A 25-year-old woman was sentenced to three years in prison for the violent death of her newborn child before the regional court in Regensburg. The presiding judge Michael Hammer accused her of negligent homicide on Friday. In the course of the process, many questions remained unanswered, such as how exactly the child born on Christmas Day 2020 died.
The main problem is the question: “Can we safely rule out that the defendant assumed that the child is dead?” Said the presiding judge. The woman stated this immediately after the delivery. In the face of contradicting and constantly new information during the investigation and to the psychiatric experts, her hammer attested a “lack of love for the truth” and made it clear: “We do not believe her.” However, the last doubts could not have been dispelled with certainty.
The public prosecutor had accused the woman of manslaughter and demanded a six-year prison sentence. The defense lawyers pleaded for negligent homicide and a suspended sentence. Originally the woman was charged with murder. The body of the baby was discovered in a garbage can on Christmas Day. According to the autopsy, the girl had lived for at least half an hour or an hour after the birth. It died from asphyxiation or hypothermia, or a combination of both.