Bavaria: 14-year-old is charged with murdering a child his own age

Bavaria
14-year-old is charged with murdering a peer

He is said to have acted out of pure desire to murder, following the example of an American serial killer: less than four months after the violent death of a 14-year-old in Lohr am Main, Lower Franconia, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating a man of the same age Accused of murder. “He only committed the crime to kill someone,” said a spokesman for the authority in Würzburg.

According to previous findings, the defendant probably worshiped the serial criminal Jeffrey Dahmer, who committed one of the most gruesome murder series in the USA and about whom there is a Netflix series – Dahmer dismembered his at least 17 male victims between 1978 and 1991 and ate body parts. The “Main-Post” had previously reported.

The now accused German is said to have killed his victim with a shot in the head from behind on a school campus in the small town of Lohr in the Main-Spessart district on September 8, 2023. According to the investigators, there have been no indications of other perpetrators or helpers. The Würzburg regional court must now decide whether to admit the charges and set trial dates.

Teenagers with a lust for murder?

The suspect has remained silent about the allegations since his arrest. According to investigators, the young man was fascinated by the murderer Dahmer, known as the “Cannibal of Milwaukee.” “He probably had friends call him that name,” said the spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office. He committed the crime out of pure murderous desire.

The murder weapon, a 9-millimeter pistol, legally belonged to a neighbor of the defendant. According to the police, he had all permits. He also stored his weapons properly.

How the student got the gun is not publicly known. The gun owner could not be questioned after the crime because he was in the hospital. He died a few weeks after the crime. The 66-year-old is said to have known the young man.

After the crime, the investigative commission, with the support of the riot police and specially trained data carrier dogs, searched for the victim’s cell phone for days. It was eventually found – whether it helped the investigators any further is unknown.

A 15-year-old alerted the police to the events on the day of the crime, a Friday during the summer holidays. A little later, patrol officers discovered the dead 14-year-old. He was an Italian citizen and had lived in Lohr for years. The boy was lying in bushes near the school center where he attended middle school. The suspect was arrested a short time later.

The defendant is of criminal responsibility

Criminal responsibility begins on the person’s 14th birthday. In German criminal law, even for serious crimes, you can only be punished if you acted culpably – and this requires insight and control.

Since children under 14 generally do not have this, the legislature has decided that they are incompetent. In the case of young people of criminal responsibility, their maturity to recognize the injustice of the crime and to act accordingly must be positively established.

If there were to be a trial against the defendant, the youth chamber of the regional court would be entrusted with the matter. The public would be excluded from the proceedings; according to the law, this is always the case if the proceedings are directed exclusively against a young person.

The defendant is a young person within the meaning of the law who is particularly worthy of protection. In juvenile proceedings, the idea of ​​education is in the foreground, as a court spokesman explained. According to the court, elements of compensatory guilt can also be taken into account when punishing the crime, especially in the case of serious crimes.

For juveniles, the maximum sentence for murder is ten years. However, preventive detention is possible under strict conditions.

dpa