crime
Nine years in prison for the murder of student Hanna
Was Hanna murdered – and who was the perpetrator? The circumstantial trial surrounding the medical student’s death dragged on for a long time. The Traunstein regional court has now made a judgment.
According to an autopsy, the 23-year-old drowned. Because the defendant was still 20 years old at the time of the crime and experts confirmed that he had a delay in maturity, the court imposed a youth sentence.
The public prosecutor’s office had demanded a nine and a half year youth sentence for murder for the now 22-year-old defendant. After around half a year of trial and more than 30 days of trial, the prosecution saw the defendant’s guilt fully confirmed.
The young man’s lawyers, however, had called for an acquittal. They saw many contradictions, including in the statements of important witnesses – and do not consider their client’s guilt to be proven. In their opinion, Hanna, who had about two per mille of alcohol in her blood when she died, could have fallen into the stream without anyone else’s involvement.
Hanna’s parents took part in the trial as co-plaintiffs. Their lawyer agreed with the public prosecutor’s request to sentence the defendant to nine and a half years in prison. In his plea, he said that parents were faced with the question a thousand times over: “Why?” Unfortunately, this question remained unanswered in the process. Hanna celebrated every night in October 2022 in the “Eiskeller” and left the disco early in the morning. She never arrived home. Hours later, a passerby found her body many kilometers away in the Prien River, into which the Bärbach flows.