A 10-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by an 11-year-old boy in a children’s care home was reportedly 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 in her room at a child and youth welfare facility in Wunsiedel, in Germany’s Bavaria region, on 4 April and police suspected the 11-year-old boy of being involved in her death.
But now it has 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 on the night the victim was killed.
The suspect, who is from Wunsiedel, was allegedly trying to steal from the children’s home when he came across the 11-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl. Police suspect the burglar raped the girl before leaving the facility, reports Onetz.
On that same night, prosecutors now say the 11-year-old boy, who was the girl’s roommate, got into an argument with the victim and murdered her. They do not believe the burglar was involved in her killing.
A police patrol car blocks off the road to the child and youth care centre in Wunsiedel in April
‘With regard to the killing of the girl, the investigators and the public prosecutor’s office assume that the 11-year-old boy killed her without the 25-year-old’s involvement,’ Matthias Goers, of the Hof public prosecutor’s office, said.
The boy is not yet at the age of criminal responsibility, which is 14, so has been kept in a secure facility since April. It is not yet clear how the girl died, but police say she suffered a ‘violent’ death.
Last month, prosecutors brought 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 machinery worth £13,700 (16,000 euros) from containers, which he set on fire to try to remove evidence.
At the time of the girl’s murder, the child and youth welfare centre in the small town of Wunsiedel, home to around 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,’ it said in a statement.
On its website, the institute describes itself as supporting ‘young people and their families who need help with their upbringing’.
Ulrike Scharf (third from right), family affairs minister, leaves the Child and Youth Care Center with Martin Schöffel, member of the Bavarian State Parliament, to lay flowers in front of the facility in April
Her brutal murder came just a month after the killing of 12-year-old Luise Frisch, who was found dead in the western town of Freudenberg in March after suffering multiple stab wounds.
Her killers, named as Luisa Halberstadt, 13, and Anna-Marie Hoffman, 12, stabbed their victim 32 times with a nail file before pushing her down a steep embankment in nearby woods.
The classmates also put a plastic bag over Luise’s head before one chillingly told the other to ‘hit her with a stone or she would be lying next to her’.
The pair confessed to the crime but will avoid punishment as they are too young to bear criminal responsibility in Germany.
Police fear Luise may have been alive before she was thrown down the embankment and died from her injuries and the sub zero conditions that hit the area in early March.
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