Maike B. made no illusions about the outcome of her trial after the first day of negotiations at the Lübeck district court. "It's going to be jail or psychiatry for me," she told SPIEGEL at the time. At least on this point she should be right.
On Wednesday morning, the verdict was pronounced on the mother of five, who confused her children with illnesses and forced her into a wheelchair. Between 2010 and 2016, around 140,000 euros of aid and social benefits were found and hoarded drugs worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
B. has to go to prison for eight years - because of severe abuse of proteges, fraud and document forgery. She was arrested for absconding in the courtroom and taken into custody.
"Fully Guilty"
Not surprisingly, B's lawyer announced after the judgment Revision - his client had in the past, with numerous submissions demonstrated that she is willing to exhaust all legal remedies.
Judge Helga von Lukowicz emphasized that none of the children had suffered from the alleged illnesses - neither in the rare vitreous bone disease nor in von Willebrand syndrome (a congenital disorder of blood clotting) or in rheumatism. Nevertheless, the mother encouraged her to simulate these in contact with doctors, nurses and authorities.
"The kids knew they were not as badly affected as their mother claimed, but they did not know they were not sick," Lukowicz said. Meike B. had promised her children terrible consequences of allegedly chronic diseases, such as paraplegia. She is also said to have threatened to take her to a home or to psychiatry, according to the judge.
According to the verdict, Maike B. is fully guilty - although the medical reviewer Mariana Wahdany has attested her a Munchausen syndrome.
This is a personality disorder in which mostly mothers make their children ill to get attention. Because B. refused to speak, the psychiatrist came to her assessment based on testimonies and court records. For B., the children were not individuals but objects, the expert said. The accused lacked empathy.
"B. could manipulate people"
Dozens of witnesses had testified before the court - the picture that emerged actually implies a Munchausen proxy syndrome:
- Accordingly, B. collected detailed information about diseases, specialists and drugs, made himself an "expert"
- She shielded her children, made them dependent on themselves and accomplices
- She maintained a close relationship with the doctors to be treated and influenced them in their senses
- She manipulated her social environment, creating dependency relationships there as well
- With fear of discovery she threatened with ads, media releases and loss of reputation
- B's action seemed reflected outside, planned, rational. She made clear announcements, was highly functional.
"B. could manipulate people," said Christine Irmler, for example. The woman has reportedly worked in 2015 in the house of the defendants as a cleaner. The sons of Meike B. had allegedly suffered from the vitreous bone disease and sat in a wheelchair. "But at home they are free to play," Irmler reminded the Spiegel, "only when a nurse came, suddenly nothing happened." When she became suspicious, B. dismissed her - "she was probably afraid that I would come to terms with her".
"Pretty Rabat made"
"Mrs. B. had the talent to take other parents for themselves and then deliberately spread strife in the school environment," said Jessica Gube, a teacher at the local Waldorf School, the SPIEGEL.
Three children of the defendants visited the school at times. When a daughter, like her siblings, suddenly showed up with a wheelchair, the staff had become suspicious and made "pretty bad news" - with the result that B. had portrayed the school as being hostile to the disabled. The daughter was taken out of school shortly thereafter.
"High criminal energy"
Although the diagnosed Munchausen representative syndrome had been taken into account in the assessment of the sentence, said the judge at the verdict. However, there is no debt in accordance with §20 and 21 of the Criminal Code.
"A Münchhausen-by-proxy does not necessarily mean a reduction in punishment," explains psychiatrist Ulrich Sachsse to SPIEGEL. "This has to be checked very carefully in each individual case."
Because perpetrators often painstakingly plan their actions and often take abuse for years, irrational or affective action can be used in the rarest of cases, which would reduce the sentence.
According to Sachsse, fraud was not a typical element of the Munchausen syndrome. "It requires an extra high level of criminal energy when insurance or social fraud is added."
Meike B. had presented falsified reports to physicians to initiate investigations and treatments. Their motive was to get money from health insurances and social service providers for caring services, which were actually not necessary at all.
"Overworked mother in combat mode"
The fact that the fraud was even possible, was also a "fault in the system owed," says the former attending family doctor, Helmut Trapp, the SPIEGEL. "Many medical reports were not sent directly to me by the specialist, but handed over by the mother." As a result, the fakes have become possible in the first place.
Trapp and other treating physicians had testified in court. The presiding judge also criticized the behavior of the doctors. Instead of relying blindly on the diagnoses of the specialists, they should have examined the children themselves more closely. For example, a controversial pediatric rheumatologist had falsely diagnosed B's children with a vitreous bone disease and prescribed expensive medications and therapies. Prosecutor Hansen assumes that a lawsuit against the physician will be initiated.
"I experienced B. as an over-worried mother in combat mode," pediatrician Markus Giersch said in court. Whether and how they can succeed in the future, to break the power of the mother over her thinking and acting, is difficult to predict. The youngest child is eleven today, the oldest 27 years old.
What role did the father of the children play?
It is also unclear how the father - described in the process as passive and dominated by the wife - will perform his educational duties for the still underage children during B.'s detention. The couple has joint custody.
"But we have to examine whether we take up the statements in the main proceedings investigations against the father," says prosecutor Renate Hansen. It must be clarified whether Michael B. may have been guilty of omission.
"We feel hurt, betrayed and ashamed"
In the municipality of Lensahn in eastern Austria, the fraud has left its mark. "Our teachers have heard with tears in the eyes of the history of seriously ill children," recalls the director of the local comprehensive school, Bernd Ziemens. "There was a mother acting as a lawyer for her seriously ill children, no one dared to question that."
The school installed a handicapped lift, a wheelchair ramp and emergency chutes - much money for the community - at the urging of Bs for more than 140,000 euros. B. was very resolute. "She made demands, insisted on written agreements with the school management," says Ziemens. "What she put forward has always been the subtle threat of turning the press or the prosecutor if we do not feel it."
The school behaved basically benevolently towards parents and students. "But the fall of the B. family has damaged our good faith, we feel hurt, betrayed and ashamed."
At the request of SPIEGEL B. said that it would "take some time" until she would comment on the matter. The interpretation sovereignty over her life and her history does not want to give it even after the judgment.