Murder of Melanie and Karola Weimar

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The murder of Melanie and Karola Weimar is a German criminal case from 1986, which attracted great interest from the German media until the end of the 1990s. The two girls, aged 7 and 5, were reported missing by their parents on August 4, 1986, and their bodies were found three days later. The mother of the girls, Monika Böttcher, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a circumstantial trial in 1988 for the murder of her two children, acquitted in 1997 in a retrial and convicted again in 1999 after another trial. The chronology of the court proceedings against the mother is remarkable from a legal point of view because of the repeated overturning of the judgments, including by the Federal Court of Justice .

background

The mother of the girls, Monika Böttcher (born April 13, 1958) was a trained nursing assistant . Father Reinhard Weimar (approx. 1952 - November 12, 2012) was a trained car mechanic and worked underground in the “Hera” shaft of the potash and salt mines , the main employer in the region. Böttcher and Weimar met in 1977 and married in June 1978. She used his name during the marriage, but resumed her maiden name after the divorce. Böttcher later said that her marriage to Weimar was mainly due to a panic at the end of the gate.

The couple had two daughters, Melanie (born July 22, 1979) and Karola (born March 8, 1981). The family lived in Philippsthal ( Hersfeld-Rotenburg district ) in Hesse , which was right on the inner-German border until the reunification of Germany . The Weimars lived there in an apartment in an apartment building on Ausbacher Strasse in the Röhrigshof-Nippe district , where Monika Böttcher grew up. The older and younger sister of Monika Böttcher with their husbands as well as the mother and grandmother lived in different apartments in the same house. Böttcher's father died in 1983.

Reinhard Weimar had been undergoing medical treatment several times since the beginning of 1985 for impaired consciousness with long fainting-like failures and had to be hospitalized three times, most recently in October 1985. These conditions were attributed to drug intoxication ( benzodiazepines and neuroleptics ), as traces of these substances were detected in his urine had been. However, he couldn't remember taking these drugs. In the later trial of his wife, he suspected that his wife had secretly given him medication in food and drink, which she had access to as a nursing assistant. This possibility was also recognized by the Regional Court of Fulda , although the court also left this question open. The disturbances in consciousness did not recur after the separation. Monika Böttcher claimed that her husband took the medication himself to arouse her pity.

The marriage of the Weimars was already considered broken at the time of the death of their children. Monika Weimar's sister Brigitte Elliott (* approx. 1966), married to an American, also had marital problems, and so the two of them began to go out together in the evening. Monika Weimar met the US soldier Kevin Pratt (* approx. 1962) in April and May 1986 and started a relationship with him; a divorce was already being discussed. From July 1986 Reinhard Weimar regularly visited a brothel in Bad Hersfeld.

Pratt had been stationed in Bad Hersfeld since November 1983 . His wife had followed him with their three children in May 1984, but had then started a relationship with another man and had been sent back by the US Army in January 1985 because of her lifestyle. Pratt had a good relationship with Monika Weimar's children and had repeatedly urged Weimar to follow him with her children to the USA. However, she refused the children to emigrate to the USA and wanted to live with Pratt in Germany. In the end there were tensions in this connection too: According to Pratt, he had truthfully told her from the start that he was still married and could not get a divorce while he was stationed abroad; However, Monika Weimar claimed that Pratt had presented himself to her as divorced. Conversely, Pratt reports that Monika Weimar had also claimed to be divorced and that he only found out between the end of July and the beginning of August that she was still living with her husband. He then announced to her that he would only extend his posting, which was limited to October 1986, if she could present him with evidence that a divorce had been filed, which she had not done. Most recently, Pratt had started flirting with another woman and asked if she would go to the United States with him.

Monika Weimar's mother took care of the two children when her daughter was on night shift or when she went out with Pratt. However, on August 2, 1986, she was hospitalized unexpectedly and was supposed to be released five days later. Monika Weimar and Kevin Pratt spent August 3rd with their two children on a bathing trip. There had been a dispute beforehand because Reinhard Weimar wanted to accompany his family, which Monika Weimar dismissed with the words "You can't swim at all". At 6 p.m. she came back home with the children and got them ready for the night. She said she left the house at 8:30 p.m. to meet with Pratt again in a discotheque. According to her own account, she returned home around 3 a.m., Pratt said he was with her until 3 or 3:30 a.m.

Course of events

Both Monika and Reinhard Weimar were on vacation on August 4, 1986, a Monday.

