In court, the 21-year-old said emotionlessly that he had taken his own life and wanted to kill his parents beforehand “so that they wouldn’t be sad.” The defendant is currently in prison – and not in a psychiatric hospital.
It is as quiet as a mouse in the courtroom, the looks in the audience change from horror to disbelief and back again. Marcel L. (name changed) sits in front of the 1st juvenile criminal chamber at the Munich I Regional Court and tries to describe politely and correctly how he gave his mother at least 23 blows to the head and face with an ax and how she said “You bring around me.” The 21-year-old can no longer give any further details. “It’s not a nice memory, of course,” he explains to the judge. He wanted to take his own life and, so that his parents wouldn’t have to be sad about it, he wanted to kill them first. Because if he was dead anyway, he wanted to try something first: murder.