A 15-year-old has been sentenced to ten years in prison for the murder of a 14-year-old in Wunstorf near Hanover. The sentence must be carried out in a social therapy facility, as the Hanover Regional Court announced on Monday. Accordingly, the young person was also convicted of attempted extortion in twelve cases. The order for preventive detention was reserved, it said. The murder trial was not public, details of the verdict were not given.
The violent death of the teenager had triggered nationwide shock at the end of January. The two then 14-year-olds had met to play in late January, but only one of them returned home. The second boy’s father reported his son missing. During the search, the other eighth grader reportedly told police that he had killed and hidden his playmate. The boy’s body was eventually found on the derelict site of a former nursery.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the victim was said to have been tied up and beaten to death with stones. An autopsy determined blunt force as the cause of death. There may have been an accomplice: “There are indications that another young person may have been present or involved in the act,” said the spokeswoman for the Hanover public prosecutor’s office. According to information from the German Press Agency, the accused spoke about a possible participant in the process. The investigation is ongoing.