The case of a 91-year-old defendant from Gemnden (Lkr. Main-Spessart) requires a lot of tact on Tuesday. The former businessman is accused of having killed his wife, with whom he was married for 70 years, out of desperation and helplessness. After that he is said to have tried in vain to also part with life.
The suspect himself called the ambulance
Rescuers pulled the exhausted 91-year-old out of the bathtub on that November night of 2019. Now the pensioner has to face the charge before the Wrzburg Regional Court of having killed his wife. The defendant himself called for help shortly after 10 p.m. that evening. Although the ambulance was on site quickly, any help came too late for the woman. An emergency doctor could only determine her death. The police arrested the uninjured husband at home.
Defender: Act out of love and overwhelming
The defendant had written farewell letters immediately beforehand, according to Chief Public Prosecutor Boris Raufeisen. He had asked the emergency doctor by telephone to retrieve the bodies inconspicuously. On the phone, he also asked for “gentle treatment of the bereaved.
It is also a very unusual case for him, says defense attorney Norman Jacob. Because, in contrast to other cases, we do not have hostility as a driving force here, but love and overwhelm.
The chief public prosecutor tends to be of the same opinion: The act is against the background of the inevitable overload of the defendant with dementia and the domestic care of his wife, according to Raufeisen. The accused and his wife evidently had promised each other in the past that they would part with one another.
Reduced guilty due to psychological situation?
A relatively short process is therefore expected. According to the public prosecutor’s office, a preliminary report assumes “that the defendant suffered from a severe depressive mood at the time of the offense and could therefore have been less guilty”.
The public prosecutor also knows that the case can hardly be grasped with the means of criminal law alone. This is shown by the fact that the defendant was released from pretrial detention just a month after the crime in early December 2019.
If thoughts torment you about suicide, please contact telephone counseling immediately. On the toll-free number 0800-1110111 or 0800-1110222 you can get help from advisors who can show you ways out of difficult situations. The crisis service at Kardinal-Dpfner-Platz 1 in Wrzburg is open Monday to Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tel. (0931) 571717, and an on-call service can be reached on the same number every day from 6.30 p.m. to 12.30 a.m. TelefonSeelsorge also offers help online at www.telefonseelsorge.de.
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