Lower Saxony
Commemoration of the victims of the violent act in the Rotenburg district
Flowers and candles in front of a house in Westervesede in the municipality of Scheeßel, where a man is said to have shot two people the day before. photo
© Focke Strangmann/dpa
A Bundeswehr soldier is said to be responsible for the deaths of four people in the Rotenburg district – including a small child. Many questions are still unanswered. The neighbors are shocked.
The violent act with four deaths in the district of Lower Saxony Rotenburg shocks people. Neighbors remembered the victims with flowers and candles. A bouquet of flowers and a few candles were placed in front of a house in Scheeßel, a dpa photographer reported on Saturday. A note with the inscription “Our thoughts are with you! Your neighbors” was laid out. A police patrol car was parked in front of the sealed house. There were also candles in front of the house in front of the second crime scene in the municipality of Bothel, a few minutes away.
The crime occurred early Friday morning. Initially, the suspect is said to have killed two people in a single-family home in Westervesede, a town in the municipality of Scheeßel: a 30-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman. The man is then said to have shot a 33-year-old woman and a three-year-old child in Bockel, which is part of the Bothel municipality. Here too, the crime scene is a single-family home.
Many backgrounds are still unclear
The suspect is said to have turned himself in at the Von Düring barracks in the city of Rotenburg (Wümme) on Friday morning and was taken into custody on Friday afternoon. The Verden public prosecutor’s office and the police initially provided no information on the status of the investigation on Saturday. It was therefore not yet known whether he had commented on the crime.
Information from the investigating authorities about the suspect’s relationships with the victims is also still pending. “A motive in the family environment cannot be ruled out,” it said in a statement on Friday. Nothing was initially known about the motive. It was also checked whether the murder weapon came from the Bundeswehr. According to dpa information, no weapon was missing from the Bundeswehr in this context.
On Friday, the suspect’s car, which was parked near the barracks, had a Molotov cocktail in the driver’s door and cartridge ammunition was in the trunk next to a Bundeswehr backpack. It was initially not known what the man intended to do with it.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius expressed dismay at the incident on Friday. “The multiple killings of innocent people in Scheeßel is simply horrific,” said the SPD politician. There is a lot to be said for an act in the context of a private relationship. “But that’s all speculation, I don’t want to and can’t take part in that right now,” explained the minister. “My condolences go out to the families of the victims, a crime like this is simply terrible.”