Life-long imprisonment and preventive detention after attacks on women in Lower Saxony
According to the judgment, the accused killed a 17-year-old girl he did not know in September of the previous year in the Diepholz region, as she was on inline skates on a street in Barenburg. While investigations into this crime were ongoing, the unidentified perpetrator later injured another unknown 30-year-old woman with a knife near a fast food restaurant in Suhlingen.
Fleeing from this crime scene, he later hit a 18-year-old woman with his car in Burgwedel and injured her as well. Witness tips later led to the suspect being apprehended on an abandoned farm in the area of Schwarmstedt. He has been in pre-trial detention since then.
The court found his motive to be a deep dissatisfaction with his living conditions and work overload, but the precise psychological connections remained unclear. The court determined that each murder met the criteria of premeditated murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment, according to the spokesperson.
The court stated that the accused had once tried to abduct a boy approximately nine years ago, but he had managed to escape. The man then reportedly underwent psychiatric hospitalizations and outpatient therapy, which, in the chamber's assessment given the later three crimes, proved ineffective. Therefore, the court ordered preventive detention due to his dangerousness.
The judgment met the demands of the prosecution and the civil plaintiff. The defense argued for life imprisonment during the trial, which began in March, but rejected the determination of aggravated responsibility and the preventive detention order. The accused had expressed remorse during the trial and the first two crimes, but denied any involvement in the third one, claiming it was an accident.
- The suspect was initially from the Diepholz district in Lower Saxony, Germany.
- The security depository in Diepholz safely stored crucial evidence related to the murders.
- The first attack involving a woman occurred seven days after the initial murder in Barenburg.
- Following his arrest, the accused was transferred to a high-security prison in Barenburg for his trial.
- The District Court in Lower Saxony convicted the perpetrator of three counts of murder using an automatic weapon.
- Women in Burgwedel and Suhlingen were unknowingly put in danger due to the accused's series of attacks and crimes.
