Julia Hose murder case

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The Julia Hose murder case was the murder of an eight-year-old from Rodheim-Bieber in the municipality of Biebertal in the district of Gießen in Central Hesse . Julia Hose was kidnapped in 2001 by a man from the neighborhood and presumably killed immediately afterwards.

The case not only caused a stir across Germany and led to a comparatively short investigation of 52 days, which was described as “perhaps the most complex manhunt in Hesse's post-war history”. Thorsten V, who lived in the child's neighborhood, was identified as the perpetrator and sentenced to life imprisonment two years after the offense . The evidence relied solely on forensic and forensic methods. On the sidelines of the investigation, the behavior of some media representatives was sharply criticized. The case sparked a wide public discussion about how to deal with sex offenders.

Course of events

In the early evening of Friday, June 29, 2001, eight-year-old Julia Hose disappeared from her hometown in Rodheim-Bieber. It was found that the child was last seen near the sports field at 6:00 p.m. A large-scale search operation began, in the course of which 2,000 police, fire brigade and rescue services unsuccessfully searched 30 km² of forest, meadows and agricultural land in four days. Late in the evening of Tuesday, July 3, 2001, a cyclist reported the fire of a pile of wood in a wooded area near the federal highway 45 in the Niddatal district between the districts of Kaichen and Ilbenstadt , about 50 kilometers from the place where the girl disappeared. During the extinguishing work on July 4th, shortly after midnight, the fire brigade found the remains of an almost completely burned corpse, which on July 5th, 2001 in the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen by DNA analysis as the body of the missing child was identified. The victim was buried in his hometown on July 11th with the participation of the then Hessian Interior Minister Volker Bouffier .

Investigations

Due to the high volume of reports, a special commission was set up at the Giessen Police Headquarters to coordinate the search and investigate. In the course of the investigation it grew to seventy employees. By the time the body was found, around 300 and then several thousand reports were received, but initially they did not contain any hot leads. A routine review of the alibis of known sex offenders found no evidence.

The public prosecutor's office in Giessen offered a reward of 50,000 DM for information leading to the investigation of the perpetrator ; converted to 64,514 euros today. On July 13, 2001, the case was presented in the program Aktenzeichen XY , whereupon the police received more than 100 additional information.

In the course of investigating the area, police officers routinely questioned Thorsten V, who lives not far from the Hose family and who initially - confirmed by his wife - stated that he had been at home on the evening of the crime.

Perpetrator investigation

After the severely burned human remains at Kaichen had been identified as the victim's body, the search for clues also focused on the area around the fire site. An evaluation of around 200 films of stationary speed monitoring systems in the vicinity of the site showed that Thorsten V. was on 3 July 2001 at 11:10 p.m. on Bundesstraße 45 in the Nidderau - Heldenbergen district - at a suitable spatial and temporal distance from the scene of the fire - with his Volkswagen had been measured and photographed. Thorsten V. was questioned by the police about this matter at his workplace. He stated that he wanted to break in his car. The police did not find any traces on him that would indicate proximity to a fire scene.

On July 17, 2001, a walker found scraps of blue cloth on a dirt road, a water pistol like the one the victim had carried, an empty cigarette packet and a pair of discarded latex gloves. He handed these finds to the police in Friedberg (Hesse) , who sent them to the Hessian State Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden . DNA traces were secured on the gloves, and there was also a textile fiber on the finds.

An evaluation of cell phone connection data on August 6th revealed that the V. couple had been talking on the phone at the time of Julia Hose's disappearance, but the cell phones were logged into different cells in the cell phone network. This contradicted V.'s alibi.

The public prosecutor at the regional court in Giessen applied for a search warrant for the home of the suspect V. Before this could be executed, there was a severe deflagration of gasoline fumes in the basement of the house on August 6, 2001 , in which V. suffered life-threatening burns. During the house search that was carried out afterwards, body tracking dogs struck in the basement despite the fire damage. The search finally revealed that the blue scraps of cloth found near Friedberg on July 17th came from V.'s house. The textile fiber came from a 40 m² carpet in the cellar, on which a 0.05 mm² blood trail of the victim could still be found despite the fire. The cigarette packet that was found was of the brand that V. preferred. The DNA traces on the latex gloves were assigned to V.

Sequence of events

According to the investigation and the judgment of the regional court in Giessen, Thorsten V., 33 years old at the time of the crime, lured the child into the cellar of his house in the early evening of June 29, 2001, where he handcuffed and then killed the child. Late in the evening of July 3, he burned the body on a pile of wood in the forest near Kaichen. The amount of firewood would have been sufficient to completely cremate the remains and make them undetectable if it had been burned unhindered. He threw gloves and scraps of cloth out of the vehicle on a dirt road near Friedberg. While driving, he was photographed with his vehicle at Heldenbergen because of a speed violation.