Monika Böttcher's defense attorney, Gerhard Strate, cites as “undisputed” that Monika Weimar left the residential complex with her car at 10.50 a.m., made transfers at a nearby bank and post office shortly before 11.00 a.m. and returned home at around 12.15 p.m. had arrived, which roughly coincides with Monika Weimar's original statement. Other sources, however, state that the bank clerk with whom Monika Weimar allegedly spoke was on vacation that day; her alleged stay in a supermarket coincides with the time her car was seen at the later location of Melanie's body. The girls were reported missing by their mother (according to other sources, her sister, Brigitte Elliott) around 1:30 p.m. The police, the Federal Border Police and neighbors began looking for the children. Reinhard Weimar also took part. However, the investigators found it unusual that Monika Weimar did not participate.

On the afternoon of August 7, a bus driver found Melanie's body in a parking lot on the L3255 near the Herfa-Neurode underground dump , nine kilometers from her parents' home. One and a half hours later, around 6 p.m., an intensive search led to the finding of Karola's body on a disused stretch of road in Bengendorfer Grund, four kilometers from the place where Melanie's body was found.

The children were buried on August 11th. The day before, an obituary had appeared in the Hersfelder Zeitung , which contained the slogan:

"Father, if the mother asks," Where have our children gone? "Then tell her that we are in heaven."

Original statement by Monika Weimar

Monika Weimar stated in her first hearings that the children got up around 9.30 a.m., had a small breakfast and went to a playground near the house at around 10.15 a.m. She left the house at around 10.30 a.m. to run errands, came back between 12.30 p.m. and 12.40 p.m. and then prepared lunch. Then she sent her husband to fetch the children to eat; these had disappeared.

Second statement by Monika Weimar ("night version")

On August 29, one day after her arrest, Monika Weimar presented a new version of the events that she maintained throughout the proceedings: she came home on the night of August 4 at around 3 a.m. and had her husband in the nursery found. Both children were already dead at the time, but were still body warm; they were no longer dressed in their pajamas, but in day clothes. Reinhard Weimar cried and made a confused, absent impression. She went into the bedroom, from where she heard the engine noise of a driving away car. After a while the car returned, and shortly afterwards her husband entered the bedroom. When confronted by her, he said: “Now nobody will have the children” and told her where the corpses were to be deposited.

The next day she wanted to see her children again and therefore drove to the place where Melanie's body was later found. She found Melanie's body there, but not Karola's body.

She explained her missing person report and original account of the events by feeling sorry for her husband and feeling guilty for the death of the children. The presentation was based on the events of the previous day.

To Monika Böttcher's expense, it was interpreted that she had not attempted resuscitation or sought help, although her entire family lived in the same house. As a trained nurse, she must also have known that death can only be determined with certainty by a doctor.

Representation of Reinhard Weimar

Reinhard Weimar stated that he slept from around 10 p.m. until late morning, got up around 11.30 a.m. and waited for his wife, who had returned around 12.15 p.m.

At the trial against his ex-wife, he testified that he “did not recall having committed such an act” and “if I did it, it must have been a blackout”. Regarding the removal of the corpses, he said: "I am almost certain that I could not manage the removal of the girls on my own". When asked whether he had had symptoms similar to his three previous illnesses on the night of August 3rd to 4th, he replied that he could "not imagine" it.

Representation of the court

According to the Fulda Regional Court, Monika Weimar let her children get into her car on August 4 at around 11.30 a.m. Then she drove with them to the later location where Karola's body was found, 11 km from the family home, where she arrived at 11.40 a.m. There she sent one of her children to urinate in a bush and killed the other during that time. Then she killed the second child and first put both children in the bushes. She then loaded Melanie's body into the car and drove it to a parking lot 4 km away at 11.50 a.m., where she threw it into a nettle bush at 12 p.m. Then she drove home, where she arrived at 12:15 p.m.

Alternative versions

A private investigator put forward several alternative hypotheses for the application for the first retrial: The two children would have taken a seat in the car unbuckled in the passenger seat. Both were fatally injured in an emergency stop, or only one of the children died and Monika Weimar killed the other child in shock or panic. As an alternative hypothesis, he cited that Monika Weimar's brother-in-law had killed the children. On the other hand, the private detective also claimed that Reinhard Weimar had confessed to him. The court did not believe him.

