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Crime scene in Illerkirchberg: Minister Strobl and Ambassador Ahmet Basar Sen commemorate the dead girl
Photo:
Bernd Weissbrod / dpa
The early light falls on the town of Illerkirchberg in the Alb-Donaukreis district, just like the day before, when two girls were stabbed on the way to school around 7:30 a.m.
Faint and riddled with gray winter fog, enhanced by the River Iller.
The people here have laid flowers, candles, written cards, painted stones in the shape of a heart at the scene of the crime, the extent of which is increasing by the hour.
Candles say "Why?" or "Rest in Peace."
Strategically parked police cars all over town should signal that nothing like this will happen again here.
Four women came by car from the neighboring Bavarian town of Senden with flowers in their hands.
One of them, also a mother, says: »It hurts«.
She knew the 14-year-old girl who was killed with a knife.
"My daughter danced with her." In the afternoon, friends of the badly hit family from the Oberkirchberg district want to meet in Ulm to talk to each other.
After the knife attack on Monday, the police arrested a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Eritrea.
The bloody deed happened on a narrow, tarred connecting path directly in front of the entrance door of an asylum center where the man was staying with two other compatriots.
When he was arrested in the house, the suspect himself was seriously injured, he was first taken to a hospital and, according to the prosecutor, operated on for hours.
He hasn't said anything yet, according to a spokesman for the Ulm public prosecutor's office in the morning.
The 13-year-old girl who was also stabbed was taken to a clinic on Monday, and according to the authorities her condition is stable.
What the other two men from Eritrea can contribute to the investigation of the crime is still unclear.
A young couple comes to the carpet of flowers, the woman is the mother of a four-year-old daughter.
“I have a migration background myself, I'm not a racist,” she says, dragging on a cigarette every second.
"But Germany has to open its eyes." The country has done "enough" for the asylum seekers.
She believes that people "live better here than we do." She works as a nurse in a local old people's and nursing home, straight from the night shift.
Your face is pale.
She's trembling, has zipped her jacket up to her neck.
No lanterns at the crime scene
From the scene of the crime, there is a steep climb up the stairs to the district of Oberkirchberg, in the middle of which is a primary school.
This is where the two girls came from before the attack.
A representative of the responsible state education authority in Biberach is on site.
He wants to support the rector as much as possible, he says.
"School psychologists are making offers today." A teacher who comes to work repels questions and asks: "Leave the children alone." A father accompanies his daughter to the door, watches her, waves until she's gone.
His voice sounds strained.
He points down towards the scene of the crime.
“Look how dark it is there.” There have been complaints about this for years, but nothing has happened.
Down in the short thoroughfare, where the police lane markings are still visible despite the damp asphalt, there are no streetlights.
The two girls only had to walk 50 meters to the illuminated bus stop on the main street on Monday.
As always, they wanted to take the bus to their school in Ulm.
In the home for asylum seekers, a two-story building from the 1950s or 1960s, almost all the shutters are closed.
Chipped plaster on the facade has been provisionally plastered over.
There are three bicycles in front of garbage cans, and balls are stuck in a snow guard on the roof.
The issue of lighting was discussed by local councils on Monday evening, says non-party mayor Markus Häußler.
"Let's do something about that now." He hardly has any time, employees are hurrying back and forth around his office in the town hall, doors are slamming, phones are ringing.
The Baden-Württemberg CDU Interior Minister Thomas Strobl has announced that parking spaces must be cleared for lunchtime.
The home for asylum seekers belongs to the municipality, as do other buildings with the same function.
“In Illerkirchberg, we decided on decentralized accommodation.
I think that's right, "emphasizes the head of the town hall.
Almost 50 refugees live in community accommodation.
Another 25 people from Ukraine are also housed in private apartments.
Reduced or excluded criminal responsibility?
According to the mayor, the men from Eritrea had been living in the house in front of which the girls were stabbed for several years.
“There was good social control there.” Haeußler has no explanation as to why it might have failed.
Ulm's chief of police, Bernhard Weber, told the "Bild" newspaper about the alleged perpetrator: "He has a residence permit and is entitled to stay here in Germany.
He was accommodated in the community center as part of the follow-up accommodation.«
At noon, black cars pull up in front of City Hall.
In addition to Minister Strobl, the Turkish ambassador in Berlin, Ahmet Basar Sen, also came.
The girl killed had Turkish roots.
The entourage drives first to the scene of the crime in Oberkirchberg, as a silent sign of sympathy.
Statements for the journalists in front of the local sports hall follow.
Sen says he met the girl's family that morning and offered his condolences on behalf of Turkey.
The 14-year-old was born in Germany to Turkish parents.
According to the ambassador, he hopes for "complete clarification", because the Turkish community in Germany "becomes immediately unsure of such crimes".
The minister says: "The background to the crime, in particular the motive, is unclear up to now." The girl suffered several knife wounds in the head and upper body.
In the morning, the Baden-Württemberg Council of Ministers had specifically interrupted a meeting for a minute's silence.
There is, Strobl adds, "no evidence whatsoever of a political or religious motivation."
That may turn out to be a shaky promise.
The Ulm public prosecutor's office reports that they are examining, among other things, whether there could be indications that the main suspect's criminal responsibility is reduced or excluded.
A short psychiatric report on this was commissioned.
