On the floor a handcart dismantled into individual parts, people are crying, confetti is everywhere. The Rose Monday procession in Volkmarsen came to an abrupt end almost two years ago when Maurice P. drove his car into the celebrating crowd. On Thursday, the Kassel regional court sentenced the now 31-year-old to life imprisonment for 89 murder attempts, among other things.
According to the conviction of the court, the man deliberately drove a Mercedes into the carnival parade on February 24, 2020 and injured numerous visitors, including 26 children. A total of 150 people were affected, people between the ages of two and 85, people who were thrown through the air and hit the asphalt. 28 had to be hospitalized, two were critically injured, they had traumatic brain injuries, broken debris, and bruises.
Apparently he had planned the car attack. The day before the crime, he is said to have parked his Mercedes so that he could speed into the cordoned off area. He should have driven 50 to 60 kilometers per hour, unrestrained and purposefully. He had set up a dashcam behind the windshield. But it wasn’t until the car stopped again that she started filming.
The judges also determined the particular severity of the guilt on Thursday. This means that at the end of the prison term, the man’s danger will be examined in a further hearing. His behavior in detention is then also taken into account and a psychological report is commissioned. P.’s driver’s license and vehicle were confiscated.
The question of the motive remains unanswered
For half a year the negotiations took place in an exhibition hall specially rented by the court. The question that occupied many people in Volkmarsen, a town in northern Hesse with 6,900 inhabitants, could not be answered by the process either: Why does someone do something like that? The defendant, whom a psychiatric report considers fully culpable, had persistently remained silent in front of the regional court, so it remained unclear until the very end why he had committed the crime.
Maurice P. himself comes from Volkmarsen, he was considered inconspicuous until the rampage. Shortly beforehand, the then 29-year-old is said to have lost his job as an unskilled worker, in his apartment the investigators found bills for vodka bottles, sometimes one, sometimes two, they did not find any indication of a possible motive. When the officers arrested him, he was seriously injured – and sober.
The public prosecutor’s office and co-plaintiff representatives recently demanded a life sentence with the reservation of subsequent preventive detention and the determination of the particular gravity of the guilt. The defense had pleaded for a lighter sentence, since it was attempted and incomplete murder. The court did not comply.