Murder trial - Woman strangled with woolen scarf: Murderer convicted again
A murderer already convicted in Hesse has been sentenced to life imprisonment for another murder at Trier Regional Court. The 56-year-old strangled a woman with a woollen scarf after an argument in her apartment in Trier in March 2012, said the presiding judge Petra Schmitz on Tuesday in Trier.
The victim was "completely helpless and defenceless": He had wrapped the scarf around the neck of the 57-year-old, who had been sitting in an armchair, from behind and pulled it closed. Schmitz said that he reserved the right to place the man in preventive detention. However, the court did not see any particular severity of guilt.
The background to the argument was "jealousy": The woman, a former girlfriend of the perpetrator, had repeatedly claimed that she had recently been given a stuffed frog with a red heart by him. He denied this. The man's then current girlfriend was also present at the crime. The three people belonged to the homeless scene and met regularly to drink alcohol, said Schmitz.
In order to put an end to the "latent anger" over the stuffed animal, he then decided to kill the 57-year-old. He later hid the body in the attic of the apartment building. Then he fled. The woman's rented apartment was evicted after her disappearance. The remains were only discovered years later in September 2016 when the attic was cleared out.
This is the man's second conviction for murder: he is already in prison, having been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder by the Darmstadt Regional Court in Hesse in early 2015. According to the judge's ruling, he had killed a homeless man with brute force in Rüsselsheim in April 2012 - one month after the crime charged in Trier - after a drinking session. His girlfriend at the time was jailed for twelve years for manslaughter.
The verdict in Trier is not yet final.
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Source: www.stern.de