Investigations

First, various scenarios were considered: child abduction by a parent, abduction by a stranger or the children running away, for example in front of arguing parents. After the investigators learned of Monika Weimar's relationship with Pratt on August 5, she was initially suspected of having kidnapped her children - possibly with Pratt's involvement.

After the bodies were found, the investigators considered the parents alone as possible perpetrators: that an unknown person would have killed and removed the children near the apartment in broad daylight was considered to be just as unlikely as the possibility that the children would become one Strangers could have got into the car. From the children's personal environment, a coherent motive was assumed only for the parents: In Reinhard Weimar's case, jealousy was assumed, in Monika Weimar's case, that the children had been in the way of their relationship.

Monika Weimar was arrested after an interrogation on August 28 and interrogated again the following day. She now incriminated her husband and was released again. Reinhard Weimar was arrested on August 30, but released the same day because the Fulda district court rejected an arrest warrant against him. On October 27, 1986, the Fulda District Court issued an arrest warrant for Monika Weimar. With that the investigation focused only on her.

Autopsy of the bodies

The children's bodies were autopsied on August 8, 1986; the result was available on August 18th. No traces of sexual abuse were found, nor were any traces of psychotropic drugs found. Melanie Weimar had been suffocated , possibly under soft cover; Karola Weimar had been strangled . Both types of death are usually associated with uncontrolled urination and stool; it was fitting that Melanie's bladder was completely empty and only a minimal amount of urine was found in Karola. The time of death roughly corresponded to the time of their alleged disappearance, although the time of day of death could not be conclusively determined.

The examination of the stomach contents of Karola Weimar revealed that she had last consumed milk, cocoa and a pastry containing wheat flour. This fit with the small breakfast theory, but could also be due to the consumption of filled chocolate chip cookies such as those found in the family dining room. Monika Weimar stated that the children occasionally fed themselves and occasionally ate something after dinner. Due to the degree of digestion, death must have occurred 30 minutes to a maximum of one hour after the last ingestion of food. The stomach contents of Melanie Weimar visually showed a similar picture, but was not analyzed in detail due to a mistake in forensic medicine.

Finding status of the corpses

Both girls wore the day clothes that Monika Weimar had described in her missing person report: Melanie was dressed in a white T-shirt, red shorts, yellow socks and sandals, Karola in a pink T-shirt, short yellow knitted pants, blue socks and sandals . Both children wore hair and pigtail clips. The girls' underpants showed no signs of wetting, although this would have been expected based on the type of death. The orderly clothing of the children was interpreted as an indication against Monika Weimar; In a memo dated August 19, 1986 the wording can be found:

"Only the mother wanted the children to be beautiful as corpses ."

A large number of burdock were found on Melanie's clothes and hair . Böttcher's defender, Strate, argues that the total number of 362 burdock cannot be explained by the movements of a playing child, especially since burdock bedstraw usually grows near host plants, especially raspberry bushes or nettles. However, near the place where Karola's body was found, an area of ​​2 × 2 meters was found on which the grass was depressed and in the vicinity of which numerous nettles grew. Strate interpreted this to mean that Melanie's body was first placed there, for example to prepare it. Since burrs were also found on the inside of Melanie's shorts, Strate concluded that Melanie's shorts had not been put on until after she died.

While the underpants that were also seized and worn by the children on August 3 showed individual grains of sand, no traces of sand were found on the clothing with which the children's bodies had been dressed. Strate took this as an indication that the children had not been in the sandpit or on the gravel path in front of the house before they died.

Anonymous letters

Monika Weimar had given the police two anonymous letters that she had allegedly received and that incriminated her husband. However, a written report showed that it was very likely that she had written these letters herself, which she finally admitted.

Weimar family car

VW Passat, similar to the Weimar family's car

The Weimar family owned a white VW Passat with eye-catching, approx. 5 cm wide black decorative stripes on the sides. A witness had seen him on August 4 at 11.03 a.m. and again at 11.20 a.m. in a parking lot on the L3255, a few meters from the place where Melanie's body was found. Investigators discovered on the afternoon of August 4th that the windshield had cracked, which Monika Weimar initially explained by falling rocks on the morning of the same day. Investigations showed, however, that the jump was caused by a “powerful push from inside the vehicle”. Weimar now claimed to have had sexual intercourse with Pratt in the car the previous night and hit the target with his heel. She didn't notice the crack in the windshield until the next morning. In his interrogation, however, Pratt stated that the windshield was still intact in the early morning of August 4th. Investigators and the Fulda Regional Court were of the opinion that the damage was caused by a defensive reaction of the children during their killing.

