Austrian skull: 60 years after tourist stole it from a cathedral, he sent it back

"It's not something you expect," says Franz Zehetner, who opened the parcel addressed to Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral.

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The cathedral archivist admits to being taken aback by the package, but alongside the skull was a letter of explanation.

A man in northern Germany said he had stolen the skull as a young tourist about 60 years before and now wanted to hand it back.

He had taken it while on a guided tour of the catacombs beneath St Stephen's which contain the remains of about 11,000 people buried during the 18th Century.

In his letter, the tourist with the guilty conscience described how he wanted to make peace with himself as he came towards the end of his life.