The David G. case pushes science to its limits. A forensic doctor and a physicist from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) have to go to court on Tuesday. There is no reliable knowledge of what happens to a person who chases 230 volts through his head. For obvious reasons, they don't exist. "Electricity experiments on living people practically do not exist," says Helmut Pankratz, legal doctor at the University of Munich. There are electricity tests on corpses and tests on animals, but they are only transferable to living people and even more limited to the specific case.
David G. has to answer to the Munich Regional Court in 88 cases for attempted murder. The 30-year-old has caused girls and women from all over Germany to electrocute themselves, mostly on their feet and temples.
David G. managed to make his victims think of him as a scientist. They did not question his authority, followed his instructions, and tortured themselves. David G. watched them on Skype. Her pain and bare feet are said to have excited him sexually. According to the indictment, he accepted that the women would die in his electricity experiments. David G. denies that.
"It could have been different"
On this day, medical examiner Pankratz, headed by Judge Thomas Bott, will explain how dangerous electric shocks through the brain are. "It is potentially a very dangerous situation," he says. It does not become much more concrete, it cannot become.
After how many seconds does a person lose consciousness? When does his body react with a seizure? "Difficult to say," says Pankratz. "We are at the limit of assessability because you have no comparisons." He cannot answer the judge's question: "I don't know in which seconds the loss of consciousness occurs."
The girls and women plugged their bodies into an electrical outlet and energized them. Apparently it was only by chance and good luck that everyone survived. "It could have been different," says a physicist from the Bavarian LKA. He is also heard as an expert on this day.
According to his account, not every surge variant that David G. demanded of his victims was life-threatening. And yet: "There could have been a potentially fatal power accident at any time." If unfamiliar people handle electricity, mere oversight can lead to death.
Handles made of wood
"My assessment is that David G. wasn't specifically aiming to kill someone," says the LKA man. However, the defendant could never have intervened from his computer in Würzburg. He had not had the conditions of his experiments under control. The defendant certainly gave the women safety instructions. For example, he explained to them that they should not touch the live spoons with their hands. You should make wooden grab handles to hold the wired spoons to your temples. He didn't say that she was putting her life in danger. Instead, he claimed the opposite: the experiments were completely harmless.
"At 230 volts, skin resistance actually no longer plays a role," explains legal doctor Pankratz: "It breaks down within a very short time." If the current then flows through the heart, there may be various rhythm disturbances, in the worst case ventricular fibrillation. "This is life-threatening." This happens when the current flows lengthways through the body, for example by hand on foot.
It is no longer possible to prove whether the girls and women who followed David G.'s instructions experienced so-called heart flow. Some women complained of irregular heartbeat. "In all cases, it cannot be proven that this is due to a flow through the heart," says Pankratz. "It could also have been a sudden palpitations."
Path of current through the body
It is similar with the flow of electricity through the brain of the victim. None of the women or girls have passed out. Nevertheless, they would have been exposed to serious danger to life from sleep to sleep.
David G. had tried to persuade numerous women to be exposed to electric shock for longer and longer. First for a second, then five, then ten. According to the forensic doctor, his victims put themselves at greater risk of life every second. He emphasizes that the risk depends on the path of the current through the body, the current intensity and the duration of the current supply.
Judge Bott keeps asking for details. Science cannot deliver them. "The data situation is relatively limited," Pankratz has to concede again and again. The judge understood: "You can't do any live tests either." Research has ethical limits. Obviously, David G. didn't care. He made girls and women worryingly simply torment themselves with electricity.
