Overkill – the criminalistic term sounds absurd. As if there was an upgrade to kill. Experts speak of overkilling when the perpetrator acts more than necessary on his victim to kill. Often this is evidence of a personal relationship – and of rampant anger and violence. Roland L. killed his wife in October last year in the shared apartment in Nymphenburg with twelve knife wounds. With such force that the knife blade bent 90 degrees. The 37-year-old is charged with murder in the Munich I district court. He howls, sobs, sniffs and shows compassion – for himself.
The first day of the trial belongs entirely to the defendant. For hours he talks about his life; in broken sentences and interrupted by crying. He says that he lost 350,000 euros through Wirecard, which his family had given him to invest. And that his half-sister was dying. L. is a well-trained man with short brown hair. Videos of his athletic “challenges” can be found on his Internet accounts, where he shows off his muscles.
The version of the crime, which the public prosecutor presented in their indictment, makes Roland L. appear as an insidious, furious and hardened murderer. The 37-year-old sees himself as a desperate husband who strives for clarity, who was able to reach for the knife faster than his wife in an escalating situation. The couple met four years ago. They got married in August 2018 and Roland L. moved into his wife’s maisonette apartment. According to the indictment, the one year older woman must have felt unhappy and cramped.
In 2019 she made friends with a man through the computer game “Elder Scrolls”, and from summer 2020 onward, clear messages went back and forth. It was about sexual fantasies and “chat sex”. A day or two before the crime, says L., he noticed the constant blinking of his wife’s cell phone at night. “It went on at five in the morning,” he says. That seemed strange to him. But his wife “proactively” showed him her cell phone with a message from a friend.
The man wrapped the body in a carpet and removed all bloody traces
On the evening of October 12th, he sat on the couch, his wife went downstairs – and, contrary to her habit, forgot her cell phone. Then he looked at her cell phone and discovered “erotic text messages”. “What my wife wants with them or whether that has already happened – no idea.” When he wanted to confront her, she called “get out”. And since she knew that he also had suicidal thoughts after a burnout, she said: “If I kill you now, everything would be okay too.” Then he noticed a movement from her that happened to have a knife lying on the side table next to the couch. But he was faster. He claims that he stabbed his wife once or twice.
Forensic medicine counted twelve stitches, the public prosecutor’s office is not assuming a dynamic event, but an insidious murder. After the knife wounds, L. is said to have strangled the woman lying on the floor. Then he wrapped the body in a carpet, cleaned the apartment, took a shower and removed all traces of blood. “I wanted none of that to exist, not the whole situation.” Prosecutors believe he had a plan to make the body disappear – and then changed his mind.
The 37-year-old drove to his mother, to his brother, and back to the apartment. He texted his wife that he would be home soon. In the apartment he collected things from the dead as well as valuables from their inheritance, diamonds and emeralds, cash and a money box, and brought everything to his mother. Then he drove to the police and turned himself in. Whether murder or manslaughter: That will now have to be decided by the court.