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Daughter kills mum, lives with body for two weeks

A daughter strangled her mother to death with a washing line in Munich and lived next to the body for almost two weeks. She was only caught when her mother's best friend contacted police.

Published: 25 February 2014 11:36 CET

Daughter kills mum, lives with body for two weeks

The woman was killed with a washing line. Photo: DPA

Christine K. lived alongside her mother's body in her apartment in the Unterhaching area of Munich for 13 days after she allegedly killed her.

The 40-year-old told police she had wanted to kill herself, but she strangled her mother first with the washing line.

Police found the body of her mother Karin in the apartment after gaining entry on Saturday. They arrested Christine at the scene.

A good friend of the victim had contacted the police after several attempts to get in touch with her friend had failed.

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She described her as generous and warm-hearted, but said there had been problems between Karin and her daughter, who moved back to live with her mother in 2012.

“She was such a wonderful person. But she was too nice to her daughter,” she told the Munich Abendzeitung on Tuesday.

The mother and daughter had argued over money, which Karin had lent to Christine, who was trying to pay off debts, according to the report.

Karin’s best friend said she was worried as soon as Christine moved back in to the flat. “I was uneasy about it right from the outset,” she told the Abendzeitung.

Neighbours reported hearing shouting and raised voices coming from the apartment.

The friend raised the alarm after her friend failed to contact her for several days.

Munich police said in a statement on Monday that the alleged perpetrator had admitted to the crime, saying she had wanted to kill herself afterwards but was unable to do it.

She is being held by police and has been charged with murder.

SEE ALSO: Mother gagged and buried in concrete

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Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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