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Accused in court in Landshut: "It was only when I struck that I realized what I was doing"
Photo: Armin Weigel / dpa
The Landshut district court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for the murder of his ex-girlfriend.
The court saw it as proven that the 50-year-old had killed the woman with a hammer.
According to the investigation, on the night of July 9, 2022, the man killed his ex-girlfriend, who was already asleep, in her house in Gangkofen, in the Lower Bavarian district of Rottal-Inn.
The 46-year-old had separated from her partner a few weeks earlier, but he had initially lived with her.
The 50-year-old had basically admitted to the crime.
With the verdict, the criminal division followed the request of the public prosecutor's office, which saw the murder as malicious.
The defender had spoken out for a maximum of eleven years in prison for manslaughter.
The accused had said at the beginning of the proceedings that the woman had urged him to move out of the apartment.
He couldn't remember exactly what happened that evening, but he got the hammer out of the garage and hit the woman three times early in the morning in the bedroom.
"It wasn't until I struck that I realized what I was doing."
Then the hammer fell out of his hand and he walked away trembling.
After that he drank tea, took a shower, fed the cat and went back into the bedroom to check if the woman was really dead.
Before the crime, the defendant said he had been drinking alcohol.
jpz/dpa
