A 51-year-old man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his nine-year-old son. The act was very difficult to grasp even after seven days of trial, especially for the mother and sister of the killed boy, it was incomprehensible, said the judge at the Bamberg regional court when the verdict was pronounced on Friday. The court considered it proven that in March the 51-year-old hit the nine-year-old with a metal hanger on the head “with considerable force” and then choked him for minutes with his bare hands. “That means: looking the son in the eye,” said the judge. The man had made a full confession to the police and in court.
The question of “why?” could therefore not be clearly clarified for the court. Several aspects were mentioned: the wife had separated from the man months earlier, the family was in debt, he was worried about his job. In addition, the man suffered from depression, according to his own statements, he wanted to kill himself, but did not manage to do so after the crime on his son. One reviewer found mild depression – not a “severe depression” that would have made possible the reduced guilt that the 51-year-old’s defense had brought into play. The verdict is not yet legally binding.