Verdict - Sleeping wife beaten to death with a hammer: life imprisonment
Six months after the violent death of a 73-year-old woman in Viersen, the Mönchengladbach Regional Court sentenced her husband to life imprisonment for murder on Wednesday. The 75-year-old pensioner had confessed to beating his sleeping wife to death with a hammer at the end of May.
According to his own statement, the pensioner wanted to spare her an old age in poverty. The couple had repeatedly supported their chronically ill and professionally failed 47-year-old son financially and had run up debts. The debts had threatened their existence, the defendant said in court. He had seen no other way out than to commit the crime.
The court found the reasoning barely comprehensible. According to the testimony of a bank employee, a debt of around 32,000 euros was "still manageable even at that age", said presiding judge Martin Alberring. "If they had not supported their now 47-year-old son so massively, there would have been no shortage at all," he reproached the defendant. From the court's point of view, the crime remained a mystery. The motive could not be clarified.
There was also no evidence of an act of passion, the presiding judge said in his verdict. Neither had the couple argued before the crime, nor had the pensioner been disinhibited by alcohol.
The fact that the wife had been asleep for some time on the night of May 31 and that he first had to fetch the hammer from an anteroom also spoke against an act of passion. The defendant then struck the sleeping, helpless and defenceless woman. According to the judge, this "fulfills the murder criterion of malice".
A psychiatric expert had classified the pensioner as fully culpable at the time of the crime. In the case of diminished culpability, a prison sentence of several years for manslaughter would also have been possible. The 75-year-old did not embellish anything in court and confessed fully.
The verdict is not yet final. Defense lawyer Gerd Meister assumes that the pensioner acted with affect and reduced culpability. He intends to appeal the verdict. However, it was unclear on Wednesday whether the 75-year-old will do the same. According to his defense lawyer, he has already resigned himself to the sentence and a life in prison.
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- The pensioner's crime took place in Viersen, a city located in North Rhine-Westphalia.
- The tragic event occurred in Mönchengladbach, which is also part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
- The victim's funeral arrangements might require the involvement of authorities in Viersen, given that she passed away in this city.
Source: www.stern.de
