The regional court sentenced a 22-year-old from Main-Spessart to three years in prison, who had been working at Retzbach. He was blown up by a dog that didn’t exist.
Photo: Karlheinz Haase
They burned like hell: around 1,000 bales of straw, stacked up to seven meters high in the Affental after the grain harvest in August. The firelight on the evening of November 27th was visible in Retzbach, 500 meters away. Now the man who had reported the fire was on trial: a 22-year-old man from the Main-Spessart district who had started the fire himself.
The 22-year-old was arrested two days after the fire, which had caused major fire brigade operations. Since then he has been in custody. As became known at the trial at the regional court in Würzburg, he had betrayed himself: he wanted to have noticed the fire while “walking the dog” with his dog, as documented by the recording of the emergency call. At the time, he had no dog at all.
“It is true that I caused the biggest straw fire in Lower Franconia.”
Statement by the 22-year-old arsonist about his defense lawyer–
The accused was admitted. At the beginning of the trial, lawyer Klaus Spiegel (Würzburg) said for his client: “It is true that I caused the biggest straw fire in Lower Franconia.” The two-day trial ended on Friday after two and a half hours.
The accused lived on the same street as the farmer concerned, a quarter of an hour’s walk from Affental. However, they only knew each other by sight. He even rang the doorbell in person and told him: “It’s burning with you.” The man’s neighbors had already made the police aware that he no longer had a dog when the flames were still burning.
Photo: Karlheinz Haase
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Lighter as a birthday present
The man had set the straw bales on fire the day after his 22nd birthday: with a lighter that his mother had given him along with a scented candle. At an interrogation, he said it took at least five to six minutes for the straw to burn. Then he got a guilty conscience and tried to put out the fire – but unsuccessfully.
The arson was a “cry for help” out of total sadness, the defender explained the motive of his client; a short circuit action. He could no longer stand it alone at home and wanted his wife, who was very pregnant at the time, and his young son to be with him again. Due to the domestic conditions, these had been accommodated in a mother-child house in Upper Franconia.
Why the accused was so depressed
The alternative would have been to take the child out of the family. On his birthday, according to the 22-year-old, his wife congratulated him on the phone and asked him to “get her out of there”. The fact that he had been taken away from his family made him sad and pulled him down – after all, he had planned to avoid and do better in his family what he had experienced as a child and adolescent at home. But the youth welfare office is “straddled in between” – provided with wrong information by the mother-in-law.
In addition, his tenancy had been terminated and he was still on probation for a property crime. The flames would not have brought him relief as far as his depressed mood was concerned.
Photo: Karlheinz Haase
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The relationship with the farmer did not seem to matter. There was no “open bill”, it could have hit anyone else. Drugs and alcohol were not involved. An expert found no evidence of a pyromaniac disposition. She did recognize deficits in social behavior and a moderate depression at the time of the crime. A reduced liability is neither to be excluded nor to be seriously advocated.
The bottom line is damage of 200,000 euros
Straw was a coveted material in the drought year 2019. The damage incurred was estimated at 60,000 euros. The cost of the extinguishing work – almost 100 firefighters from five fire brigades were in action – and the disposal of the remains of the fire are reported by the public prosecutor’s office at a further 140,000 euros. Who was to bear these costs was not the subject of the proceedings.
The public prosecutor had applied for four years in prison and the defense two years on probation. The 22-year-old is now serving the rest of his three-year sentence in the correctional facility in Würzburg. The ruling is not yet final, said Public Prosecutor Boris Raufeisen, but no appeal has yet been filed.
Editor’s note: The court date had been scheduled so quickly that he was not on the list of sessions. Therefore, no court reporter was present at the trial. The information listed here was subsequently requested from those involved in the process.
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Retzbach
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Wurzburg
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Franz Barthel
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accused
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Arsonists
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Arson
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Fires
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Familys
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Arrests
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Fire departments
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Correctional facility Würzburg
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Würzburg District Court
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Emergency calls
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police
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Public prosecutor
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Pre-trial detention
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