Last April, a 29-year-old Upper Austrian stabbed his girlfriend in Graz-Wetzesdorf and then crashed head-on into a car. A man completely unknown to him was killed. On Friday he appeared before the jury on two murder charges. The young man pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The head-on collision was an accident.
“On April 22, 2023, the suspect took two lives. That of his partner and that of a complete stranger” – when prosecutor Katharina Tauschmann begins her plea, it is silent in the bustling jury room of the regional criminal court in Graz.
Things escalated
“The relationship was on the rocks and he did not want a divorce,” the prosecutor explains. When she told him he could leave after an argument and that he had to disappear, things escalated. “And then something happened that has unfortunately happened all too often in the past year: a woman has to die because an offended, overwhelmed, angry man cannot accept the end of the relationship.”
“The suspect survived”
“He then decided to commit suicide,” says Katharina Tauschmann. The 29-year-old got into the car, accelerated to 130 km/h on the straight Straßganger Straße and drove into oncoming traffic. “The oncoming vehicle dies, the suspect survives.”
Fear of another murder
According to the prosecutor, the fact that the suspect suffers from a mental illness is the reason why he committed the crimes. “And the fear is that he will kill intimate partners again.” It is therefore urgent that he receives psychiatric treatment, which is why Tauschmann has also requested a placement.
In love with the dominatrix
The couple met four months before the crime. She worked as a dominatrix in a whorehouse and he used her services. “He was attracted to her from the first meeting,” attorney Gerald Ruhri said in his opening statement. The two also entered into a private relationship.
“One that was characterized by superiority and subordination,” says Ruhri. “At first I didn’t take it seriously,” says the suspect. But the 39-year-old always wanted to be addressed by him as ‘Mistress’ and ‘Her’ – ‘because she always wanted to be one step above me.’
“I didn’t defend myself”
“She expected me to always be there for her. All that mattered was her.” If he didn’t obey, there would be knees on the top of the head, slaps on the heel, and slaps on the face. “And they agreed to the sentences,” judge Andrea Schwinger-Wagner wants to know. “Yes, I didn’t defend myself.”
“The relationship was actually good,” says the young Upper Austrian, who actually wanted to become a police officer and was about to take the aptitude test. He could talk to her about anything. “She knew everything about me, including my mental health issues, my depression and my panic attacks. She understood me because she had already fought these monsters herself.”
“Sadonism and manipulation”
But she wanted him to stop taking his antidepressants because they were negatively affecting his masculinity. “A disaster for his psyche,” the lawyer explains. “He was addicted and trapped. It was sadonism and manipulation on the one hand and boundless love and dependence on the other.”
When he found messages from another man on her phone and she told him to fuck off, things blew up. He stabbed her at least twenty times with a kitchen knife. “The collision with the Citroen afterwards was neither intentional nor planned,” Ruhri emphasizes. The suspect himself has no memory of it. He wanted to drive into a tunnel wall to commit suicide.
The hearing will continue on January 26 with the reports.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
