Disputes are said to have arisen again and again in the marriage of Andreas W. and his wife. Also because Helga M. always wanted to move. On the morning of February 5, 2021, however, the situation in the couple’s apartment in the Weilheim-Schongau district escalated, and Andreas W. strangled his wife, whom he had met in 1991. The judges of the jury court at the Munich II district court sentenced the 68-year-old pensioner to nine years in prison for manslaughter on Monday. Andreas W. took the verdict outwardly unmoved. By 2021, at Helga M.’s insistence, there should have been at least ten changes of residence, which her husband always had to organize. At the beginning of last year, Helga M. wanted to move again. A fight ensued, which ended fatally for her.
When Andreas W. woke his wife up in the morning of February 5th because he wanted to discuss something with her, she is said to have snapped at him in a “nagging tone”. W. then put his hands around his wife’s neck and strangled her. “The shrill scream” in which she attacked him must have “triggered something in me,” the 68-year-old explained at the start of the process at the end of January. To make sure his wife was dead, W. put two more garbage bags over her head and tied them shut. He then tried to take his own life, which failed. Then the pensioner made an emergency call. A psychiatric expert came to the conclusion in her report that the 68-year-old’s potential for aggression was below average.
“Extremely tragic”
The chairman of the jury, Judge Thomas Bott, said in the verdict that the accused had “spontaneously decided to kill the injured party”. According to the Chamber’s conviction, the pensioner did not consciously take advantage of his wife’s defenseless situation. For this reason, the judges did not convict Andreas W. of murder, but of manslaughter. With the verdict, the court followed the request of public prosecutor Bastian Froschhammer, who also requested a conviction for manslaughter and ten years in prison. Andreas W.’s defense attorney, lawyer Christina Keil, pleaded for the imposition of a prison sentence of five years and six months for manslaughter. Judge Thomas Bott called the act “extremely tragic”. A human life was “irretrievably destroyed” by a “disproportionate affect”.