Mönchengladbach (dpa) – The trial of the murder of three-year-old Greta begins on Tuesday (9.15 a.m.) in front of the Mönchengladbach regional court. An educator is accused of compressing the girl’s chest until she stopped breathing in a daycare center in Viersen on the Lower Rhine in April of this year. The child later died in the hospital.
The 25-year-old German is accused of murdering the child and mistreating those in charge in nine other cases. Because already in other daycare centers in Krefeld, Kempen and Tönisvorst, she is said to have pressed the chests of children tightly and put them in mortal danger. These cases only became known through the investigation after Greta’s death.
The motive for the acts is unclear. According to earlier information from the public prosecutor’s office, the defendant has not yet commented on the allegations. According to the indictment, her superiors and colleagues had repeatedly described her as unsuitable for the profession of educator. In particular, she behaved emotionally and apathetically towards the children. Nevertheless, she continued to work in the profession.
The district court wants to hear more than 20 witnesses in the proceedings. A total of 19 days of negotiations are planned until the beginning of March. Co-plaintiffs are Greta’s mother and two other allegedly abused children from Krefeld and Kempen.
There were also allegations against the judicial authorities in connection with the case. Because in 2019, when she had long been working as a kindergarten teacher, the kindergarten teacher attracted attention for pretending to be a criminal offense in her hometown of Geldern. A doctor stated that she urgently needed psychological help, which the educator herself confirmed. But the supervisory authority, the State Youth Welfare Office, was not informed by the public prosecutor’s office about the woman’s psychological condition, so she continued to work with young children.
The fact that the investigation got going at all goes back to a complaint from the children’s clinic where Greta died. The medics found no explanation for the sudden cardiac arrest and became suspicious, whereupon the body was autopsied. That was how the case began.
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