In the murder trial for the suffocation of a woman with a plastic bag, the public prosecutor has demanded a life sentence for 50-year-old Manuela U.

In addition, the public prosecutor Cyd Hergenröder sees a "special severity of guilt".

If the court agrees with this assessment, parole after serving 15 years is almost impossible.

Jan Schiefenhövel

Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Also life imprisonment, but without the particular severity of guilt, was demanded for Manuela U.'s 26-year-old son.

Another helper in the killing, the 24-year-old Dennis L., a roommate of the family, is to receive a sentence of three years and six months according to the will of the prosecutor for bodily harm resulting in death.

Because Dennis L. was an adolescent at the time of the crime and comes from southern Hesse, a youth chamber of the Darmstadt Regional Court is responsible for the crime in Frankfurt.

Manuela U. watched the murder "with relish"

The three defendants are held responsible for the death of 55-year-old Gabriele L. from Frankfurt. Her body was found in 2016 near the Ikea branch in the north of Frankfurt. The case could not be resolved for years until the investigators found the three defendants using a DNA trail. According to the prosecutor, the victim lived for five years in Manuela U.'s apartment on Ben-Gurion-Ring in Nieder-Eschbach and was murdered there.

Manuela U. wanted the roommate to die and checked the situation in the apartment on the evening of the crime in August 2016.

She watched "with relish" as her son pulled a plastic bag over the woman's head.

When he succeeded in tearing the bag, the son took a second bag and suffocated the victim with it.

In the meantime, Dennis L. came along and held Gabriele L.

Manuela U. grinned and laughed at their suffering.

The body was then taken away by car and deposited in a ditch.

Traces of the DNA of Patrick U. and Dennis L. were found on the murder victim.

The two young men’s confessions are also the basis for a conviction.

Years of abuse

The prosecutor spoke in detail about the history of the crime and the personality of the accused. This had lived out her "sadistic side" in Gabriele L., not only at the time of the murder, but years before. Manuela U. and her son's roommate was mistreated almost every day. The woman's teeth were knocked out, she was dragged around the apartment by her hair and had a cold shower, her nipples were burned or she was forced to eat her own vomit. The defendant had grown tired of the roommate and therefore wanted her death.

Years earlier, Manuela U. made friends with her and moved her to move in. The accused is an “excellent actress” and is able to portray herself as caring or cry as if at the push of a button. The lawyer for the victim's relatives, Friederike Vilmar, spoke of “human abysses” in a “violent and unpredictable mother-son duo” with a passion for torture and humiliation. Manuela U. has an “unmistakable instinct” for manipulating weak and conflict-averse people.

The lawyer for the main defendants disagreed, who demanded an acquittal. Manuela U. is not the monster she is portrayed as. After working as a geriatric nurse, she was overwhelmed by the chaotic situation in the apartment and therefore drank a lot of alcohol. That is why she is not responsible for the killing. The second defense attorney pointed to inconsistencies between the two young men's confessions. Their defense lawyers demanded a sentence of six years and five months for Patrick U. and two years and six months for Dennis L.