A father is briefly going shopping when a hooded man rings the doorbell with a hatchet.
A few minutes later, the father is dead, his two sons are in mortal danger.
Now a 36-year-old has been convicted, but tormenting questions remain.
Constance - After killing his former boss with a hatchet and seriously injuring his sons, the man sat down next to one of the two unconscious boys and smoked a cigarette. The district court of Constance was ultimately unable to clarify what exactly had happened on this January-Saturday in the minutes before and in which order in the single-family house in Hohenfels (district of Konstanz). Because of the fatal attack, a 36-year-old was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday.
The Chamber had no doubts that the Romanian defendant was responsible for the "bloodbath" in the house of his former employer, said presiding judge Arno Hornstein when the verdict was pronounced. The police arrested the man in the house a few minutes after he tried to commit suicide with a knife he had brought with him. But especially when it came to the question of why, many questions remained unanswered.
It is true that the defendant had left the company of his future victim a few years earlier after suspicion of theft. However, the older of the two boys whom the man later hit with the back of his ax described him as a friendly employee of his father. His nine-year-old brother and he had a good relationship with him, said the 13-year-old at the start of the trial. "It is a mystery to me why he did that."
Presiding judge Hornstein named a number of possible motives when pronouncing the verdict.
The man had been more irritable and fixated on money since a serious car accident in 2019.
He probably wanted to start a new life in Romania, and the 36-year-old also suffers from a serious personality disorder.
However, he was fully guilty of the robbery, and he did not look for money in the house.
Thus the question remains open: "A silent accused does not provide such a motive."
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Charges after fatal knife wounds in front of the garage
The court saw it as proven, however, that the 36-year-old had been watching the house and had taken a hatchet from under his winter jacket when he rang the doorbell of his former boss in a hooded manner.
The father had driven the car briefly to go shopping, so his 9 and 13 year old sons opened.
After the older boy tried to get rid of the visitor, the man drew an ax and struck the boy's head several times with his blunt side.
In the meantime, his nine-year-old brother called his father for help. When the man got home, the intruder killed him with several ax blows. He also broke into the bathroom where the nine-year-old son was hiding and seriously injured the boy. There the defendant tried to commit suicide with a knife he had brought with him, said Hornstein. Another circumstance that made it difficult to speculate about the motive.
The 36-year-old was finally convicted of manslaughter and two cases of attempted murder, and the public prosecutor's office had charged him with murder out of greed. Because of the ambiguity in the exact course of the act and the question of the motive, this is ultimately not verifiable, said Hornstein. “We only have two direct witnesses. These are children who themselves became victims of this hideous act and who have been severely traumatized. "
If the judgment becomes final, the accused will be imprisoned for 15 years.
After that he could apply for a dismissal, said Hornstein.
However, the success rate is low.
In addition, the 36-year-old was sentenced to pay 135,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering to the surviving relatives.
The victim's younger son, in particular, is still suffering from the consequences of his injuries, said Hornstein.
"Process it, see that you can get over it," he said to the relatives in the courtroom.
dpa
