A 10-year-old girl who was allegedly killed by an 11-year-old boy in a children’s home was allegedly raped by a burglar before her death in a tragic case that has sent shockwaves through Germany.
The victim, identified only as Lena, was found dead on April 4 in her room at a child and youth care facility in Wunsiedel, in the German region of Bavaria. The police suspected that the 11-year-old boy was involved in her death.
But it has now emerged that a 25-year-old German man, who has been identified only as Daniel T and is said to be a garbage collector, allegedly entered the child welfare facility through an open bathroom window the night the victim was killed. .
The suspect, who hails from Wunsiedel, was attempting to steal from the children’s home when he came across the 11-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl. The police suspect that the burglar sexually assaulted the victim before he left the institution, the police report Onetz.
That same night, prosecutors now say the 11-year-old boy, who was the girl’s roommate, got into a fight with the victim and killed her. They don’t believe the burglar was involved in the murder.
A police patrol car blocks the way to the child and youth care center in Wunsiedel in April
“As far as the murder of the girl is concerned, the detectives and the Public Prosecution Service assume that the 11-year-old boy killed her without the intervention of the 25-year-old”, says Matthias Goers of the Public Prosecution Service Court.
The boy has not yet reached the age at which he can be held criminally liable, namely 14 years old, and has therefore been held in a secure facility since April. It is not yet clear how the girl died, but police say she suffered a “violent” death.
The children were one of the few children left in the house at the time of the murder, as most of the other young people living there were on a skiing holiday, reports Image.
Last month, prosecutors filed charges against the 25-year-old man for rape, burglary and arson.
He is suspected of committing five burglaries between 2022 and 2023 and stealing construction equipment worth £13,700 (16,000 euros) from containers, which he set on fire in an attempt to remove evidence.
At the time of the girl’s murder, the child and youth care center in the small town of Wunsiedel, home to about 90 children and teenagers, said it was “deeply shocked” by her death.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the parents, the family, our children and our colleagues,” the statement read.
On the website, the institute describes itself as supporting ‘young people and their families who need help with their education’.
Ulrike Scharf (third from right), Minister of Family Affairs, leaves the Center for Child and Youth Care together with Bavarian State Parliament Member Martin Schöffel to lay flowers in front of the facility in April
Her brutal murder took place just a month after the murder of 12-year-old Luise Frisch, who was found dead in March in the western town of Freudenberg after suffering multiple stab wounds.
Her killers, named Luisa Halberstadt, 13, and Anna-Marie Hoffman, 12, stabbed their victim 32 times with a nail file before pushing her off a steep embankment into a nearby forest.
The classmates also put a plastic bag over Luise’s head before one told the other to ‘hit her with a rock or she’d be next to her’.
The pair confessed to the crime, but will avoid punishment because they are too young to bear criminal responsibility in Germany.
Police fear Luise was alive before she was thrown off the embankment and died of her injuries and the sub-zero conditions that hit the area in early March.