According to a report in the local Münchner Merkur newspaper, the young Polish woman had won the trust of her neighbours – a 72-year-old retired engineer and his 69-year-old wife – and had access to both their letter box and flat.

She had breakfast with the couple in their flat on March 29, after which they drove to another appointment.

It was there that first the man and then the woman fell unconscious and had to be treated by emergency services. They were only discharged from hospital the next day – after doctors found benzodiazepine, a drug used in sleeping pills, in their systems.

A murder investigation was opened once the couple told police that they didn’t normally use the drug. Police said the dose the couple had received could have killed them.

It then emerged that the couple had ordered a new bank card but never received it – but it had been used to withdraw €7,000 between the end of February and mid-March, when it was cancelled. The subsequent fraud investigation led police to the Polish neighbour.

Under questioning, the young woman admitted both the initial fraud and the subsequent poisoning, and described how she had crushed the pills and mixed them into the couple’s homemade yoghurt the previous evening. She said this had been an attempt to cover up the theft, and that she needed the money to improve her own financial situation.

The woman is now in custody on suspicion of theft, fraud and two counts of attempted murder.

The Local/bk