Before her violent death, schoolgirl Ayleen kept the chats she had with her alleged killer secret from her mother. Before the Gießen district court, the mother described on Wednesday as a witness not only the last encounter with her daughter, but also that she had changed in the weeks before the crime. “Everyone noticed,” said the 54-year-old. Ayleen was generally very shy and reserved and “largely avoided trouble”. Since about May she had seemed listless, listless and withdrawn. She herself thought it might be because of problems at school or with a teacher, said the mother, who also appears in the process as a joint plaintiff. The 14-year-old girl never mentioned the accused.
Ayleen was a little “whiny” at noon that day, she was not feeling well. Towards evening, the 14-year-old leaves her parents’ house and says she wants to bring a sweater back to a boy from the neighborhood. She was still surprised, said the mother, otherwise her daughter hardly ever went anywhere alone, and she didn’t have much contact with the boy either.
It is the last time she sees her daughter, after which the 14-year-old disappears. Her body was not discovered until days later in Teufelsee near Echzell in the Wetteraukreis in Hesse. The younger brother had written with his sister, he was on the way with his mother to buy shoes – but the mother expressed doubts that all the messages read out in court really came from the girl. Some of it contained formulations that her daughter would never have used.
It is unclear whether the accused 30-year-old could have influenced this news. He and the student are said to have known each other through a messenger service and an online game. He is said to have written the girl numerous messages with highly sexualized content, repeatedly demanding nude photos of her and thus putting her under pressure. The German has to answer in court for murder, attempted rape resulting in death and coercion, among other things.
According to the indictment, he is said to have picked up Ayleen in his car in her hometown of Gottenheim near Freiburg on July 21, 2022 and brought her to a forest area near Langgöns in Hesse. There the convicted sex offender is said to have tried to rape the student and finally strangled her. He is said to have taken her body to Teufelsee by car and sunk it.
Ayleen kept in touch through social media, her mother said. Some time before the crime, the girl met a young man from Kassel who also wanted to come to Gottenheim overnight. She forbade it and made it clear to Ayleen that she could not let anyone come to her who she does not know personally. From her point of view, this is a “wrong understanding of friendship”. The 14-year-old was therefore angry and offended – she just wanted to protect her daughter from a potential danger.
The accused watched the mother’s hearing of witnesses without moving. The co-plaintiff stated that the family was “uncanny” and the question was: “What could I have noticed?” At the same time, the mother wanted to do everything for the girl afterwards. It is about education about behavior in social networks, especially with a view to somewhat naive young people.
