A senior woman has admitted to hitting her ex-husband with a butcher’s hammer in court. The public prosecutor also accuses her of dousing him with petrol and setting him on fire. At the start of the revision process on Wednesday in the district court of Schwäbisch Gmünd, the 86-year-old had her defense attorney read a statement. The woman from the Lake Constance district was already convicted of murder and arson resulting in death in 2020, but appealed. The case is now being retried.
In her statement, the accused described the increasingly bad relationship with her 73-year-old ex-husband. Fearing that he might throw her out of the house, she hit him on the head with a butcher’s mallet. She has no memories of what happened next.
The public prosecutor’s office, however, accuses the elderly woman of repeatedly hitting the man with a butcher’s hammer in order to kill him. He remained conscious, took her gun and called 911. According to investigations, the defendant then doused him with petrol and set him on fire in a “merciless attitude”, causing him to die in agony. In addition, according to the public prosecutor, parts of the house caught fire, which the accused accepted.
The 86-year-old’s health is severely restricted, which is why the trial is taking place in Schwäbisch Gmünd, where she is in the prison, instead of in Constance. At the request of her lawyer, an expert stated that they would examine whether the woman was fit to stand trial. If this is not the case, according to experts, the procedure could be discontinued. (Az. 1 StR 500/20).
