The baby was born in a bathroom. It was viable but was not allowed to live. It smothered in a plastic bag. The Bayreuth district court sentenced the child’s mother to five years and nine months in prison for manslaughter on Tuesday. The chamber considered it proven that the 20-year-old had secretly given birth to the child in the bathroom of a friend’s apartment last July.
She hadn’t told anyone about her pregnancy. She even denied this when her boyfriend and his mother asked her directly about it. The friend and the mother encouraged her and assured her that she would manage the situation with a baby together, said the presiding judge Andrea Deyerling. But the defendant wanted “everything to stay the way it is”.
When visiting an acquaintance in the Bayreuth district, the accused went into labor. With an opaque garbage bag, she disappeared into the bathroom. After the birth, the baby was viable and breathed independently, Deyerling referred to forensic reports: “The child was healthy.” The then 19-year-old put the child in the plastic packaging of toilet paper, then in the garbage bag. “The child died by suffocation as intended by the defendant.”
The accused acted quickly to cover up their actions. Your friend slept next door. The body was later found in the trash cans of the apartment building. At the start of the process, the young woman had shown remorse. Her attorney had said she avoided eye contact with the child and condoned giving birth to a healthy baby and not helping him. She talked herself into a stillbirth “so as not to have to deal with the terrible situation that a child died here”. Today she wishes nothing more than not to have failed in the situation.
The defendant took note of the verdict. When she left the courtroom, she had pulled the hood of her jacket down over her face. The public prosecutor’s office and the defense waived further appeals, the verdict is final.