About a year ago, the police discovered two bodies in a village near Bayreuth: a married couple had been stabbed to death in their bedroom. Now the judgment against the two accused was pronounced before the Bayreuth district court:
A 19-year-old has been jailed for 13 years and six months for the murder of his girlfriend’s parents. The court also sentenced the couple’s eldest daughter to nine years and six months in prison for two counts of murder. In the spectacular case, the 19-year-old stabbed, but the 17-year-old daughter and her boyfriend made the decision to act. According to investigators, she also prevented her younger siblings from getting help or intervening.
The verdict thus largely corresponds to the demands of the public prosecutor’s office. The girl’s defense attorney had demanded an acquittal because the young people’s complicity had not been proven. The 19-year-old’s defense attorney spoke out in favor of a prison sentence of nine years and six months and saw no particular severity of the guilt on the part of his client.
The public prosecutor accused the couple of having drawn up a crime plan together and cited arguments and hatred as the motives. The public was excluded from the process, since October the hearings have been held behind closed doors. Reasons were the psychological condition and the age of the accused.
The process began in October 2022. But the public was already excluded after the start – mainly because of the age of the two German defendants and because of their mental health. Since then, 33 witnesses and experts have been questioned behind closed doors. Only when the verdict was announced on Monday were viewers and media representatives allowed back into the courtroom.
Seen from the outside, the family presented an idyllic picture: four children, the parents worked as doctors. The family lived in a chic single-family house just outside Bayreuth in Mistelbach. The 51-year-old victim was known and valued as a pediatrician in the region. At the beginning of 2022, the man actually wanted to open a new center for pediatric and adolescent medicine with his practice partner.