Children drugged and suffocated: Trial against mother planned
A woman will stand trial from St. Nicholas Day onwards for the alleged murder of her two children in Hockenheim (Rhine-Neckar district) at Easter. According to information provided on Wednesday, the Mannheim District Court has scheduled five further trial dates until the beginning of January. The mother is said to have first drugged her seven and nine-year-old children on Holy Saturday and then suffocated them. On Easter Sunday, she informed the police by email that she had done something bad and that the officers would have to come. She then wanted to kill herself.
According to the court, the German woman, who was 43 years old at the time of the crime, has a personality disorder as a result of brain damage. In the fall of 2018, the woman had moved out of the family home and the children had alternated between staying with the accused and their father.
Due to her illness, the defendant had formed the irrational and uncorrectable conviction that her children were in existential danger due to alleged psychological and physical abuse by their father, the court stated. Due to her illness, she is said to have come to the conclusion that the only way out was to kill her children and herself.
It is possible that the woman was of diminished capacity at the time of the crime, according to the statement. However, the trial is not initially about the placement of the accused in a psychiatric ward. The trial will take place before the first criminal chamber.
The court will need to consider whether the defendant's processes were impaired due to her mental health condition during the crime. Despite her illness, the woman's actions led to a series of emergency situations, with the police being alerted and investigations starting.
Source: www.dpa.com
