A 15-year-old schoolgirl who was strangled by her teen boyfriend and dumped in the woodland near her home in Germany died in hospital on New Year’s Day.
The attack occurred on Wednesday in the Wiblingen district of Ulm located in the south German state of Baden-Württemberg.
Police were called by the attacker shortly before midnight who told the authorities he had killed his girlfriend and left her in a nearby forest.
Emergency responders were dispatched to the area, including a police helicopter to help locate the girl.
She was found unconscious in the woodland but was initially stabilized through first aid measures and taken to hospital.
The perpetrator was located near the crime scene and arrested. On Thursday, the attacker was brought before the district court and was ordered to be placed in pre-trial detention.
On Monday, the victim sadly died and the case was upscaled to a homicide investigation.
A motive has not yet been established and the background pertaining to the case remains vague. It is unclear whether the pair met in the forest or whether they drove there together.
A description of the perpetrator has not been published, however, German media is reporting a family connection between the teen and a man who killed his 7-year-old daughter in the area last Easter.
The 41-year-old man responsible for the murder is understood to be the teen’s father, and the 7-year-old victim his sister.
In November last year, the Ulm regional court ruled that the father was not guilty of the murder on account of his schizophrenia and was placed in a psychiatric hospital.
In that case, the father had tied his daughter’s hands together and stabbed her with a knife in an apparent religious ritual. He later called the police himself.
The father reportedly told the court that he had studied religion and the Koran intensively.
“At some point, it became clear that I had to sacrifice one of my children for God,” he is said to have given as his motive.
