Germany is in shock over the murder of Freudenberg, 60 kilometers from Bonn, on the border between Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia. A 12-year-old girl, Luise, barely older than a child, was killed by two peers who confessed. They massacred her with numerous stab wounds.
Luise’s murder shocks Germany
The victim had gone out to visit a friend on Saturday afternoon and never returned home. The parents immediately called the police. On Sunday afternoon, the little girl’s lifeless body was found in a tunnel at the bottom of an embankment along what was once an abandoned railway line that has become a bike path. The two friends, aged 12 and 13, have had several arguments. Eventually they admitted their responsibility for the crime.
The motif is a yellow
The motif is a yellow. Confidentiality is almost complete. “What can be a motive for a child, it doesn’t have to be for an adult”: prosecutor Mannweiler limited himself to this and added that the alleged perpetrators “must be protected precisely because they are still children”. One of the hypotheses in the German press is that it was revenge because one of the two was “mocked”. It is not yet clear whether it was a premeditated murder or an argument. No other accomplices are being sought.
You are not punishable
The age of the two teenagers does not allow criminal prosecution in Germany, which, like in Italy, begins at the age of 14. The future prosecution will take place behind closed doors and future defendants will not even have to appear in court. In Germany (and also in Italy), persons under the age of 14 are considered “children” in court “without ifs and buts” and are therefore not punishable, but measures such as accommodation in a supervised home can be ordered. Instead, it is evaluated on a case-by-case basis between ages 14 and 18. Both girls are now in custody in the care of the social welfare office. Total privacy, as is total dismay at a cruelty committed murder throughout Germany. The murder weapon was not found. The deputy chief of police in Koblenz, Jürgen Süs, is struggling for a statement: “After 40 years of service, this case leaves me speechless.”
