He beat her up when she apparently wanted to break up with him. Two months later, he stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death in the school they went to near Heidelberg: An 18-year-old is now facing a long prison sentence.
Eleven years in prison for murder and bodily harm – that is the verdict of the Heidelberg district court against an 18-year-old student. In January, he is said to have stabbed his ex-girlfriend, who was the same age, to death in the school they shared near Heidelberg. A spokeswoman for the court announced the verdict. The proceedings took place behind closed doors. The 18-year-old admitted the crime at the beginning of the trial. The verdict is not yet final.
According to the court, the German is said to have stabbed the young woman several times with a knife on January 25th – including in the neck and chest. The 18-year-old died at the scene of the crime on school grounds in St. Leon-Rot near Heidelberg.
Serious traffic accident while fleeing
After the schoolgirl’s death, the attacker drove to Lower Saxony, as the court reported at the start of the trial, citing the public prosecutor’s office. There, in Seesen, he was pursued by the police and collided with an uninvolved vehicle at a speed of at least 100 kilometers per hour. Both the 18-year-old and the driver of the other vehicle were injured. The young man is also said to have attacked two police officers. The public prosecutor’s office accused him of grievous bodily harm because of the accident.
According to the court, however, these charges were dropped in view of the seriousness of the other crimes and at the request of the public prosecutor. In their plea, the prosecution had called for a youth sentence of 13 years for murder. The defense pleaded for eight years for manslaughter.
School management enforced contact ban in school after attack in November
The entire trial took place behind closed doors. The reason for this was that part of the charge was also an assault from November 2023. At that time, according to the court, the perpetrator had already injured the student who was later killed with punches. At the time of this crime, he was still 17 years old and therefore a minor.
During the crime in November, he allegedly hit the young woman because she wanted to break up with him, according to the prosecution. He only let go of her when her mother entered the room. The student suffered, among other things, a broken nose and bruises to her cheekbone and cervical spine.
According to the indictment, the high school graduate reported the attacker after the punches, but did not request a court-ordered restraining order against contact or approach. The police reportedly contacted the student several times in the course of threat assessments. The school administration implemented a restraining order within the school using various measures. The perpetrator was also a high school graduate.
Verdicts against students for murder also in Würzburg and Offenburg
The brutal act at a school is not an isolated case. Beatings, kicks, sexual assaults: more cases of violence have recently been reported in schools in Germany. In Baden-Württemberg, for example, 2,545 crimes against students and teachers were recorded last year – an increase of 13.5 percent. The number of violent crimes at Bavarian schools rose by 24.5 percent to 690 in 2023. In Berlin, after a record high for crimes at schools in 2022, the number of registered crimes rose again by almost twelve percent.
Just on Monday, the Würzburg Regional Court sentenced a 15-year-old to a youth sentence of eight years and six months in prison for murder. He had killed a 14-year-old classmate with a shot to the head at a school in Lower Franconia in September 2023.
In July, the Offenburg Regional Court sentenced a 16-year-old to eight years and nine months in youth custody for murder and attempted aggravated arson. On November 9th last year, he shot a 15-year-old classmate with a pistol at his school. The victim died in hospital. In this case, the public prosecutor’s office has also charged the shooter’s parents, accusing them of negligent homicide and violations of the weapons law.
Violence among children and young people has increased after the corona pandemic
According to expert Sibylle Winter, violence among children and young people has also increased as a result of the corona pandemic. This very rarely manifests itself in serious violence, said the deputy director of the Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy at Berlin’s Charité after the incident in St. Leon-Rot. “But there is more emotional violence. There is more shouting, more insults.” Bullying, for example, is on the rise.
Winter cited the lockdowns with closed schools and so-called homeschooling as reasons, among others. But it is mainly in school, through interaction, that social skills are acquired. 15-year-olds like the perpetrator in Offenburg and 18-year-olds like the convicted man in the St. Leon-Rot case are in an age range in which one takes important steps – from pubescent, sometimes rebellious teenager to adult. The environment such as parents and school as possible contacts also play a role here.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
