crime
Couple convicted of murdering four-year-old
The two defendants before the verdict in the courtroom at the Hanover Regional Court. photo
© Philip Dulian/dpa
After almost half a year, a shocking trial in Hanover is coming to an end. Hundreds of pages of chat logs show how his mother and her new partner tortured little Fabian to death.
They beat four-year-old Fabian with a belt, charging cable and a meat tenderizer, denied him food and drink and locked him in a tiny storage room overnight without clothes: from the end of May 2022 onwards, the abuse of the toddler became more and more brutal. On the night of January 13, 2023, Fabian died of bleeding and suffocation in his stepfather’s apartment in Barsinghausen after several violent acts.
The Hanover regional court arrested the 34-year-old and the boy’s 29-year-old mother on Monday Murder sentenced to life imprisonment. In addition, the particular severity of the guilt was determined. This would make it unlikely that he would be released from prison after 15 years. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Cruelty and base motives
“They wanted to inflict considerable pain on him,” says presiding judge Imke Simon about the mistreatment of Fabian. The mother and her new partner acted mercilessly and self-centeredly. The court found cruelty and base motives to be the characteristics of the murder. The motive for the massive abuse was that the four-year-old disrupted the couple’s romantic relationship and caused “problems”, for example when he wet his pants while locked up.
The Polish woman met the 34-year-old German-Polish via TikTok and moved to Germany at the end of May 2022 with her small son and six-year-old daughter. The children should call the new man dad, both of them envisioned a patchwork family – he has three sons from previous marriages. He is also said to have committed violence in these families. A child with the new wife was planned.
However, the abuse began immediately, in which the mother also took an active part, as the judge explained. The “martyrdom” intensified in October, says Simon. Fabian’s older sister also had to kneel for hours with her arms raised on the hard laminate floor in the apartment, was locked in the storage room and was not given food or drink.
“Protocols of Horror”
The girl was heard as a witness via video interrogation in the trial that began in June – as was a son from the 34-year-old’s previous marriage. Above all, the acts of violence could be reconstructed in detail because the couple had exchanged information about them via WhatsApp.
The 29-year-old’s defense attorney, Matthias Waldraff, spoke of “protocols of horror” that were 700 to 800 pages long. “We encouraged each other,” said the presiding judge. The couple used the cell phone to “coordinate and coordinate abuse and monitor it by sending photographs.” Fabian was soon only called vulgar insults. “Degrading statements are increasing, the child is being dehumanized,” says Simon, describing the situation in July 2022.
Some listeners in the courtroom rub their eyes, their faces reflect shock and bewilderment. At first, the beefy defendant just looks a little anxious, while the carefully made-up defendant kneads her hands nervously. Both of them watched the verdict, which lasted more than an hour, with their heads bowed, and after the end of the trial they spoke to their defense lawyers in an outwardly unmoved manner.
During the course of the trial, the couple largely admitted the allegations, but placed the main blame on each other. It remains unclear which of the two Fabians knocked out an incisor and fractured his lower jaw at the end of December 2022. “It can be assumed that Fabian had to kneel every day in the days before his death,” says Simon. The malnourished child had to be naked so that he would also freeze. From January 10th, Fabian’s consciousness was clouded as a result of a traumatic brain injury.
There are no detailed chat logs from the last days before his death – according to the judge, because the weakened child was no longer “disturbing” by crying or calling for food. Because no doctor was called, the boy died slowly and with considerable pain. According to prosecutors, the four-year-old was carried to the sofa bed in his six-year-old sister’s room “to die.”
It wasn’t until the next day that the 34-year-old called the emergency services and the mother attempted to resuscitate him. The couple claimed the boy was injured when he fell down the stairs. However, when examining the body, the forensic experts found a number of injuries – including those caused by the meat tenderizer, two cuts and a burn on the ankle. The judge quotes from the forensic doctor’s report: “Fabian had more injured areas on his body than intact ones.”