In the time after the crime, V. apparently made efforts to remove traces. The news site “ stern.de ” reported that he had cleaned his car thoroughly and replaced the floor mats. On August 6th, V. tried to remove further traces in his cellar with the help of gasoline, whereby the vapors ignited and burned him permanently and severely all over his body. He was admitted to a special department at the University Hospital in Cologne . 80 percent of its skin surface was burned.

process

On August 21, 2001, V. awoke from his coma . An arrest warrant has been issued against him. V. was considered capable of questioning, but did not provide any information on the offense at any time. He took part in the process while sitting in a special wheelchair. On March 20, 2002 the public prosecutor brought charges in Giessen. A medical report dated August 7, 2002 confirmed that he was able to stand trial. The process before the regional court in Giessen began on November 6, 2002. V. still did not comment. On the first day of the hearing, his defense counsel read out a statement in which V. denied the offense. In their plea , the public prosecutor stated that V. was an alcohol-related disinhibited personality. He had consumed hard pornography all the time, he was disappointed with the reality, the killing of children was part of his fantasies. To cover up the previous sexual offense, he killed the child. The public prosecutor's office declined to apply for the establishment of a particularly serious guilt with regard to the serious burn injuries that V. had incurred while removing traces. V.'s defense attorney demanded acquittal for lack of evidence. Although his client's involvement in the crime is possible, there are no witnesses and “no direct, objective, compelling evidence.” On May 20, 2003, V. was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in unity with attempted sexual coercion. The court saw it as proven that Thorsten V. had lured the victim into his cellar to sexually abuse him. Then he killed it, although a completed sexual offense could no longer be determined. The court relied on information about the personality of the defendant and on pornographic material found in his apartment to determine the motives. According to the court, V. was “highly sexualized”. The judge described the fact that the defendant put the handcuffs later found on the body on the victim after the victim's death as "rather unreal". It could, "if one sees the circumstances, not be in doubt that the accused committed the act." In addition to the largely approving public reactions to the judgment, however, doubts about the conclusiveness of the evidence, especially regarding the motive, were expressed.

Person of the perpetrator

Thorsten V., who was 33 at the time of the crime , began studying after graduating from high school , but dropped out of it and instead completed a commercial apprenticeship. He was married and the father of a daughter who was around 6 months old at the time of the crime. He had only moved to Biebertal with his family in March 2001. There was no police information about him. V. was employed in the financial accounting department of the Justus Liebig University in nearby Giessen. In his free time, he was very interested in cars and often found out about new developments from car dealers. Characterized as the “prototype of the good average citizen”, V. was inclined to alcohol . Friends of V. testified in court that under the influence of alcohol he was always agitated and sometimes aggressive. On the day of the day he had started drinking alcohol after work, first in a car wash, then in a restaurant in Giessen, where he consumed beer and Jägermeister . At around 5:35 p.m., V. arrived in Rodheim-Bieber, noticeably intoxicated. At the time of the crime, he could have had a blood alcohol concentration of up to 1.4 per thousand.
The day after the crime, V. stated on the street in front of the camera that, as a father, he was very upset about the child's disappearance.
After the fact, he was apparently planning to move again. He asked a bank to make an offer to buy a house in Grossen-Linden . V. was badly burned and permanently disfigured during the deflagration. He will probably be dependent on outside help for his entire life.

Reactions

Political debate

The act had a decisive influence on the broad public discussion about the tightening of sentences and measures taken for sexual offenses to the detriment of children. Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder also spoke to Bild am Sonntag on July 8, 2001 . He stated that he was becoming more and more convinced that adult men who attacked little girls could not be treated. He said the sentence that was often quoted years after the crime: "That is why there can only be one solution: lock it away - forever." In the Julia Hose murder case, Schröder demanded the greatest possible effort to catch the perpetrator as quickly as possible and with everyone To judge hardness. "Anyone who places himself outside of the human community can only be given the maximum penalty." Schröder's statement and demands for increased penalties were controversial. The former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ( FDP ) rejected Schröder's demand. Volker Beck from the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party said he saw no need for a change in the law. In contrast, the Bavarian Justice Minister Manfred Weiß (CSU) expressed his approval . This led to an ongoing debate that revolved around measures such as the introduction of a sex offender register, the storage of genetic fingerprints and the use and expansion of preventive detention for particularly dangerous criminals.

