The Weimar Murder Case Study

Part 2

2) Starting point of the Crime

The solution to any criminal case begins with certain pre-assumptions and preliminary considerations as to the possible course of events and the culprit’s motives. Then there is the question during the procedure concerning the group of people, one of whom the culprit might be: Did the victim know him/her, or was it an unknown third party? involved in the crime . The special task force responsible for Investigating this case soon found out that there was no sign of sexual abuse found about Melanie and Karola Weimar , about which Mrs Melanie Weimar stated during the questioning session. Now as no one from the family involved as per above findings so now the scruple was on the third person , an unknown third person could have suffocated and strangled the children near their home and then taken them away in a car seemed absolutely improbable with regard to the initial assumption that they were killed by day. If the children were not killed close to their home but somewhere near where they were found later, they must have entered the murderer’s car, and the assumption is unavoidable that there must have been some relation to the culprit. If the third person was from the victims’ personal environment, the answer to the question of motive led to a further elimination of people who could have done it : None of the relatives,and even less so the neighbors in the two adjoining houses, had a motive for killing the girls. So now again the scruple was on the Mr and Mrs Weimar , the outline of a motive seemed to develop around the parents alone: Monika Weimar might have had one with regard to her relationship with Kevin Pratt; Reinhard Weimar could have had the motive of jealousy, watching this relationship. The basic assumption was that only one of the Parents could have been murderer suggested itself but proved to be fatal for the quality of the investigations because they were already unhappy with their relationships. The alternative whether it was the father or the mother gave every sign of evidence a result-oriented ambivalence. In short we can say the findings that exonerated the father weighed upon the mother and when he was found guilty of something, she was excluded. And as many signs of evidence need to be assessed before they become the basis of conclusions, to clear up the Weimar murder case became a kind of religious war in which, at one time or another, all people involved –criminal investigators, public prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, too –participated. They were all in a dilemma that , Who was rather believed capable of the deed or who had the most probable motive? or The seemingly coarse Reinhard Weimar or Monika Weimar with her sphinx-like gaze? .

The emotional answer to this question was the fundamental tone that accompanied most reflections, even the assessment of outwardly objective material evidence which was sometimes made very naively : It was said that the mother’s responsibility for the crime was proved by the allegedly “gentle” way of killing; even two of the members of the special task force interpreted the orderly clothes and the hair-slides as , in a file note dated August 19, 1986, that only appeared during the trial in Gießen that “Only the mother found the children beautiful even as corpses.” .On the other hand, public prosecutor Raimund Sauter followed a totally different direction in his petition to issue an arrest warrant against Reinhard Weimar . The petition and the subsequent complaint created an impression of conclusiveness which is only surpassed by the seeming power of persuasion of the Fulda judgment against Monika Weimar .It was unavoidable as the hypothesis of either the mother or the father being the culprit was, it was as dangerous for the objective establishment and assessment of the findings : The guideline either developed a suggestive power which won recognition for prejudices both imperceptibly and effectively. The new criminal proceedings against Monika dramatically demonstrates the fact that even seemingly neutral material evidence can be detrimentally affected by such suggestive power.

During the Investigation it was obvious that Special task force is going to find some solid evidences , Witnesses . They even overlooked some evidence and even forgotten some of them. I will coverup them all in the next part. Coming up with the Evidences and Findings during the investigation.

Till then ,

Happy Learning :).