The suspect was led before a custodial judge on Friday in the presence of his lawyer Markus Fischer, and spent three hours answering the state prosecutor’s questions. He confessed to murdering first 14-year-old Nina and then 13-year-old Tobias, whose funeral takes place Saturday.

Jan O. choked Nina near her home on Monday, November 15, before dragging her to a nearby wood, where he beat her to death. Tobias was killed in the same woods the following Saturday because Jan O. apparently believed the boy would either discover Nina’s body or report him to the police.

Their bodies were found on Sunday near one another in a wooded area on the outskirts of Bodenfelde, where they lived.

Police arrested Jan O. aboard a train in the town on Monday night. They were led to him partly through a girl whom he approached on Saturday afternoon, giving her his mobile phone number.

Jan O. said he had wanted to attack Nina sexually, but had murdered her when she screamed and defended herself.

O.’s lawyer said the defendant’s statements disproved the prosecutor’s theory that he was motivated by “murder-lust,” and that O. had the potential to be a serial killer.

But it emerged earlier this week that O. also referred directly to the murder on his own Facebook page. According to the Göttinger Tageblatt newspaper, he wrote, “Butchered a girl yesterday. One every day until they catch me.” The police immediately shut down the page because it constituted evidence.

DAPD/bk