Marianne Bachmeier avenged her 7-year-old daughter’s rape-murderwhen she opened fire in a packed courtroom trial in 1981.
In a Lübeck courtroom in 1981, Marianne Bachmeier fatally shoots the man accused of murdering her daughter. The shots are still considered to be the most stunning instance of vigilante revenge in historyjustice in Germany to this day. The eight shots were fired in a Lübeck courtroom and went down in legal history.
Black and white photo of marianne bechmeier and her lawyer On March 6, 1981, Marianne Bachmeier (1950-1996), an innkeeper, shot and murdered the man who was accused of raping and murdering her daughter. Bachmeier stated during her post-conviction interview that she was not interested in retaliation or revenge. This is according to Klaus-Dieter Schulz, who at the time was the responsible public prosecutor and was in charge of the interrogation process. As Schulz explains, "She said she wanted to prevent the accused from publicly badmouthing her daughter through his testimony."
The incident aroused considerable public debate and is still considered to be the most prominent case of vigilante justice in Germany. This was the third day of the trial for butcher Klaus Grabowski, who was then 35 years old, and it took place on March 6, 1981. He had already admitted to raping and strangling Anna in his flat when she was seven years old.
Bachmeier entered the jury chamber shortly before the trial began, took a revolver from her coat pocket, and opened fire on the accused, who had turned his back to her. She was charged with attempted murder and attempted homicide. Grabowski was shot six times before he was killed in the courtroom. Schulz recalls, “I still remember that I was sitting in my office in the courthouse when my boss suddenly came in and said that a man had been shot in the jury room.”.
Schulz explains that Marianne Bachmeier had already been moved to a nearby room when he entered. As a result of the actions of the then 31-year-old mother, who operated a pub in Lübeck's old town, there was a strong public debate regarding vigilante justice and how the judiciary handled sexoffenders in the city. Anna Bachmeier was seven years old when she had a disagreement with her mother on May 5, 1980, and decided to skip school as a result of the incident. In this case, Anna was kidnapped by Klaus Grabowski, a 35-year-old butcher who she had visited to play with his cats the day before. He held Anna hostage at his home for several hours, sexually assaulted her, and eventually suffocated her with a set of his fiancée's tights before killing her. According to the prosecutor, he wrapped the child up and stuffed her inside a box, which he then dumped on the bank of a canal to await the authorities. His fiancée was the one who handed him into the authorities.
A judge granted permission for Grabowski to undergo hormone treatment after he had voluntarily castrated himself. Grabowski has a criminal record for sexual offenses against children. It was in November 1982 that Bachmeier's trial began. When it came to Bachmeier's trial, Schulz, who represented the prosecution at the time, recalled that “the interest of the public and the press was huge.”
It appeared to be murder at first.
Marianne bechmeier in court room giving interview to reporters She was condemned to 6 years imprisonment for manslaughter by the regional court in March 1983, after a 15-month trial, of which she was able to serve only a good 2 years because of her good behavior. She married an African and relocated to Nigeria with him after being released early from prison in 1985.
As detailed in an autobiographical book, after her divorce in 1990, she spent time caring for the dying at a hospice in Sicily. Afterwards, she was diagnosed with cancer and returned to her hometown of Lübeck. She died at a Lübeck clinic a few months later, in September 1996, and was buried in the Lübeck Burgtorfriedhof, near her daughter Anna.
Here are some comments of the Reddit users about the 'revenge mother' newsin which Marianne Bachmeier avenged her 7-year-old daughter’s rape-murder. Check them below: "This whole thing is a wild saga. She was raised by a Nazi, had two children before she was 18, was raped while pregnant with the second and gave them both up for adoption after birth before having her daughter, Anna. She said the reason she finally decided to kill him after much consideration was because he lied about her daughter and said the reason he killed her was because she (a child) tried to seduce and extort him after he abducted her. She also knew he was a convicted sex offender and just figured he would be released again and do it to someone else’s child."
_okayaye125
"And she died of cancer at 46. Just a hard life for her throughout. Unfortunate"
_CheesecakePower
"I mean honestly, her daughter got raped and killed. What does she have to lose? That poor mom was probably crushed beyond belief to then only to have her Childs murderer burning into her conscious.
No amount of jail time would cause someone to regret anything under those circumstances
She was a single mom, who was raped before so I'm sure that only added to the trauma of it happening to her daughter"
_thebreekiest
"She served only 3 years in prison for what could be argued is first degree murder. So, the jury clearly agreed that she was justified"
_Fleet_Admiral_M
Bachmeier was a well-known figure in Lübeck during her lifetime after Marianne Bachmeier avenged her 7-year-old daughter’s rape-murder case. Despite the 20-year lay period having elapsed, the united grave of mother and daughter was levelled in 2016. It is only the "Tipasa" in Lübeck's old town that remains as a reminder of Bachmeier's former establishment, albeit it has been taken over by new owners with a different philosophy.