Höxter criminal case

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Location of Höxter-Bosseborn
Crime scene of the Höxter criminal case (the so-called "horror house")

The Höxter criminal case is a German criminal case in which a couple from Höxter - Bosseborn lured women to a farmstead via personal ads and severely abused them for a long time, which led to the death of the victims in at least two cases. The case became public when the police began securing evidence at the crime scene on April 27, 2016, after a 41-year-old woman from Lower Saxony died of serious injuries caused by abuse. The exact number of other victims is not known. In the media there was talk of the torture Bosseborn or Horrorhaus Höxter .

The main hearing against the alleged perpetrators before the Paderborn Regional Court began on October 26, 2016 . The expert for the male defendant Wilfried W. was dismissed at the end of 2017 because of his illness and false information, which delayed the process. On October 5, 2018, the largely confessed defendants were sentenced to 13 and eleven years in prison, with the male convicted being admitted to psychiatry.

Investigations

The North Rhine-Westphalia police with the Bielefeld homicide commission took over the investigation. She set up a 40-person homicide squad "Bosseborn" under the direction of Chief Detective Ralf Östermann. The public prosecutor's office in Paderborn is responsible with chief public prosecutor Ralf Meyer. From May 11, 2016, Chief Detective Thorsten Stiffel took over the management of the “Bosseborn” homicide squad .

After the investigation, the alleged perpetrators Wilfried W. and his long-time partner and former wife Angelika W. physically abused 41-year-old Susanne F. in their rented house. On April 21, 2016, both perpetrators wanted to take the physically badly damaged woman back to Bad Gandersheim by car, where she had lived since the end of 2015. Due to an engine failure, the vehicle stopped in southern Lower Saxony. The couple called an ambulance because of the poor health of the victim, but the 41-year-old died about two hours later in Helios Hospital in Northeim . The autopsy found blunt violence against the head of the victim. In the course of the police investigation, the two alleged perpetrators were provisionally arrested on April 27, 2016 in Bosseborn and on the following day the Höxter district court issued an arrest warrant for manslaughter .

Further investigations revealed the presence of another homicide. Then the 33-year-old Annika W. from Uslar - Dinkelhausen is also one of the victims. She moved into the house in summer 2013 and married Wilfried W. in autumn 2013. According to Angelika W., she died on August 1, 2014 from a fall. The couple is said to have frozen their corpse first, then dismantled, burned in the fireplace and scattered the ashes around the village. A 51-year-old woman from the greater Berlin area came with her life , who, according to her own statement, was detained and mistreated in the house from August 2011 to March 2012. A team of investigators from Bielefeld traveled to Berlin on May 3, 2016 to question the witness. Before the victim's release in 2012, the couple drove with the woman to the police station in Uslar, because the woman had to confirm in writing to witnesses that she had voluntarily lived with the couple in Höxter. The police officer there declined the request and sent the couple away without looking into the case.

On May 4, 2016 the house in Bosseborn was cleared out by officers from the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia together with investigators from the homicide commission as part of the forensic investigation. On May 8, 2016, Der Spiegel reported that investigators had found forced suicide notes from those who died. In addition , Angelika W. , who is currently in custody in the Bielefeld-Brackwede prison, is said to have made a list with the names of seven victims and the various forms of abuse inflicted on them. On May 9, 2016, the Bielefeld police headquarters reported that homicide investigators had so far identified four abused women. A total of 50 reports were received by the police. On May 11, 2016, the Paderborn public prosecutor and the Bielefeld police announced that the investigation had been extended to the period from the end of 1998 to April 2016. The number of reports received increased to 61. Not all victims were physically abused; some women were coerced into paying larger sums of money. Numerous slips of paper with self-accusations signed by the women captured were found in the house.

The search for clues in the home of the perpetrators was completed on July 7, 2016. A DNA comparison confirmed that both fatalities were in the building. After her death, Annika W. was de-registered at the registration office with the information that she had moved to Amsterdam.

Biographies of the perpetrators

Wilfried W.

Wilfried W. was born in Bochum in 1970 , attended a special school due to a reading and spelling disorder and later moved with his mother to her new partner, a farmer, in Bad Lippspringe . He began training as a dog handler with the British Army of the Rhine , but broke it off to help on the farm. He is said to have completed an apprenticeship as a car mechanic . In 1991 he was living on welfare and began a relationship with a woman named Michaela. Although he met a Paderborn woman in 1994 and the two married that summer, the relationship with Michaela continued; she moved into the joint apartment and participated in crimes against her wife. In 1995 the Paderborn District Court sentenced Wilfried W. to two years and nine months' imprisonment for dangerous bodily harm and deprivation of liberty. His former partner Michaela, who was 22 at the time of the crime, received a suspended prison sentence of one year. From spring 1994 onwards, both had evidently mistreated W.'s then wife in the former apartment in Paderborn - Benhausen . Relatives of the wife were able to free the victim, who was beaten with boxing gloves and tormented with a hairdryer, on September 21, 1994. The marriage ended in divorce. His first child was born in 1994 and is no longer in contact with him. In 1999 the second marriage followed with co-defendant Angelika W., who divorced in 2013. In 2014, Wilfried W. married Annika W. for the third time. In August 2014, she died as a result of abuse in their shared apartment in Bosseborn. W. ran a small kiosk at the train station in Brakel , which he financed in part with the money he had stolen from the mother of the first death victim.

