crime
Two children in Hanau probably killed – manhunt is ongoing
At around 7.20 a.m., passers-by alerted the police after they discovered a seriously injured boy in front of a skyscraper in downtown Hanau. Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
On a sidewalk in front of a skyscraper in Hanau, passers-by find a seriously injured boy and call the police. The alarmed officials then also make a terrible discovery in the residential building.
Two children probably fell victim to a crime and died in downtown Hanau on Wednesday. According to a spokeswoman for the Hanau public prosecutor’s office, the investigators assume a homicide.
There are indications of a family background to the crime, but the spokeswoman did not provide any further information. The investigators initially searched for a suspect without success. More information about the man and what relationship he had with the dead children – a girl and a boy – were not initially known.
Autopsy on Wednesday
Passers-by alerted the police at 7:25 a.m. after discovering the seriously injured boy on the ground in front of a high-rise building. When officers arrived, the boy was no longer responsive, police and prosecutors said. The officers then found the lifeless girl on the balcony of an apartment on the ninth floor. The emergency doctor could only determine death. The boy was taken to the Hanau city hospital, where he succumbed to his serious injuries shortly afterwards. The two children should be autopsied later in the day, said the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office.
According to the first indications, it is likely to be the seven-year-old girl and the eleven-year-old boy who lived in the apartment, said the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office, but their identity has not yet been determined. “Investigators from the public prosecutor’s office and the criminal police are assuming a homicide and are now concentrating on what happened in the house in the morning,” the statement said. Neighbors would also be comprehensively questioned and traces secured, the spokeswoman said. With a view to the ongoing investigations, further findings could probably not be published until this Thursday (May 12), it said.
Crime scene photographed with drone
Police officers cordoned off the streets around the house with barrier tape and patrol cars. Onlookers stood around. Detectives in white protective gear stood on the ninth-floor balcony. The police had a drone fly over the house to photograph the crime scene from as many perspectives as possible. Bushes were removed in front of the house.
The residential building has a total of eleven floors, with a shop and a café on the ground floor. Hanau is around 20 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main near the border between Hesse and Bavaria.