Another mummy is reputed to have a curse. Five involved in the recovery of Oetzi the Iceman, who died violently 5,300 years ago, have met their death. Whether they died naturally or under unusual circumstances, speculation has spread about the possibility of a curse, "King Tut" style.
One who met his end was forensic medic Dr. Rainer Hann, who had placed the Iceman's corpse into a body bag. He died in a traffic accident.
Another was Rainer Hoelz, who had filmed the Iceman's removal from the ice; he died of a brain tumor.
A third was Kurt Fritz, who had been in charge of the Iceman's transport by helicopter. A snowslide killed him. And in October 2004, the actual co-discoverer of the Iceman, Helmut Simon, died of a fall after some dangerous weather arrived. When found, he was frozen in ice and snow — an iceman himself.
On April 18, 2005, Innsbruck University's Konrad Spindler died at the age of 66. He had been in charge of the Iceman investigation, after the ancient mummy of the warrior was found in 1991 in the Similaun glacier on Italy and Austria's border. While he died due to a preexisting chronic disease, many nevertheless connected it to the series of unusual deaths. Spindler had even joked about the supposed curse, saying that the next one could be him.
The Guardian Unlimited, http://www.guardian.co.uk/, 4/20/05
ABC News Online (Australia), http://www.abc.net.au/news/, 2/18/05