It took more than two days of trial before the defendant showed anything like emotion for the first time. Until now he has stared at the ground as if into an abyss, non-stop, for hours. At the reading of the indictment. During the shockingly detailed confession that his defense lawyer read out for him at the start of the trial last week. And according to those present, the twelve-year-old boy testified behind closed doors on Tuesday, who is said to have been there on an April night last year when, according to the public prosecutor’s office, the defendant raped a ten-year-old girl. The boy who, according to investigators, then killed the girl.
On Wednesday, the third day of the trial at the Hof regional court, police officers who were at the crime scene, who secured evidence and took photographs, will again testify as witnesses. Photos from the bathroom, through whose open window the man is said to have entered the home, can be seen on a flat-screen television in the courtroom. And pictures from the boy’s room, where a teacher found the dead girl. Christopher Feulner, the presiding judge, stuck pieces of paper on some of the photos so that the body on the floor could not be seen. In one picture, next to a green toy sports car, there is an LED strip, a kind of light chain, which the boy is said to have used to kill the girl.
In the afternoon, an expert from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office came and reported in detail where her analyzes showed how much DNA and from whom. Traces of the girl, but especially the boy, were found on the LED strip. Just like on the girl’s back. The police found the DNA of the boy and the defendant on his legs and neck, and only that of the man in his mouth. The investigators also found traces of sperm here.
While the detective is talking about this, the father of two’s shaved head in the dock in the glass case on the left side of the courtroom sinks a little further down; in his case, this has to be seen as an emotion. As he crouches there with a blank look, almost apathetic, you don’t really know whether he is aware of everything that is being said in court.
For example, what the police report about the day they searched his house, the day of his arrest, April 27, 2023. Three and a half weeks after the girl’s death, at work in the morning. The investigators found out via the streaming service Amazon that the man was using a stolen TV receiver from the manufacturer. They searched the house primarily because they were on the trail of a suspected burglar who was said to have broken into construction containers, stolen electrical equipment and tools and set a container on fire to clear his traces. They apparently already suspected that he could also be connected to the girl’s death and took a sample of his DNA. And found: It was the same as the one that the police had seized during the break-ins – and on the girl’s body.
“Kill her now, otherwise she will betray us!”
The defendant did not show any more emotion that day than when the LKA officer testified. Everything else is the same: the now 26-year-old, who lived twice in the accommodation in Wunsiedel after a difficult childhood and adolescence, wears the same blue trousers as always, the same turquoise blue shirt, handcuffs and ankle shackles. And is silent.
Even though the boy accused him again the day before. According to him, the adult, after masturbating in the boy’s presence and then raping the girl who had been woken up by the boy, said: “Kill her now, otherwise she will betray us!” In doing so, the boy contradicted the defendant, who had initially stated that he was “immediately” startled after the rape and left the home.
According to SZ information, the boy also repeated this one statement in previous interrogations despite differing accounts of how the night went: that he had been threatened and pressured into committing the murder by the defendant. According to his defense attorney Michael Hasslacher, the boy confessed the crime again on Tuesday: Yes, he strangled the girl with an LED strip. But only after the man urged him to do so. And while the man was still in the room.
It remains to be seen whether the defendant will respond personally to this accusation at a later date. His defender Maximilian Siller said on Wednesday when asked by SZ that he would not say anything until further notice.