Evaluation of fiber traces

The children's clothing was checked for fiber buildup. It was also investigated whether the children's bed linen also had adhesions of these fibers in order to gain information as to whether the killing had taken place at night. The reports were criticized several times by Monika Böttcher's defense attorney, Gerhard Strate: while the mother's entire outer clothing was checked for conformity with the adhesions, only a few of the father's clothing - by far not all of the items that could be considered for the period of the crime - were checked. Also, falsifications of the traces caused by the elapsed time until the bedding was secured and the incorrect packaging were not sufficiently taken into account.

Adhesions of synthetic fibers were found on Melanie Weimar's underpants, which came from the protective covers of the back seat in the family's car: according to Strate, this is an indication that Melanie could only have been wearing her underpants when she was transported in the family's car. These man-made fibers were found in large numbers on the clothing of both children, which, however, only had a few fibers that matched the woolen covers of the front seats. According to Strate, this spoke against the theory that one of the children could have caused the damage to the car's windscreen in the agony.

A later fiber expert opinion, which formed the basis for the retrial, came to the conclusion that the adhesions from Monika Böttcher's blouse to Melanie's T-shirt and shorts were evenly distributed and did not show any guide marks, as would have been expected when carrying a corpse.

Testimony from Brigitte and Raymond Elliott

Brigitte and Raymond Elliott, who lived directly above the Weimars, both testified that they heard Karola cry on the night of August 3rd and 4th. Thereupon they would have checked together in the Weimar apartment. Karola pissed her pants; Brigitte Elliott drained them. Melanie, who usually woke up immediately, lay motionless in her bed. They would not have checked whether the parents were in the apartment.

Sightings of the children on August 4th

Neighbors said they saw the girls on August 4th between 10:50 and 10:57 a.m. on the way in front of the apartment buildings. On the other hand, Monika Weimar's car was seen from 11:03 a.m. in the car park 10 minutes away by car. The children's great-grandmother had initially stated that she had seen the children in the hallway on August 4th, but later withdrew this statement and claimed to have confused this with what had happened the previous day.

Criminal witnesses against Reinhard Weimar

Four witnesses stated that Reinhard Weimar had directly or indirectly confessed to them about the murder of his children, including a private detective, a short-term acquaintance and a fellow patient in psychiatry. The prostitute, whom Reinhard Weimar had repeatedly visited, stated that he had said to her: "Nobody can prove anything to me, remember that." The courts classified her statements as untrustworthy.

Processes

Monika Weimar was arrested on October 27, 1986 on suspicion of murder and sentenced by the Fulda Regional Court on January 8, 1988 to life imprisonment for murder. Monika Weimar, who again took her maiden name Böttcher after the divorce from Reinhard Weimar, protested her innocence. On February 17, 1989, the Federal Court of Justice rejected their appeal, and on May 2, the Federal Constitutional Court also dismissed the constitutional complaint .

According to a new fiber report, the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court ordered the reopening of the proceedings on December 4, 1995 . From June 5, 1996, Monika Böttcher was again on trial in Giessen and was acquitted on April 24, 1997 after 55 days of trial. The public prosecutor's petition for revision of the acquittal was tried several times until the Federal Court of Justice ordered a new and thus third trial on November 6, 1998.

This process began on September 2, 1999 before the Frankfurt am Main regional court and ended on December 22, with Monika Böttcher being convicted again. The Federal Court of Justice rejected the appeal on August 27, 2000, after which Monika Böttcher returned to prison.

After a total of 15 years in prison, Böttcher was released on August 18, 2006 from the Preungesheim correctional facility in Frankfurt .

consequences

Monika and Reinhard Weimar's marriage was divorced on October 26, 1987.

Monika Böttcher took her maiden name again. Between her release from prison in 1995 and her re-imprisonment, she lived near Frankfurt am Main and received unemployment benefits and social assistance. After her release from prison in 2006, she first worked in a Frankfurt law firm and later moved to England.

Reinhard Weimar moved back to his parents in Hohenroda . Since 1989 he has been partly outpatient, partly inpatient because of paranoid - hallucinatory schizophrenia-like psychosis in psychiatric treatment and made several suicide attempts. His state of mind at the time of his daughters death is considered a matter of dispute. In the readmission process in 1996 he was considered capable of litigation (and was thus able to exercise his right to refuse to give evidence ), but not capable of being questioned . He died of heart failure in 2012; an autopsy did not reveal any evidence of third-party debt.

