crime
Mother kills her children and herself
The police are investigating the background to the crime. photo
© Hendrik Schmidt/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
A woman commits suicide at Pentecost. The police found the bodies of her two children in her apartment. Such an incident happened not for the first time.
According to the police, a mother killed her children on the Pentecost weekend in Schwieberdingen in Baden-Württemberg. The 56-year-old then committed suicide in the neighboring town of Korntal-Münchingen, the police and public prosecutor announced today. According to initial investigations, the 13-year-old daughter and her 17-year-old brother were killed in the family’s apartment between Sunday evening and Monday evening.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, there should not be an autopsy – “since third-party involvement in the crime can be ruled out,” as a spokesman explained. The mother’s corpse led to the apartment and the killed children. “The corresponding investigations then led to the discovery of the dead children,” the public prosecutor continued.
With a view to the post-mortem personality rights of those involved, no further details could be given, the spokesman said. The background is still unclear. According to the “Bild” newspaper, the crime took place on a former horse farm in the east of the community.
Not an isolated case
Two similar cases in Baden-Württemberg made headlines on Easter: According to information at the time, a mother in Hockenheim near Heidelberg contacted the police that she had killed her nine and seven-year-old children. In Ulm, a 40-year-old man is said to have killed his partner’s seven-year-old daughter with a knife.
According to a rough estimate based on projections from European and US studies, there are one to two cases of infanticide per 100,000 children per year, depending on the country. Statistics from the investigators do not provide any information on how often children have become victims of their parents or close relatives in recent years.
According to figures from the Federal Criminal Police Office, around every tenth victim of murder, manslaughter and killing on demand was a minor in the past year – regardless of the relationship with the perpetrator. 45 were under the age of 14 and 14 others were teenagers. The numbers are similar to the pre-Corona year 2019.