Detmold (NRW) – He killed his brother Peter († 63) and his mother Ingried († 84) with a shot in the neck. In the process, babbled about acting out of love. The Detmold district court did not believe this version. Harald S. (59) was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday.
The bloodbath happened in September 2021 at the mother’s equestrian center in Bad Salzuflen, where the family lived together. “She was bossy and couldn’t stand it when other people were happy,” the horseman described his mother in the process.
Harald S. was considered an oddball. Since his divorce in 2012, he has lived on his mother’s horse farm
He only felt special love for his brother Uwe (52). The defendant claimed that he had Down syndrome and was repeatedly humiliated and abused by his mother. That’s why he made sure that Uwe came to a facility for the disabled.
The trigger for the bloody deed was finally a conversation on September 3, 2021. The mother and his brother Peter explained that they want to sell the farm in order to move into a smaller house with Uwe. Harald S. should get a condominium in Bielefeld.
“It was a shock for me. I was desperate and yet I couldn’t allow Uwe to be mistreated again and have to experience martyrdom,” S. said.
The house where the crime happened. In the past, noble trotting horses were bred at the riding stables (archive image)
On the night of September 4, he said he got drunk on gin and whiskey and drugged himself with marijuana. In the morning he then took his gun hidden in a bookshelf and went to his mother’s house. “Peter was still asleep. I woke him up and wanted to talk.”
And further: “But he yelled at me that I should piss off and turned around.” For Harald S. apparently reason enough to take up arms! “Then I took the pistol and shot him in the neck,” said the killer.
Shortly after this act, the mother returned from the walk: “I went with her to her bedroom. We sat next to each other on the bed. I told what I had done. She didn’t want to believe me. I took the gun and shot her too.”
The shot at the brother was evaluated by the court as murder by malice, the shot at the mother only as manslaughter.
At the start of the trial at the end of February, the accused largely confessed to the crime, but rejected the prosecutor’s view of the motive: it was not out of resentment and anger, but out of concern and desperation for his disabled younger brother.
The district court did not agree with this view. After detailed questioning of a psychiatric expert, it saw the motive as the conflict between perpetrators and victims that had been smoldering for years. This was primarily shaped by the mother’s poisoned behavior towards her son.
Her relationship with her brother was also very strained. The plans of the dead to sell the property ultimately led to an emotional act in the accused.