Angelika W.

Angelika B., as she was called before her marriage, was born on January 21, 1970 in Herford and grew up on a farm in Lockhausen ( Bad Salzuflen ). As a child, she was fond of animals, with an IQ of 120, she is exceptionally gifted and has a very good memory and a high sense of duty. She had to work hard on the farm early on, never had a “best friend” and barely indulged in anything. After completing secondary school, she completed an apprenticeship as a gardener. She loaned DM 5000 to a married Iranian with whom she had sex for the first time and never saw him again. After her father's death, her mother urged her to look for a husband, which is why she replied to Wilfried W's advertisement in 1999. At the first meeting with the heavily indebted caretaker at the railroad, she told of her high savings and experienced the encounter as “love at first sight”. After eight weeks they got married, although Wilfried had already hit, insulted and humiliated her.

Relationship of the perpetrator couple

In 1999 Wilfried W. and Angelika W. married. She is said to have brought her savings of more than 160,000  DM into the marriage. In the same year, a child was born, with whom there should no longer be any contact. Both lived from 2003 to 2010/11 in the community of Schlangen in the Lippe district and then moved to Höxter - Bosseborn . In 2013 they divorced for financial reasons. However, the couple continued to live together and pretended to be siblings in the village and towards the visitors.

process

accusation

On September 21, 2016, the Paderborn public prosecutor brought charges against the two accused of murder by omission .

Angelika W. confessed and made extensive statements. On October 26, 2016, the main trial against the alleged perpetrator couple began in the courtroom of the Paderborn Regional Court under the presiding judge Bernd Emminghaus. The hearing was originally scheduled to run until March 2017, and 48 witnesses and seven experts were to be heard. In court, the two defendants blamed each other. In November 2017, Wilfried W.'s expert reported that Wilfried W. had admitted partial guilt and confirmed that he was guilty. In December 2017, the expert, who was entangled in contradictions and had not examined Wilfried W. personally in the prison in two cases, was released from his task at the request of Detlev Binder, Wilfried W.'s public defender, and Angelika W's expert with it instructed.

Psychological reports to determine the culpability

The forensic expert Nahlah Saimeh subsequently examined both defendants. According to the report, Angelika W. has "features of autism , uses sexuality as an instrument of power and cannot feel pity for her fellow human beings or victims". She is also highly intelligent and extremely domineering and power-conscious. She showed this again and again in the process in which she wanted to let play by her rules. Wilfried W., on the other hand, was according to the expert in the legal sense "moronic and therefore only less culpable". His worldview is comparable to that of a primary school child. He is constantly looking for women for great love. However, he doesn't know what that actually means. "He is not to be taught guilt or responsibility," said the expert in her statement.

According to the expert Saimeh, both defendants had developed a perfect system to lure women into the trap. Only both together would have made this system possible and without the other the abuse in Höxter would not have worked. Angelika W. and Wilfried W. therefore chose “mostly women who were mentally unstable and had only few social contacts, as became clear in the process. If women reported through a personal ad that did not do so, these contacts were quickly terminated. The victims who remained were made compliant by so-called gaslighting . They were deliberately disoriented, manipulated and deprived of their self-confidence. Angelika W. and Wilfried W. took money, cell phones or driver's license from the women. If there were still contacts to family or friends, they were torpedoed, for example, by fake SMS messages and then cut. "

Condemnation

On October 5, 2018, the Paderborn Regional Court sentenced the defendant Angelika W. to 13 years and the defendant Wilfried W. to 11 years imprisonment. The jury chamber under the presiding judge Bernd Emminghaus condemned the couple of double murder and murder by omission. In addition to imprisonment, Wilfried W. was ordered to be placed in a psychiatric clinic in the penal system . In doing so, the court did not follow the demands of the public prosecutor - life imprisonment with particular severity of guilt - and secondary plaintiffs. In the case of Angelika W., the chamber refrained from lifelong imprisonment because she gave extensive testimony and helped to clarify the situation. Due to an IQ of 59, Wilfried W. is legally considered to be “ moronic ” and therefore less liable to be guilty , so that a life sentence would not be an option.

Later history of the crime scene

At the same time as the trial, the property on which the crimes had been committed hit the headlines again because of another criminal case: the owners had sold the building after the investigation was over, and the subsequent buyer used it for the illegal cultivation of cannabis . After this was discovered and the owner was convicted, a transfer of the property to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the subsequent demolition of the building were considered.