Conduct of the press

Relatives and neighbors of the victim perceived the behavior of some members of the press as intrusive and inconsiderate. At a press conference on July 4, 2001, a family member urged the press to refrain from further meetings with Julia's parents. Despite this, the press and camera crews appeared at the child's parents and grandmother.

Media reception

When reporting on comparable criminal cases, reference was made repeatedly to the Julia Hose murder case.

The Hessian Broadcasting sent on April 26, 2015 hr-television a documentary in which, among other things, the then head of the Special Commission reported on the case. The Hessischer Rundfunk referred to the act as a crime "which is still occupying many people in the region and throughout Hesse."

On the occasion of the retirement of the presiding judge, the Gießener Anzeiger wrote in October 2015 that this procedure had been the "most media-effective, most spectacular and probably also the most procedurally demanding" in the judge's career.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Asbjörn Svarstad: Åttaåring eldades upp för att dölja murder. In: Aftonbladet (Sweden). July 5, 2001, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  2. ^ German girl's body identified. In: CNN . July 5, 2001, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Defendant denies all allegations. In: Der Spiegel . November 6, 2002, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Ulrich Jaeger: Carpet fluff on the field path. In: Der Spiegel . August 27, 2001. Retrieved November 21, 2016 .
  5. ↑ a b Eight-year-old Julia buried in the Hessian Biebertal. In: Der Standard (Austria). July 11, 2001. Retrieved November 22, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b c Jochen Lamberts: Murder case Julia: Cruel certainty. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 5, 2001, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Tanja Stelzer: In the face of guilt. In: Der Tagesspiegel. November 5, 2002, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Chronology of the Julia case - clues lead to the murderer. In: n-tv. August 20, 2001, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  9. ↑ New evidence against Thorsten V in the Julia murder case. In: BZ August 11, 2001, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  10. ↑ a b Georg Nolte, Guido Speiser: Murder case Julia: Evidence convicted neighbors. In: The world . August 21, 2001. Retrieved November 21, 2016 .
  11. ↑ a b Katharina Iskandar: Serial Killer von Schwalbach - Hope means technology. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . May 24, 2016. Retrieved November 21, 2016 .
  12. ↑ a b Lifelong for the accused in the Julia murder case. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  13. ↑ a b Lifelong for Julia's murderer. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . May 21, 2003, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  14. ↑ New information against suspects. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . August 13, 2001. Retrieved November 21, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Julia case: law enforcement officers call for life for proven sex murder. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 30, 2003, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Surprise in the murder case Julia - Defense wants acquittal. In: n-tv. May 13, 2003, accessed November 23, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Life sentence for Juliet's murderer. In: The world . May 21, 2003, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  18. ↑ a b Gisela Friedrichsen: Lifelong in the murder case "Julia" The sky, the meadow and the blue parts. In: Der Spiegel . May 20, 2003, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  19. ↑ a b Julia murder case - suspect wanted to move away. In: Focus Magazin No. 35 (2001). August 27, 2001. Retrieved November 21, 2016 .
  20. ↑ a b Gisela Friedrichsen: Why did Julia have to die? In: Der Spiegel. December 2, 2002, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  21. ↑ a b Uncertainty for parents "almost unbearable" - Life imprisonment for the murder of Julia. In: Rheinische Post . May 20, 2003, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  22. ↑ Helmut Schwan: Julia Murder Case - Some recognized a slight shake of the head. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . May 20, 2003, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  23. ↑ Responses to the Julia murder case. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 8, 2001, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  24. ↑ Gerhard Schröder: "Lock up sex offenders for life". In: Der Spiegel . July 8, 2001, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  25. ↑ Schröder wants to "lock up" child molesters - call for tougher punishments for child molesters. In: Rheinische Post. July 8, 2001, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  26. ↑ Dealing with sex offenders tougher - Chancellor under fire. In: n-tv. July 10, 2001, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Parents ask the press for "distance" at the funeral. In: n-tv. July 10, 2001, accessed November 21, 2016 .
  28. ↑ Profound knowledge of files not only in the Julia murder case. (No longer available online.) In: Gießener Anzeiger. Archived from the original on July 9, 2015 ; accessed on November 24, 2016 .
  29. ↑ Hesse's great criminal cases - the murder of Julia Hose from Biebertal. (No longer available online.) In: hr-fernsehen . Archived from the original on November 22, 2016 ; accessed on November 21, 2016 .
  30. ↑ As chairman of the jury chamber, Bruno Demel was "boss in the ring" in over 100 trials. In: Gießener Anzeiger. August 29, 2015, accessed November 24, 2016 .