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The defendant Samuel V before the Munich Regional Court
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
Lawyer Alexander Stevens appeared in court on Wednesday, the second day of the trial for the triple murder of Starnberg, with a home-baked Linz cake.
His client, Samuel V, accused of murder, had a birthday.
He has turned 20, and if Stevens does not succeed in convincing the Chamber of Vs innocence, then Stevens will have to spend many more birthdays in prison.
The Munich II public prosecutor's office has charged Samuel V. and his friend Maximilian B. with murder: B. is said to have killed his friend Vincent P. and his parents with gunshots in the head and chest on the night of January 11, 2020 in order to illegally use weapons get.
Samuel V. is considered an accomplice because he is said to have chauffeured Maximilian B. to the family house in Starnberg - knowing that B. wanted to kill at least one person there.
Samuel V. denies having been privy to possible murder plans of co-defendant B.
But he admits that B. drove that evening, as he often did, because B. had neither a driver's license nor a car.
A friend reported an extreme family argument
According to the indictment, Maximilian B. is said to have disguised the murder of his friend Vincent P. as a suicide: When the victim was found, he was holding an empty Glock Model 19 Gen4, caliber 9 × 19, in his right hand. There were traces of smoke on his hands .
His parents were shot with the same gun.
Defense attorney Stevens and his colleague Alexander Betz sketched several versions of the crime at the start of the trial, showing how the family could also have died because of the traces: A dispute in the family that escalated completely?
A crime by several perpetrators?
Maybe an accident?
V.'s defense lawyers base the latter on a friend of his mother's, who stated in her police interrogation that the son might have accidentally shot his father in an argument, then "went nuts" and also shot his mother and himself.
The friend testified on the third day of the trial at the Munich Regional Court, initially relativized her statements and finally confirmed them, as Vs defenders say.
Accordingly, the woman reported some extreme disputes and tensions within the family, including tantrums from the father.
He is said to have threatened the son if he were not allowed to take the intermediate examination in his apprenticeship.
According to defense attorney Stevens, the friend confirmed that Vincent P. quickly trusted strangers.
He is said to have given Maximilian B. the access code to the house of the P family.
The man killed, who completed an apprenticeship as a gunsmith, is suspected of having traded in weapons.
Did it get him into the wrong circle?
But now the report of a weapons expert raises new questions.
During the investigation, all the homes of friends of the killed P. and the two defendants were searched.
Weapons and a projectile nine millimeters in diameter were seized from one man.
It is track 7.
The defender insisted on balancing the projectile
According to the so-called comparative microscopic examination, this projectile was fired from the very pistol that the shot Vincent P. was holding in his hand when he was found.
How does a projectile get from the murder weapon into a friend's apartment?
Was the friend at the scene?
Or was the murder weapon fired before the crime in his home?
That was "a spectacular event," says Stevens, who had pushed for the report.
The public prosecutor had announced that the search had found a projectile that "systematically" matched a Glock 19.
Stevens then insisted on an individual comparison, he says.
For Samuel V's lawyers, a possible variant of the offense comes into focus, which they themselves had initially dismissed as "adventurous allegations": In pre-trial detention, the defendant Maximilian B. is said to have told fellow prisoners that he had to kill his buddy Vincent P. to prevent a "killing spree" that he planned.
Did the friend who found the projectile from the murder weapon know about such plans?
In any case, the find gives new fodder to speculation about the course of the crime.
On this Thursday, the fourth day of the hearing, the forensic doctor is invited.