Case Greta from Viersen: Educator Sandra M. sentenced to life imprisonment

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Defendant Sandra M .: "I never did anything to Greta or any other child"

Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa

Only those who have experienced similar suffering can empathize with how Greta's mother feels.

How deep the grief, how intense the pain is after the violent death of your own child - but also how great the hope must be of getting an answer to the grueling question at the latest at the end of a criminal trial: Why did my daughter have to die?

For the jury chamber of the Mönchengladbach regional court, one thing is certain: Greta had to die because she was alone with her teacher on April 21 of last year in the “Steinkreis” daycare center in Viersen.

The judges sentenced Sandra M. to life imprisonment for the murder of the three-year-old and for mistreating the wards and determined the particular severity of the guilt.

An examination for release from prison after 15 years is therefore out of the question.

The 25-year-old cries when the verdict is pronounced.

Her defense lawyers had requested acquittal.

Greta's mother is crying too.

Sandra M., who worked as an educator in day-care centers in Krefeld, Kempen, Tönisvorst and Viersen, is believed to have murdered Greta and mistreated two other children.

When changing diapers or during the afternoon nap, she squeezed the chests of the toddlers until they were short of breath or stopped breathing.

Pages of letters from prison

In other cases of abuse, the court acquitted Sandra M.

You remain suspect, but the evidence is not enough for a conviction, says the presiding judge Lothar Beckers.

Sandra M., single, born in Kempen and raised in Geldern, maintained until the end that she did not kill Greta and that she did not abuse other children.

In court stood a girlish-looking woman who passed the sluggish time in the cell by coloring mandalas;

who writes pages of letters to her parents from prison, describing the monotonous daily routine of pre-trial detention.

With the verdict, a circumstantial process ends, from which not only Greta's mother had expected answers to many questions.

The most important one, the one based on the motive, could not be clearly clarified even after 19 days of negotiations.

And so, along with Greta's mother, the parents of the other children, who also appeared as joint plaintiffs in the proceedings, remain in the dark.

They have to find their own truth as to why their children experienced violence in a place where they should be protected.

Did Sandra M. want to punish the children?

At first it was suspected that Sandra M. could suffer from Munchausen Deputy Syndrome.

An illness in which the person concerned deliberately harms a child in order to then care for it with sacrifice.

But the chamber rules out this subtle type of child abuse in the Sandra M. case because it would have had no opportunity to act out the role of the carer, says Judge Beckers.

Did the educator want to make a name for herself, who barely made contact with colleagues?

To present yourself as a savior in a situation that she had deliberately triggered?

Prosecutor Stefan Lingens believed this theory to be possible.

But in the opinion of the court she collides with the behavior after the perpetrated acts: In all the cases accused of her, Sandra M. informed colleagues, withdrew and by no means played herself in the foreground.

On the contrary: she left the emergency calls and the resuscitation measures to her colleagues.

In the life-threatening situation with Greta, she even refused to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The psychiatric expert commissioned by the court assessed the acts as "excessive punitive actions", she thought it most likely that Sandra M. wanted to reprimand the children.

For example, Greta played with a CD player instead of taking an afternoon nap.

The Chamber does not consider that to be the motive either.

"Bizarre parenting behavior"

Did Sandra M. act out of desperation or frustration because she was dissatisfied with her job?

No, says Judge Beckers.

It was not the first job where the 25-year-old failed.

"What's left?" He asks, looking into the fully occupied hall.

Boredom?

Willingness to experiment?

Show of force?

No.

"We believe that Ms. M. acted out of educational measures," says Beckers and summarizes the statements of work colleagues who described how little Sandra M. could assert herself against the children, how she treated the children from above, how she tried to strengthen their authority through "bizarre parenting behavior".

One child placed her face to the wall as a sanction measure, and she refused to drink to another who had knocked over a mug for hours.

It was the same on April 21 of last year when Sandra M. was alone with Greta in emergency care because of the corona pandemic, says Beckers.

