The case of the 12-year-olds who were killed in North Rhine-Westphalia is reminiscent of an act in the USA. At that time, too, two young girls stabbed a victim of the same age.
Munich – A murder case in Freudenberg (North Rhine-Westphalia) is currently shaking all of Germany. A 12-year-old girl was found dead in a wooded area on Sunday, according to investigators, she bled to death after being stabbed numerous times. Two girls of about the same age, 12 and 13, confessed to the crime shortly afterwards. The young age of the perpetrators in particular raises many questions about the crime. And at the same time, in some aspects, it is reminiscent of a case that shook the USA a few years ago.
Apart from the age, nothing is known about the alleged perpetrators. “The perpetrators are still children,” said the head of the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office, Mario Mannweiler German Press Agency (DPA) and referred to the protection of the privacy of the victim and the underage perpetrators. “They still have their lives ahead of them – even if it has just gone as wrong as it could be. We have to protect the children. And her family too.” If the two girls are proven to have committed the crime, there are various possible consequences for the minors.
Freudenberg: The case of Luise (12) is reminiscent of a shocking crime in the USA
In the USA in 2014, a knife attack by two 12-year-old girls on a mutual friend also caused great dismay. As several US media reported at the time, the children lured the victim to a forest in the US state of Wisconsin after an overnight party and stabbed the 12-year-old there a total of nineteen times. To everyone’s surprise, the victim miraculously survived. The girl named Payton told five years later in an interview with ABC Newsthat she found the strength to get up with the help of branches and drag herself to a road, where a cyclist spotted her and called for help.
At that time, the motive for the crime became public that the two perpetrators planned to kill them to appease a fictional character called “Slender Man”. Her longtime friend in particular had been fascinated by the character for a long time before the act. “After hearing why she did it, I thought, ‘That doesn’t surprise me at all. She believed in this cause so much that she would do anything for it,'” the victim continued in the interview. The perpetrators were found not guilty during the trial due to mental illness, but were sentenced to a maximum of 25 or 40 years in a psychiatric facility.
After a murder in Freudenberg: Prime Minister speaks of worrying developments in NRW
These are cases that leave you speechless. In the current case of the murdered Luise, the big question is: What drove two children to commit such a terrible act? Mario Mannweiler told the DPA further: “What may be a motive for a child to commit an act might not be apparent to an adult.” In view of the many stab wounds suffered by the victim, it is at least likely that “some emotions played a role”.
Overall, according to current figures from the authorities in Germany, it rarely happens that children under the age of 14 commit violent crimes such as serious physical harm, sexual abuse, manslaughter or murder. True, according to information dpa the number of child suspects in these areas rose from 7,103 in the previous year to 7,477 in 2021. But compared to 2019, the number has fallen by ten percent overall.
However, NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) is concerned about current developments. He spoke of a worrying increase in North Rhine-Westphalia. “We not only have to monitor this development closely, we have to investigate it, find causes and do preventive work,” he emphasized. “Freudenberg’s act will leave traces beyond Luise’s terrible death.” What this act will trigger in the local and school community can at best be guessed at. (nz)
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