Due to legal expropriation and transfer to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as a transitional owner, the responsibility currently lies with the Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb (BLB) NRW . If both this and the regional finance directorate , the subordinate authority in the course of the proceedings, are not interested in the sale of the property, the property can be auctioned by the Paderborn public prosecutor. If there are no bidders, the building could be demolished. In the affected district there are plans of the residents for a private purchase of the building and subsequent demolition in order to put an end to the "sensational tourism" by onlookers , which continues to this day .

Media reception

A documentary in the series Menschen hautnah (WDR) was published in 2017 under the title Das Horrorhaus von Höxter .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Invitation to the press conference in the case of the homicide in Höxter-Bosseborn. Presseportal.de, May 2, 2016, accessed May 7, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Woman who grew up in Wiehagen dies after being martyred in Höxter. Soester Anzeiger, May 6, 2016, accessed May 7, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b Weeks of abuse: Höxter's horror house. Stern online, April 29, 2016. Accessed October 28, 2016.
  4. ^ Joint press release by the Bielefeld Murder Commission, the Paderborn Public Prosecutor and the Höxter Police: Bielefelder Mordkommission is investigating a homicide in Höxter. Presseportal.de, April 30, 2016, accessed May 7, 2016 .
  5. ↑ This is the Berliner who married the sadist von Höxter. Berliner Zeitung, May 7, 2016, accessed on May 7, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Joint press release by the Paderborn public prosecutor and the Bielefeld police on the homicide in Höxter - first results of the questioning of a victim in the Berlin area. Presseportal.de, May 4, 2016, accessed May 7, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Höxter case: woman describes months of abuse ZEIT online, May 4, 2016.
  8. ↑ Suspects are said to have driven the victim to the police station Spiegel Online, June 25, 2016.
  9. ^ Bosseborn case: First results of the survey of another victim in the Berlin area. Meine-onlinezeitung.de - Weser-Ith-News, May 4, 2016, archived from the original on May 7, 2016 ; Retrieved May 7, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Höxter: Farewell letters from fatalities found. Norddeutscher Rundfunk , May 8, 2016, accessed on May 8, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Höxter criminal case: Police find farewell letters from two victims. Spiegel Online , May 8, 2016, accessed May 8, 2016 .
  12. ^ Press release from the Bielefeld police headquarters: Höxter - Bosseborn case - now a total of 50 references. Presseportal.de, May 9, 2016, accessed May 9, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Joint press release by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Paderborn and Bielefeld Police: Change of personnel in the Höxter-Bosseborn case - investigators are working on new information at high pressure. Presseportal.de, May 11, 2016, accessed on May 13, 2016 .
  14. ↑ "Breasts bitten bloody: 180 times" Stern online, October 23, 2016.
  15. ↑ Suspect Wilfried W. was already on trial for assault in 1995. Neue Westfälische , May 4, 2016, accessed on May 8, 2016 .
  16. ↑ "Wilfried made me a wreck". Westfalen-Blatt , August 5, 2016, accessed on August 7, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Psychogram of a Hörigen Berliner Morgenpost, November 17, 2016.
  18. ↑ Höxteran torture couple is said to have lived in snakes for several years. Lippische Landes-Zeitung, May 2, 2016, accessed on May 7, 2016 .
  19. ↑ Ulrich Exner: Höxter women catchers exceed all bad fears Welt.de, May 3, 2016.
  20. ^ Court wants to clear up Höxter's atrocities RP.online, October 22, 2016.
  21. ↑ Katrin Hummel : Cruel details in the courtroom FAZ.net, October 26, 2016.
  22. ↑ No regrets, just horror . RP.online, October 26, 2017.
  23. ↑ Wilfried W. apparently admits part of the blame . Spiegel Online, November 14, 2017.
  24. ↑ Is the Bosseborn trial bursting? WDR.de, November 22, 2017.
  25. ↑ The court dismisses experts in the Höxter trial . n-tv.de, December 12, 2017.
  26. ↑ a b End of the process for the "Horror House" by Höxter: The horror remains. Mindener Tageblatt, October 2, 2018, accessed on October 3, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Murder trial: "Horrorhaus" in Höxter - long prison sentences for defendants. FAZ.net, October 5, 2018, accessed October 5, 2018 .
  28. ↑ Case law LG Paderborn, 05.10.2018 - 1 Ks 53/16 . In: dejure.org , accessed October 6, 2018
  29. ↑ Beate Lakotta: Only together they were fatal , Spiegel Online from October 5, 2018, accessed on October 6, 2018
  30. ↑ Long prison sentences and instruction in psychiatry in the horror house trial , RP.online, October 5, 2018, accessed on October 6, 2018.
  31. ^ "Horror-Haus" in Höxter: imprisonment for owners for growing marijuana , Westdeutsche Zeitung. April 16, 2018. Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. Retrieved October 3, 2018. 
  32. ↑ Residents apparently want to buy the "Horror House" from Höxter , Neue Westfälische. October 3, 2018. Archived from the original on October 3, 2018. 
  33. ^ Hermann Ludwig: The future of the Bosseborn "horror house" will be decided soon. Retrieved December 15, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Michael Robrecht: Bosseborner want to buy "Horror House". Accessed December 15, 2019 (German).