless person resulting in death.
A 51-year-old neighbour has been taken into custody after admitting to sexually assaulting the woman on two occasions, one of which was the night she died.
Messages exchanged between the two men allegedly reveal a pattern of discussing the abuse of the victim.
On the evening she was killed, the husband is accused of sending the neighbour a photograph of his unconscious wife alongside the words: "I'll get her properly drunk. Then you can have sex with her again."
In response, the neighbour reportedly thanked the husband for "allowing me to use her".
Police have confirmed that they are still investigating additional suspects.
The case has drawn immediate parallels with the trial of Dominique Pelicot, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in France.
The 73-year-old was found guilty of drugging his then-wife and recruiting more than 50 men to assault her at their home in southern France over a period spanning nearly a decade.
Pelicot used an online chatroom named "Against her knowledge" to find the men, while crushing sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs into his wife's food and drink to knock her out.
Gisèle Pelicot became a global figure after choosing to forgo anonymity and demand a public trial, declaring: "It's not for us to have shame, it's for them."
