Disturbing motives
Mother is said to have murdered her two small children – arrested eleven years after the first crime
Press conference by the police and public prosecutor’s office in Bochum after the murder of two children
© Fabian Strauch / DPA
Coincidence helped the police on the trail. A decade after the crimes, the Bochum police arrested the alleged murderer of two small children – their own mother. The woman’s possible motives are disturbing.
Murder never expires. That is a criminalistic truism – and yet it is always confirmation for investigators when they can solve a homicide many years later.
Public prosecutor Dietrich Streßig and the head of the “Hieronymus” investigative group, Stefanie Lienemann, said they were correspondingly satisfied with the work of their officers at their brief press conference in Bochum’s police headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, even though the tragedy of the case was obvious to them.
Mother from Herne is said to have murdered two of her sons
A mother from Herne, then in her early 20s, is said to have killed her two little sons (two and 19 months old) in 2011 and 2012, and she is said to have tried it on a third son (2 years old) in 2018. Now, eleven years after the first act, the woman has been arrested.
The police got on the track of the 33-year-old, “by chance” and the “gut feeling” of a doctor, as it was said. Because the murders were only recognized as such from 2018.
The suspicion is that the woman suffocated her two sons with a pillow or a blanket – and then, after suspected respiratory arrest, herself alerted the rescue workers. Despite resuscitation, the infant and the toddler each died a little later in the hospital.
According to the police, neither the mother’s statements nor the respective autopsy results have suggested homicides at the time. Medical emergencies were assumed. The cases were therefore not publicly known until now. The third son survived what is believed to have been an attempt to asphyxiate himself by his mother.
The suspicion against the woman only arose after the third child had been taken to a Bochum hospital in April 2018 after the alleged attempted murder – and a doctor had started researching and informed the youth welfare office. “Here the old cases were reassessed and in connection with the new case there were new forensic announcements, which ultimately led to us initiating the investigation,” said public prosecutor Streßig. “In the end, the pediatrician got the ball rolling,” said detective Lienemann. “It was very important to her that nothing happens to the living son.”
Bochum police investigated for years
According to the police, further meticulous investigations, forensic examinations and witness interviews then substantiated the suspicion against the mother. A pre-trial arrest warrant was issued for double murder and dangerous bodily harm.
The possible motives of the woman are as irritating as the acts themselves: the first baby killed was a “screaming child”, according to the prosecutor Stressig. “The urgent suspicion is that she killed the child because she wanted the screaming to stop, for good.” In the second case, it was about the lifestyle of the woman. “She had gone out a lot, she had celebrated a lot, she had many male acquaintances, at least that was the urgent suspicion based on the investigation – and she wanted that back,” said public prosecutor Streßig. Investigation group leader Lienemann added that the woman “wanted to sit quietly on the sofa again”.
The father of the three children is said to have been in a relationship with the 33-year-old for the entire time of the crimes – but according to the authorities he was never at home when the mother is said to have committed the crimes.
The suspect is silent on the allegations. She is in custody and now faces life imprisonment.
Sources: Police Bochum (1), Police Bochum (2)RTL, news agencies DPA and AFP