The 14-year-old scion of an ancient German aristocratic family has been found dead at the bottom of a 15 meter well on the grounds of his grandfather's baroque palace in Bavaria, police said.

Felix von Quistorp went missing last Thursday. "We assume it was an accident. Murder or suicide look unlikely," said local police chief Peter Schnitte.

Divers found his body in a well that used to be the main source of water to the 17th century palace. The water at the bottom was six meters deep. "Felix probably fell in or climbed in," said Schnitte. The body couldn't be seen from the top of the well. Divers found it submerged on Wednesday morning.

Felix, who lived in Potsdam near Berlin, had been spending Christmas with his family at the castle of his grandfather, Erasmus von Fürstenberg, in the village of Hohentann-Weihenstephan, southern Germany.