Status: 30.07.2023, 18:18 p.m.
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A sign with the inscription "Defendant" is placed on the court bench. © Arne Dedert/dpa/Symbolbild
He armed himself with a hammer and toy gun and proceeded extremely brutally: A man shocked an entire region with a series of violent crimes in the Schwäbisch Hall area. In doing so, he probably deliberately chose weak victims.
Heilbronn - Half a year ago, the case terrified an entire area: two elderly women were found dead in their apartments in the Schwäbisch Hall area within a few weeks - brutally beaten to death. One is 77 years old, the other 89 years old. At first, investigators do not know whether other unsolved violent crimes are connected. People are afraid. Since Friday, a 31-year-old man from Serbia has had to answer to the Heilbronn Regional Court.
According to senior public prosecutor Harald Lustig, this is an extraordinary procedure: "Schwäbisch Hall is basically a rural area - a homicide is something extraordinary," he says. "There's a whole series of crimes here." More precisely, there are three crimes that the 31-year-old is accused of. They testify to cold-bloodedness and brutality. The crimes according to the indictment:
December 21, 2022 - Presumably between 14:42 p.m. and 16:31 p.m., the man enters the apartment of a 77-year-old woman in the Tullauer Höhe housing estate in the south of Schwäbisch Hall - to "take everything worth stealing". He probably enters the apartment building via a defective front door. When he meets his victim in the apartment, he attacks her on the neck and head with a previously unknown weapon. She suffers a traumatic brain injury, the skullcap breaks. The woman dies from her injuries.
The attacker goes into the bedroom, steals banknotes worth 1500 euros from a cassette and flees. The public prosecutor's office sees the murder characteristics of greed and the so-called intention to enable the murder fulfilled - which is when someone kills his victim because he believes that he can commit another crime faster or easier in this way.
January 25, 2023 - The perpetrator visits the apartment of a hearing impaired 89-year-old woman in the surrounding Michelbach. It is unclear how he enters the apartment building - he probably gets into the apartment because the lady regularly leaves her key in the lock from the outside. In the apartment, he hits the woman with a hammer several times "massively" on the head, as the chief prosecutor reported on Friday. She suffers an open traumatic brain injury and dies.
Because the investigators cannot prove that the man also wanted to steal something from the second wife, they were charged with manslaughter. Should it turn out that the man wanted to enable a theft with the act, a guilty verdict for murder would also be considered, the judge clarified on Friday - "even if nothing should have been stolen in this case".
January 17, 2023 - At around 14:10 p.m., the perpetrator visits the property of a man, also over 80 years old, in Ilshofen in the district of Schwäbisch Hall. He wears eye-catching sunglasses. When the victim opens the door, the attacker punches him in the face. The old man rushes backwards onto a wooden staircase. The attacker points a real-looking toy gun at his victim and shouts: "You money!". Then, suddenly, the wife appears, the perpetrator avoids a step backwards in surprise. The couple takes the chance to close the door. The attacker flees. The elderly gentleman escapes with a bruised nose, muscle injury and abrasion. Through his testimony, the investigators can draw a phantom image that leads them to the suspect.
At times, the police suspect that the perpetrator is behind other violent crimes in the region. Just a week before the alleged murder of the 77-year-old, the body of an 86-year-old woman was discovered in the immediate vicinity. The death of a 94-year-old senior citizen, whose body was also found nearby in October 2020, has not yet been solved. However, connections have not been confirmed, said Lustig.
The chief prosecutor assumes that the defendant will receive a life sentence, possibly with subsequent preventive detention. He had probably deliberately chosen victims of old age because they were "easy prey" and could hardly defend themselves. In at least one case, it can also be assumed that he observed his victim and waited for an opportune moment.
The process will have to answer many questions. It is unclear, for example, whether the Serb has already become violent in his homeland. According to his own words, he had only entered Germany with his wife and two children at the beginning of December 2022. A total of 12 days of hearings are scheduled. Dpa