Bloody end to long disputes: One year after the murder of three neighbors, a 65-year-old sports shooter was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Augsburg Regional Court. The criminal court also determined that the crime was particularly serious. If the verdict for triple murder and two attempted murders becomes final, the German citizen’s release on probation after just 15 years in prison would be significantly more difficult.
By passing the guilty verdict, the criminal chamber followed the prosecutor’s request. The defense attorney immediately announced that he would file an appeal with the Federal Court of Justice. Attorney Walter Rubach had requested a maximum prison sentence of 15 years because his client was of diminished responsibility due to a mental illness. This was confirmed by an expert commissioned by the defense.
The background to the bloody act with a pistol were recurring disputes between neighbors in the apartment building in Langweid in the Augsburg district. According to the investigation, the defendant killed two women and a man with shots to the head within just 16 seconds on July 28, 2023. The trigger is said to have been another argument with nasty mutual insults between the defendant and a neighbor, as a result of which the neighbor also alerted the police.
Since one of the murder victims had activated an audio recording on his cell phone a few minutes before the crime, there is an exact audio document of the gruesome crime. The 65-year-old allegedly ambushed a couple from the neighborhood in the stairwell and practically executed the 49 and 52-year-old couple with a pistol that he owned legally. He then allegedly shot a 72-year-old neighbor through her apartment door. The defendant allegedly fired in the area of the peephole because he suspected that the woman was looking through the peephole because of the shots – which is exactly what happened.
The man then drove to the home of two relatives of the deceased pensioner and seriously injured them by firing more shots through their apartment door. Both of them are still suffering from the crime, especially psychologically.
“Actually, it was the motive of vigilantism,” says the judge
The criminal court is convinced that the defendant acted out of anger at the neighbors, hatred and revenge. He wanted to clean up the house. “Actually, it was a motive of vigilantism,” said presiding judge Michael Eberle. The sports shooter pronounced a death sentence on the other residents of the house and carried it out immediately.
After the guilty verdict, Eberle gave the defendant another 15 minutes to think about immediately accepting the verdict – a highly unusual procedure. This way, the man could perhaps correct the image that people had of him, the judge said. But after a quarter of an hour, defense attorney Rubach stated that his client did not accept the verdict. “I have never experienced anything like this in 45 years,” the experienced defense attorney later commented on the final pause for thought.
The defendant had mostly followed the reasoning behind the verdict with a stubborn look ahead, largely emotionless, as he had been sitting in the dock for most days of the trial. He had claimed that he could no longer remember the crime. The court did not believe this, however.
The crime sparked a new debate about gun laws a year ago. The accused had held a gun permit for decades as a sports shooter, and he had owned the weapon used in the crime for almost a quarter of a century. The Augsburg district office stressed that the man had been regularly checked by the weapons authority and that there had been no irregularities. District administrator Martin Sailer (CSU) expressed understanding for the renewed debate about gun laws. A few days after the crime, he stressed: “As a legal supervisory authority, we are not responsible for this, it is purely a political decision.”