An Tuesday around 8.45 a.m., employees of the St. Josef child and youth welfare center in Wunsiedel, Bavaria, discovered the lifeless body of a ten-year-old girl in a room of the facility. An emergency medical team was called immediately, but all they could determine was the child’s death.
In the meantime, the criminal police and the public prosecutor’s office in Hof are investigating. Specialists secure traces in the facility. The special commission “Park” was founded, the area in the center of the small town was cordoned off by police forces. In addition, the autopsy of the body was ordered – it showed that the child did not die of natural causes. “There are signs of third-party negligence,” said the spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, Matthias Goers, on Wednesday when the child’s death became known. The spokesman does not give details of the cause of death, nor details of whether murder or negligent homicide is in the room.
The public prosecutor also did not want to comment on the family background of the child, such as nationality or whether it still has parents or not. What is certain, however, is that the girl lived in the facility. The place where the child was found, the room, is apparently also the scene of the crime. According to the public prosecutor’s office, numerous contact persons – inside and outside the facility – are now being questioned as witnesses. Especially those who were “in close contact” with the girl.
“As of now, there are no suspects”
Prosecutor Goers rejects media reports that three boys between the ages of eleven and 16 are suspects. “As of now, there are no suspects.” So far, no one has been in custody. According to him, there is no evidence of a sexual offense so far. “We’re investigating in all directions.”
The death of the girl not only shook the town of around 9,000 inhabitants in Upper Franconia, but above all the facility. For 120 years they have been dedicated to the well-being of children and young people. Even the orange logo of the child and youth welfare center is intended to convey joie de vivre: a drawn child leaping, arms spread wide. According to information on the facility’s website, 89 children, adolescents and young adults are cared for in day care centers or in residential groups.
These are young people who, according to the facility, “cannot live with their families or cannot live permanently”. And who the center, which belongs to the Catholic youth welfare of the diocese of Regensburg, wants to support intensively in their school and professional training, so that they can lead their lives independently one day. Around 80 specialists work in the facility: curative education nurses, educators, social workers and psychologists. The center has a long educational tradition. In 1904, the incumbent bishop of Regensburg founded a “children’s home and work school for girls” in the building that had just been completed. New buildings were added in the 1980s, and in 1985 a residential group for young men was established.
Overall, the number of suspected children and young people has increased
It is extremely rare for children to kill other children. Experts had only just pointed this out again after a twelve-year-old girl was stabbed to death by peers in Freudenberg in North Rhine-Westphalia at the beginning of March. It is still uncertain whether people of the same age are also responsible for the death of the girl from the home in Wunsiedel. However, since the home also looks after children and young people from difficult family backgrounds, boys could also be accommodated there who had already become violent themselves before they were admitted to the facility. The risk of continuing to use violence in the home then persists. But until the connections are not clarified, one can only speculate about it.
According to police crime statistics, the number of suspected children and young people increased overall in 2022. It is true that offenses such as shoplifting or property damage are common. But violent crimes, which have been declining for years, have increased again. The deputy head of the Evangelische Kinder- und Jugendhilfe in Würzburg recently gave the FAZ the reasons why young people are prone to violence.
Children who hit other children have often experienced violence at home and pass it on. In addition, children and young people in particular who are neglected by their parents and who are therefore never set limits often join other children whose social situation is similarly precarious. Usually “nothing good” comes from this. If such a group then looks for a victim, a violent dynamic can develop with fatal consequences. A distinction must then be made as to who is the driving force among the young people and who is just “following along”.
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