The 52-year-old perpetrator has been imprisoned for 15 years for the murder of four severely disabled people in the Evangelical Oberlinhaus and for other crimes. In its judgment on Wednesday, the Potsdam Regional Court also ordered the former long-term caregiver of the social enterprise to be placed in psychiatry.
The acts of violence in a residential facility for the disabled in Potsdam on April 28th caused horror across the country. One woman survived the rampage, seriously injured. The two women and two men who did not survive the attack were between 31 and 56 years old.
Among other things, the public prosecutor’s office had demanded imprisonment sentences of eight to twelve years for the individual offenses, which should be combined into a total prison sentence of 15 years. Such total custodial sentences are common in German law. Because of the diagnosed serious personality disorder of the perpetrator, the public prosecutor’s office had also pleaded that the life imprisonment, which is actually intended for murder, should be abandoned and that the maximum possible sentence should be imposed in this case. The defense attorney had also applied for his client to be placed in a psychiatric ward. Last week, the psychiatric expert reported on the defendants’ personality disorder, their violent fantasies, long-term drug abuse and persistent risk of suicide, and recommended that they be placed in a penal system.