Murder of the Apelt brothers
The murder of the Apelt brothers caused a sensation in the United States in the late 1980s . The brothers Michael Apelt (born February 28, 1960) and Rudi Apelt (born August 1, 1963), who were born in Düsseldorf , were sentenced to death in the USA for the murder of Cindy M. in December 1988 . The penalty against Rudi Apelt was in 2009 because of his mental disability into a life sentence converted.
The fact
In 1988 Michael and Rudi Apelt, who already had a considerable criminal record in Germany, decided to travel to the United States to look for a wife for Michael. The plan was to take out life insurance for her in his favor after the wedding in order to kill her afterwards and collect the insurance sum.
On August 10, 1988, the two brothers flew to San Diego , California, accompanied by Rudi's wife and Michael's ex-girlfriend . They stayed in a motel and immediately started looking for a suitable wife for Michael. In a nightclub the brothers met Cheryl R. and Trudy W. from Phoenix , Arizona , and posed to them as surfboard manufacturers and importers for Mercedes. At the end of the evening, the two women gave the brothers their Phoenix address and phone number.
Some time later, Rudi and Michael flew to Phoenix, where Cheryl R. picked them up and took them to a hotel. After a few weeks, the two flew back to San Diego, only to fly back to Phoenix shortly afterwards with Michael's ex-girlfriend. Rudi's wife flew back to Germany.
Then on October 6th the opportunity the brothers had been waiting for arose. In a bar in Mesa they met Annette C. and posed as a computer and banking expert who were on vacation. Rudi called her the next day and made an appointment with her that evening. Annette C. brought her friend Cindy M. and Rudi his brother to this meeting.
Michael spent the whole evening with Cindy telling her "You're the woman I want to marry". All four saw each other regularly from then on. The girlfriends mistrusted when, after a visit by the Apelt brothers, Cindy's apartment was missing $ 100. They called the Holiday Inn where the brothers were supposed to be staying and were told they weren't known there. After a few more calls, the two women found out that the brothers were staying at Motel 6. Annette C. and Cindy M. went there, but only met Michael's ex-girlfriend, who pretended to be a good friend of the family.
The next day, the brothers met with the two women again and told them that they had lost their jobs because of their inquiries. The friends apologized and offered to make amends to marry her, which the brothers gladly accepted. The relationship between Rudi and Annette broke up shortly afterwards, when Annette found out that Michael's ex-girlfriend was more to Rudi than just a "good friend". Rudi withdrew for the time being and Michael told the two women that Rudi had traveled back to Germany.
Michael and Cindy married on October 28, 1988 in Las Vegas .
10 days after the wedding, Michael convinced his wife to take out high life insurance. The sum of 1,000,000 dollars was considered. Cindy was convinced that it was a common practice in Germany for weddings. Ultimately, they took out insurance for $ 400,000. In the case of Cindy M.'s death, the beneficiaries were the Apelt brothers. The first installments were paid by Cindy herself by check.
The first day on which the insurance could be claimed was December 22, 1988. On December 23, 1988 Michael Apelt drove with his wife into the desert at Apache Junction . Rudi and Michael's ex-girlfriend followed secretly in a second car. Cindy M. died on December 23, 1988 as a result of multiple knife stabs in the upper body and a severed throat. Her body was found in the desert on the evening of December 24, 1988.
The police became aware of the Apelt brothers and their ex-girlfriend due to the insurance they had taken out. The trio's attempts to set the wrong tracks also made them the focus of the investigation. In early January 1989, the three were arrested in Cindy's apartment. After the individual interrogation of the ex-girlfriend and the prospect of impunity, she made herself available as a key witness.
process
The trials against Michael and Rudi Apelt took place in the Superior Court of Arizona. Michael Apelt's ex-girlfriend testified against the brothers as a key witness. For this she was assured of complete impunity. She burdened Michael Apelt very heavily with her statement. At Rudi Apelt she did not see a knife or bloody hands. She also reported on joint meetings at which the crime was planned.
In his trial, Rudi Apelt became an expert commissioned by his own lawyers. This stated that Cindy M., contrary to previous assumption, was only murdered by one perpetrator and that the perpetrator was right-handed. His brother Michael is left-handed . The jury was convinced of the expert's evidence. After all, he was appointed by the defense.
Michael Apelt was sentenced to death on August 10, 1990 and has been on death row ever since. The first execution date was June 5, 1998. A federal appeal process that was initiated resulted in the execution being postponed.
In October 2018, a retrial that had been sought in December 2017 was rejected after a renewed examination en banc . Three of the judges voted in a minority vote in favor of a retrial. The argument of the resumption was the undisputed, blatant incompetence of Apelt's former defense attorney, who had failed to provide evidence of Apelt's difficult childhood. Rudi Apelt was sentenced to death on January 8, 1991. However, his sentence was converted into life imprisonment in 2009 by the judge Silvia Arellano due to his intellectual disability . He has been in a Tucson prison since then .
These cases were repeatedly reported in the German and American press.
Criticism of the litigation
Amnesty International Germany criticized a violation of the Vienna Convention because the German consulate was not informed that two German nationals were on trial in the United States. According to Article 36 of the Vienna Convention, the German consulate should have been informed at the time of arrest. Amnesty further criticizes the fact that it was not possible to provide good lawyers and appraisers, and thus it could have prevented that the Apelt brothers' trials were carried out with constantly changing and poorly prepared public defenders.
The interpreter of the trials, whose qualification consisted primarily of belonging to the circle of acquaintances of judge Robert Bean, admitted that she “did not understand legal terminology”.
According to experts, the reports from 2009, which led to the conversion of Rudi Apelt's death sentence into life imprisonment, should have been requested in the course of the first instance proceedings.
The Foreign Office and the German Consulate General are now following the two cases. However, there was no further comment on the prospects of success with reference to a pending proceeding.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Execution of the German scheduled for June 5 , Der Tagesspiegel , April 29, 1998
- ↑ Louis J. Palmer, Jr .: Encyclopedia of Capital Punishment in the United States . McFarland & Company, Jefferson, 2008, p. 26
- ↑ a b State v. Michael Apelt , Supreme Court of Arizona, En Banc
- ↑ a b c gas chamber or poison syringe , Die Zeit , edition 6/2001
- ↑ Daniel Perle, Court lets stand death sentence against man in insurance policy killing in Cronkite News PBS of October 12, 2018
- ↑ USA: Execution of Germans repealed, Hamburger Abendblatt
- ↑ Rudi Apelt , The Arizona Republic, September 4, 2003
- ↑ a b c Human rights activists hope for the last chance for Michael Apelt Westdeutsche Zeitung , May 6, 2013