He is considered a reliable and loving father – then a 34-year-old road builder from Baden-Baden murders his son’s playground friend in order to desecrate her corpse. The man must now be imprisoned for life for the unbelievable crime. He owes an explanation for this.
A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the horrific murder of a six-year-old girl from Baden-Baden. The district court also determined that the guilt was particularly serious. This means that early release from prison after 15 years is virtually impossible. The court saw it as proven that the 34-year-old killed the girl with a knife on the night of December 19 last year for sexual motives and attacked the corpse. “Sexual arousal was the reason,” said presiding judge Stefan Schmid.
The six-year-old had stayed with the accused’s son – he was her playground friend. The six-year-old had already stayed twice before with other children at the playground friend. The girl’s mother knew the host father from the playground. The trained road builder was considered a reliable and loving father. He was popular with children. Nothing indicated to the mother that her daughter could be in danger with him.
The last night was not planned. But the two children, after meeting at the playground, begged that they be allowed to spend the night together. The mother allowed herself to be persuaded. A last kiss, a loving farewell: “I hugged her and told her that we’ll see each other again tomorrow,” the mother recalled that Saturday before Christmas a year ago. She was connected to the trial via video transmission so that she did not have to sit across from the accused.
The mother never saw her child alive again. The girl became the victim of a horrific crime. The court could not fully clarify what exactly happened in the house that night. It is clear that the girl was killed with a precise neck cut. The judge said it was sleeping or at least lying quietly. The accused desecrated the body. “He mutilated him in some of the worst ways.” The whole thing had “features of a ritual and amok-like behavior,” said the judge.
The accused then tried to kill himself. He set fire – probably to take his life and his son. Four of the man’s relatives were sleeping in the house at the time. The district court convicted the man of murder and disturbing the peace of the dead and, among other things, of attempted murder in the case of his six-year-old son. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The German, who did not have a criminal record, failed to provide an explanation for the incomprehensible crime. The man with the short dark blond hair and the eye-catching neck tattoo remained silent throughout the process. He did not consent to being examined by a psychiatrist. From the point of view of an expert, however, there was nothing to suggest that the criminal liability was reduced.
The girl’s father, who followed the trial as a joint plaintiff, hoped to the last that the murderer would break his silence. Vain. “The exact sequence of events remains a mystery,” said his lawyer. The defendant’s public defender said: Some things cannot be understood.