Hesse: Man housed in psychiatric ward after killing acquaintance

Fulda (dpa / lhe) - After a homicide, a 27-year-old man from Fulda is permanently housed in a psychiatric facility.

Hesse: Man housed in psychiatric ward after killing acquaintance

Fulda (dpa / lhe) - After a homicide, a 27-year-old man from Fulda is permanently housed in a psychiatric facility. The district court of Fulda ordered this on Monday. The accused killed a 45-year-old acquaintance with 33 stab wounds on May 2 last year.

As the court hearing revealed, the 27-year-old suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and was therefore not guilty at the time of the crime. "The accused bought a folding knife on the day of the crime, kicked in the victim's apartment door with brute force and stabbed him massively 33 times - wordlessly and full of anger," the presiding judge justified the decision.

The first signs of the disease were already in 2016. At that time, the 27-year-old injured his own father with a kitchen knife. The man himself had declared in court that he had repeatedly heard "evil devil voices" and felt persecuted. He felt alternately as a wolf, vampire or contract killer. From 2021, he only took his medication, which was otherwise effective, only irregularly and stopped completely in March 2022. Shortly thereafter, the man had already injured the 45-year-old acquaintance with a knife, but he had not filed a criminal complaint at the time.

The judge explained that stopping medication on one's own authority is also part of the clinical picture, accompanied by overconfidence, loss of reality and limited insight. According to the expert, there is a risk of repetition. The man with German nationality has been living in a psychiatric facility for several months and, according to the decision of the regional court, must remain there. The defense attorney has already announced that he does not want to appeal the verdict. However, it is not yet legally binding.