Sometimes it is coincidence that murder can still be proven after many years.

Sometimes this is possible thanks to criminal perseverance and resourcefulness.

And sometimes only the mixture leads to success.

As in the case of a 33-year-old woman from Herne who is said to have suffocated two of her children and almost suffocated a third for base motives.

For years nothing could be proven to the mother, each time investigations seemed to show that there had been medical emergencies.

The woman was arrested on Tuesday.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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A coincidence ultimately led to criminal proceedings being initiated at all, said public prosecutor Dietrich Streßig on Wednesday at the Bochum police headquarters.

One could also speak of healthy distrust.

Because it was the doctor treating the surviving child who got everything rolling.

She was interested in the history of the woman, who seemed cold to her.

The doctor soon found out that the woman's first two children had died.

The doctor also turned on the youth welfare office.

It obtained a forensic medical report on the two deaths as part of a procedure for endangering the welfare of the child.

This time, too, nothing seemed to bother the mother.

"But viewed together, it was very suspicious," says Chief Inspector Stefanie Lienemann, who led the investigation.

She lists the most important facts: In November 2011, the woman's first son died suddenly at the age of two and a half months.

In May 2012, she called the emergency services, again stating that the child's breathing had stopped.

The emergency doctor managed to resuscitate the 19-month-old boy.

But after nine days in the intensive care unit, he also died.

In April 2018, the third son, then two years and four months old, had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Covert investigations were unsuccessful

As little as the investigators had against the woman, they felt it was urgent to continue the case.

They obtained another opinion from a forensic doctor from Gießen.

"It is an expert in the suffocation of children," says prosecutor Streßig.

The evaluator concluded in 2020 "that three such similar incidents in common biological parents are very unlikely".

Undercover investigations began against the woman.

They too were unsuccessful.

But then she made herself "evidence," as prosecutor Streßig put it.

Witnesses told the police that the woman had described the crime to them and also given their motive.

In all three cases, she pressed a pillow in her children's faces.

The first victim was a "screaming child", she "finally wanted to have her peace".

She killed the second boy because she wanted to live out her activities outside of the family like before her marriage.

"Before her marriage, she was partying a lot and had many male acquaintances," says prosecutor Streßig.

There is no suspicion against the father of the three children.

"The accused was demonstrably alone in every act."