Kevin Pratt did not extend his stationing in Germany and returned to the USA in Fort Sill , Oklahoma , at the end of October 1986 . He fell seriously ill and was already dependent on a wheelchair when he testified again in 1997.

Role of the media

The retrial received a great deal of media interest. A controversial aspect was the direct involvement of the weekly magazine Stern . After a meeting between the defense attorney Monika Böttcher, Gerhard Strate , and the later Stern editor-in-chief (at that time still head of department) Thomas Osterkorn took on a portion of 50,000 DM in the process costs. For this, the star demanded exclusive rights, which the magazine saw violated after Monika Böttcher's release from prison on December 4, 1995, as she also spoke to other media immediately afterwards. The magazine sued the lawyer Gerhard Strate before the Hamburg district court.

Reception in the media

The television film Der Kindermord by Bernd Böhlich from 1997 is based on the case .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Reinhard Weimar died of heart failure - "Weimar Murder Case": Husband is dead. In: HNA. November 14, 2012, accessed June 8, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Gerhard Mauz : "I didn't know where to go ..." In: Spiegel Online . April 6, 1987, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Monika Böttcher: Imprisonment - acquittal - back in court. In: Rhein-Zeitung . November 6, 1998, accessed June 9, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Bruno Schrep : 95 percent think the mother is guilty. In: Spiegel Online . November 17, 1986. Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Mauz : "I thought he was an urgent suspect". In: Spiegel Online . January 11, 1988. Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad The Weimar murder case - strength and dangers of material evidence , Strate, in: Kriminalistik, 1997, 634
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Gerhard Mauz : "I cannot live with this uncertainty". In: Spiegel Online . April 27, 1987, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Viola Roggenkamp : An unmarried woman , in: Die Zeit 19/1987
  9. ↑ a b c d e Gerhard Mauz : "Because he took my dearest ..." In: Spiegel Online . March 30, 1987, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Mauz , Gisela Friedrichsen : Does the father have to be the murderer? In: Spiegel Online . February 8, 1993, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  11. ↑ a b c d e The better motive. In: Spiegel Online . December 11, 1995. Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  12. ↑ a b c d e Gisela Friedrichsen : "She wasn't honest with me". In: Spiegel Online . January 13, 1997, accessed June 9, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Gisela Friedrichsen : "That was an insoluble conflict". In: Spiegel Online . September 20, 1999, accessed June 12, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b c d e Gisela Friedrichsen : A great moment? In: Spiegel Online . June 17, 1996, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b c Clarified: Parents under suspicion - The Monika Weimar files. July 3, 2020, accessed July 5, 2020 .
  16. ↑ a b c d e Gisela Friedrichsen : Two-time child murderer Monika Böttcher is free. In: Spiegel Online . August 18, 2006, accessed November 10, 2018 .
  17. ↑ a b The Weimar case: One double murder - two proceedings - two judgments. In: Rhein-Zeitung . March 19, 1998. Retrieved November 10, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b c The Weimar case , in: Die Zeit 51/1995
  19. ↑ a b c Gerhard Mauz : "... proven to be unfounded". In: Spiegel Online . April 10, 1995. Retrieved June 12, 2019 .
  20. ^ A b Rainer Hamm : Chronology of the criminal proceedings against Monika Weimar (Böttcher) with references and norms to be treated. (No longer available online.) In: www.hammpartner.de. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014 ; accessed on November 10, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Gisela Friedrichsen : "The personal certainty". In: Spiegel Online . May 5, 1997. Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  22. ^ Wanted poster (Memorandum of June 14, 2019)
  23. ↑ Last contact. In: Spiegel Online . December 11, 1995. Retrieved June 10, 2019 .
  24. ↑ a b c d Joachim Neander: Before a dramatic turning point? In: The world . March 7, 1997, Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Thomas Darnstädt , Hans-Jörg Vehlewald : "There is no substitute for the children". In: Spiegel Online . April 28, 1997, Retrieved June 9, 2019 .
  26. ↑ a b Reinhard Weimar is dead - Monika Böttcher's ex-husband died of heart failure in Hohenroda on Sunday. In: Lokalo24. November 13, 2012, accessed June 9, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Viola Roggenkamp : The trial of Monika Weimar: Stern and Spiegel help with , in: Die Zeit 24/1996
  28. ↑ The child murder