An African man, who was described as “perfectly integrated,” is on trial in Bonn on charges connected to the strangling murder of his wife, whom he then dismembered. The woman’s remains were later found in several locations across Germany, according to court proceedings.
Asmerom G., 42, an Eritrean national, faces the charges in Bonn Regional Court in North Rhine-Westphalia. The case stems from events in mid-November 2025 involving his wife, Weghata A., 32. The couple had married in Ethiopia in 2019, and she arrived in Germany in 2024 through family reunification.
The defendant allegedly met his wife, 32-year-old Weghata A., inside his car, where they began arguing on their way back from a church visit. According to Bonner Generalanzeiger newspaper, Asmerom G. later told police that his wife told him their 3-month-old girl was not his biological child. He reportedly could not remember what happened next.
According to prosecutors, Asmerom G. then strangled his wife in the back seat of the car in a parking lot in Bonn, directly in front of the baby who was sitting in a child seat.
After the crime, the defendant is said to have driven with the body and the baby in the car to the Monastery of Saint Anthony, 160 kilometers away, where he abandoned the little girl in the stroller when it was only 2 degrees Celsius (35 degrees Fahrenheit).
Fortunately for the girl, monks found the child just 40 minutes after she was dropped off.
Asmerom G. then went to work dismembering Weghata’s body, including packing her hands and head in plastic bags.
He left the torso behind, which was found at the end of November 2025. Asmerom G. left the body parts on the side of the autobahn, on the A45. The head of the woman was discovered by garbage collectors in April 2026.
Asmerom G. was arrested in Ethiopia and extradited to Germany. He has a prior conviction for aggravated assault. On the first day of the trial, he declined to comment on the allegations. Defense attorney Martin Kretschmer has said the case rests largely on DNA evidence and mobile-phone data.
Kretschmer told Bild newspaper, “Until his arrest, he was considered perfectly integrated.”
German media was even singing his praises in 2016. The man from Eritrea had landed a job as an electrical assistant at a firm in Rheinbach, in North Rhine-Westphalia, and gave interviews about leaving his homeland three years earlier to escape political persecution.
He wanted German citizenship, he said. His boss at the time was quick to describe Asmerom G. as talented, reliable, and “capable of anything,” according to Bild newspaper.
However, then trouble began. Within a year, Asmerom G. was in trouble with the law. A brawl led to a conviction for grievous bodily harm at Siegburg District Court, earning him a six-month suspended sentence.
He moved on from Rheinbach and took up work behind the wheel of a freight truck. Somewhere along the way, he made a trip back to his home country — for reasons that remain unclear — and returned to Germany with a woman named Weghata A., who was 31 at the time, his wife under Eritrean law. On July 26, 2025, she delivered their daughter.
The child is now in the care of authorities. Lawyer Gesine Ickert, representing the daughter and the deceased’s father, has stated that the child is well looked after under the circumstances.
The trial continues.
