At first he thought it was just a “bad joke,” says Maximilian B. Jokes, the kind you make when you’re “stoned.” But the friend of Maximilian B., an apprentice gunsmith from Starnberg, is said to have been serious: According to B., his friend is said to have planned a killing spree in the Pasing Arcades. In order to prevent this, he killed the 21-year-old in the early morning hours of January 11, 2020 with a shot in the right temple, B. had stood before the 1st youth chamber at the Munich II district court. Then he also shot his parents, who he thought would not be present at the time of the crime.
After this confession, B’s defense attorneys Gerhard Bink and Patrick Ottmann asked the court not to question their client until this Thursday. Judge Regina Holstein began with a central point: the allegedly planned killing spree. About four years before the crime, i.e. in 2016, his friend spoke to him about it for the first time, said Maximilian B. The 21-year-old spoke freely and, unlike when his confession was read out, did not seem nervous.
At first, the announcement of the killing spree was said to have been vague, but in December 2019 it became “more and more concrete”. “The plan has grown,” Maximilian B recalls. His friend began to talk in detail about the course of the crime. For example, that he would shoot in the Pasing Arcaden in places “where most people are” and where there are any escape routes. The gunsmith’s apprentice hoarded weapons in his parents’ house. In view of his friend’s plans, he had “become more and more uncomfortable”, said Maximilian B. “At some point I realized that he was serious.” Shortly before Christmas 2019, the situation is said to have escalated further.
When he visited his friend in Starnberg at the time, he pointed a large-calibre, loaded pistol in the direction of his head and threatened that he would shoot his family if he told anyone about the planned killing spree, Maximilian B reported. Because he, like that the Olchinger should have participated. Immediately following this threat, the gunsmith apprentice is said to have fired a shot into an aluminum suitcase in his room.
Judge Holstein asked what weapons the 21-year-old wanted to use in the crime. “One fully automatic weapon, two handguns,” was Maximilian B’s answer. In addition, his friend had a “big gun” on his back and wanted to take “a few more knives” with him. Explosives too, the judge wanted to know. Maximilian B said his friend talked about “booby traps”. These should detonate when “people run out”.
What the Olchinger reported in a calm tone made observers of the process shudder. “I didn’t really want to listen anymore,” assured Maximilian B. He also didn’t dare “say anything because I thought he was going to shoot me.” He does not know whether his friend’s parents knew anything about their son’s plans. But you would have known that the 21-year-old had a variety of weapons “and did exercises”. The Starnberger once said to his mother, according to B., that he needed the weapons in order “to be prepared for the end of the world, war – if anything should ever happen”. The process is ongoing.