The girl must have done something that Sandra M. "did not approve".

Greta's mother looks at the teacher in the dock and cries.

The lies of Sandra M.

Sandra M. herself remained silent about the allegations during the trial.

As long as she does not provide any information, the answer to the question about the motive remains speculation, says prosecutor Lingens after the hearing in the hallway.

He had demanded a lifelong professional ban for Sandra M., for which the chamber does not see any requirements.

The court-appointed psychiatrist did not find any signs of pathological changes in Sandra M., but found a high degree of self-pity and full responsibility.

Sandra M. claims that she found Greta on April 21st in this life-threatening condition and cannot explain how it came about.

Is she telling the truth?

Witnesses spoke of fairy tales that Sandra M. had been telling since she was a child.

Like the story of the woman who was attacked by an unknown person in a forest in May 2019 until Sandra M. saved her.

It later emerged that Sandra M. had fabricated the incident and inflicted a cut on herself.

The preliminary investigation for pretending to be a criminal offense has been discontinued.

In a letter to her parents from prison, she once again apologized to them for making up the crime.

more on the subject

• Murder trial against educator: death on the last working day Julia Jüttner reports from Mönchengladbach

• Researcher on the von Viersen case: "Violence in the day-care center is a huge taboo" An interview by Sarah Heidi Engel

• Suspicion of murder against an educator in Viersen: difficulty breathing while nap by Lukas Eberle, Mönchengladbach

She is also said to have come up with a disabled brother who is in a coma and critically ill grandparents who are kept alive with the help of devices and whom she has to look after alone.

She told a friend that she wrote funerary speeches for deceased children, but only at the request of their parents.

A relative admitted in court that Sandra M. was prone to exaggeration;

He discovered a poem she allegedly wrote for him on the Internet.

Sandra M. told the court that she had received psychological treatment after being abused by an uncle in law who had since passed away.

At that time she was 15 years old.

Her uncle threatened to "destroy the family" if she betrayed him.

She did not report the assault.

Prosecutor Lingens evaluates all of this as part of a production.

The 25-year-old always wanted to be "a heroine," says Lingens.

In her actions she chose "the smallest and weakest as victims".

Greta died of brain damage

Colleagues drew Sandra M.'s picture of an "unappealing storyteller" who did not fit into the team, who showed little empathy or affection for children.

Her resignation was initiated when the 25-year-old resigned herself on April 30, 2020.

April 21, 2020 was her last day of work.

It was she who informed the other educators about Greta's condition around noon.

One of them remembered in court how conspicuously collected Sandra M. had remained when the girl lay lifeless, with blue lips on a mattress, and a colleague tried to resuscitate the child.

"A big heart for children"

Greta died 14 days after the incident at the daycare center, one day after her third birthday, of brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen.

The cause for this could not be clarified with certainty; the forensic doctor considered a strong external influence to be the most likely cause of death.

Probably, but not clearly, defender Ingo Herbort opposed this in an interview with SPIEGEL.

The evidence only showed possibilities and probabilities.

In addition, the motif remains open.

"She quit, she had a new job - why should she have done that?" Asks Herbort.

Sandra M. only answered questions about her résumé in court.

Your professional career is like a series of trips to various day care centers.

Once she was fired after a few months, once she resigned herself after a few months. It sounded as if Sandra M. found it difficult to get involved in a new environment, but also in her job itself.

It is all the more irritating that she said to the psychiatric expert: Educator, that is her »dream job«.

Sandra M. emphasized in her last word at the end of the pleadings of her defense lawyer how much she enjoyed the job of educator.

She has "a big heart for children" and she suffers from the allegations.

"I never did anything to Greta or any other child."

When Sandra M. is on her way back to her cell and the reporters gather around those involved in the process on the court corridor, Lothar Beckers does not leave the empty room with his chamber.

The three professional judges and the two lay judges remain seated in their chairs, as if they too were not really convinced of their answer to the question about the motive.

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