Four severely disabled people were killed in a home in Potstam at the end of April. Now the trial against a caregiver begins.
Potsdam – In the trial for the killing of four residents of a Potsdam home for people with disabilities, the prosecutor accused the accused nurse of malice.
The 52-year-old waited on the evening of April 28 until the other two nurses were employed in other parts of the ward, said prosecutor Maria Stiller at the start of the trial before the Potsdam district court on Tuesday when the indictment was read out. Then she snuck into two rooms and first tried to strangle two residents.
When this turned out to be too strenuous, the defendant fetched her bag with personal belongings in a lounge, said Stiller. She told a colleague that she wanted to leave the station for a moment. Instead, she sneaked into residents’ rooms and took a knife with a blade length of eleven centimeters from the bag. She killed two men and two women between the ages of 31 and 56 with cuts in the neck. A 43-year-old resident survived another knife attack, seriously injured.
“She was aware that the five victims were severely disabled people who were unable to defend themselves or to call for help,” said the prosecutor. The defendant took advantage of this defenselessness.
The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the nurse committed the offenses in a state of significantly reduced culpability. Ten days of negotiations are scheduled for the process until December 9th. In total, more than 40 witnesses are to be heard. dpa
