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Torsten B. in court: accused of attempted murder
Photo: Bernd Wüstneck / dpa
He speaks freely, for almost four hours.
Torsten B., 56 years old, police officer, presents a complicated and confused story to the jury chamber of the Neubrandenburg district court this Tuesday.
For the public prosecutor, the matter is clear: According to the indictment, B. is said to have hit and choked his former lover in her apartment in Neubrandenburg on October 11, 2021 until she lost consciousness.
Stefanie E., 33, had previously tried to scream for help and reach the apartment door.
Torsten B. continued to hit her.
He is also said to have beaten her 69-year-old mother and thrown her to the ground until she lost consciousness.
Then he is said to have doused his former girlfriend with alcohol and set it on fire.
Stefanie E. suffered extensive burns.
The injuries were life-threatening, says the prosecutor.
There was a baby in the bedroom, eleven months old.
He was taken to the hospital with suspected smoke inhalation.
According to the public prosecutor's office, Torsten B. acted cruelly and with base motives.
He tried to "torturously kill" his former girlfriend to cover up that he was the child's father.
»There was absolutely no reason to freak out«
He denies the charge of attempted murder.
Although he hit his former lover and her mother, he claims he neither poured denatured alcohol over his former girlfriend nor set it on fire.
He just wanted to talk, he says.
Because his former lover suddenly called for help, the situation escalated.
"There was absolutely no reason to freak out." He means the women's cries for help, not his behavior.
Torsten B. is a 1.90 meter tall, well-trained man with glasses and short hair.
He has been with the police for 35 years, most recently with the permanent criminal service in Rostock.
He met Stefanie E. on the Internet.
He says they met for sex a few times between December 2019 and March 2020.
When he found out that she was meeting other men, he broke off contact.
In August 2021, she wrote to him that she had had a daughter and that he could be a father.
He didn't react.
Only when he got mail from the youth welfare office did he try to get a paternity test.
She was not enthusiastic about such a test, he says.
Instead, she asked him for 5,000 euros, then she would keep to herself that he was the father.
He made it clear to her that he would not allow himself to be blackmailed.
If he were the father, he would also fulfill his responsibility.
As he puts it, something went wrong with the evaluation of the first paternity test.
He then mentions two ominous text messages he received in September 2021: "It's time for you to pay off your debts, otherwise..." He didn't read any further and deleted the messages.
He assigned the sender's cell phone number to Stefanie E.
He then asked her for a meeting to clarify "the problem".
Exactly what problem he means is not entirely clear.
"I saw a latent danger there, I didn't want to get caught between any fronts," he says.
On October 11, 2021 he drove to her apartment.
It was a spontaneous idea.
Torsten B. hesitates, takes a sip of water and digresses.
First he speaks of a second paternity test, which he apparently manipulated.
He wanted to give her a "shot across the bow" because of her "sneaky way".
His narrative falters again.
Then he continues.
He pulled on his padded motorcycle gloves
He went to her and rang the bell at her apartment door.
Before that, he put on his padded motorcycle gloves to hold the door open in case she wanted to slam the door again.
Stefanie E. was surprised to see him.
"I took advantage of the element of surprise, pushed the door open and took a step in the door." He said she should answer a few questions.
It was "not a threatening atmosphere".
He left the door open a crack when he was in the hallway.
Suddenly the mother appeared.
And then – “completely out of the blue” – Stefanie E. screamed for help.
He covered her mouth.
"She sank to the floor and stomped on the front door like a madwoman." Her mother also screamed for help.
"The noise, the noise, that just pulled the plug on me." He calls the women's cries for help "acoustic sensory overload."
He says: »I had no control.« He was no longer able to control his behavior and was »totally overwhelmed«.
The women "had around" in front of him, so he punched Stefanie E.
He had "pushed away" her mother.
He perceived everything else "as if in slow motion".
He gives an exact number of his hits.
He met his mother twice and Stefanie E. four times.
The mother had fallen without his doing.
Stefanie E. also fell.
His presentation becomes more confused.
»I remember everything as completely diffuse, surreal.«
He broke out in a sweat, had difficulty breathing, and took off his glasses.
Then it occurred to him that he was leaving tracks in the hallway with his shoes.
He took a spirit bottle in the hallway and squirted something on the laminate where he was standing.
The mother stirred in the hallway, he went to her and asked her if everything was okay.
Stefanie E. crawled through the hallway, he hadn't considered that she might have crawled through the puddle of alcohol.
He pushed her aside.
Then he distributed more alcohol and lit the alcohol.
The fire in one spot of the laminate burned for about half a minute, then it went out.
There was no smoke development.
He left the apartment.
At home he was very confused.
The next day he wanted to report himself.
But before that he was arrested.
As a non-smoker, why did he have matches with him?
The presiding judge asks him what the padded gloves are for.
"I told you so," he says.
He wanted to prevent her from closing the apartment door when she saw him.
"But if you just wanted to talk, why couldn't you have accepted her closing the door again?" "It's quite simple: because then it wouldn't have been clarified." The judge continues to ask.
"Why didn't you just leave when the women were screaming for help?" He can't explain it, and says again that he's overwhelmed.
And why, as a non-smoker, did he have matches with him?
He likes to light tea lights at home, says Torsten B.
The prosecutor asks why he tampered with the second paternity test if paternity would not have been a problem for him?
Torsten B. reacts thin-skinned.
Instead of answering, he says: "Of course it's clear to me: I'm the accused here, I'm the bad guy."
