After the agonizing death of a two-year-old in grevenbroich, the regional court in monchengladbach sentenced the mother to seven and a half years in prison.
The court found the 28-year-old guilty of attempted manslaughter and bodily injury resulting in death, each by omission. The woman had deliberately left the child unattended for two days in an overheated room of her apartment in north rhine-westphalia. It died of thirst.
According to the court’s findings, the mother of two children had killed little leon on the evening of the 14th of december. April 2019 packed in a sleeping bag and put in the crib. Because the heating in the apartment had failed, she turned up a fan heater to full blast and placed it in front of the bed. It was not until the morning of the next day that she went back to the room to check on her son. She had "simply abandoned him," the judge said.
With the verdict the chamber followed the request of the public prosecutor’s office. Since the exact time of death could not be determined at trial, the defendant could not be proven to have had intent to kill, the judge said. Therefore, she was only convicted of attempted manslaughter by omission.
The depressed defendant confessed to the crime during the trial and testified that she had been overwhelmed. But she never thought that the child could die.