The Darmstadt Regional Court sent the student responsible for the poisoning at the Technical University of Darmstadt last year to a closed psychiatric hospital.

According to the judges, Paulina P., who is now 33 years old, is mentally ill and committed the act driven by paranoia.

Because of her schizophrenia, the former student is not guilty, and the court did not have to decide on a sentence, but on permanent placement in a clinic, as stated in the verdict on Tuesday. 


The accused made a partial confession last week.

Her defense attorney had read a statement admitting the food poisoning.

However, the intent to kill or permanently harm anyone was denied.

With the decision for the accommodation, the eleventh large criminal chamber complied with the request of the public prosecutor.

One of the two defenders, Christian Kunath, had also spoken out in favor of it.

The second lawyer, Björn Seelbach, had demanded that Paulina P. should first be treated in the open ward of a clinic and later on an outpatient basis. 


In his verdict, the presiding judge, Volker Wagner, spoke in detail about the mental illness and the thoughts of the student at the time.

The schizophrenia "gutted" her personality and made her a "completely new type of person".

In a video recorded a few years ago during a discussion among students, she can be seen as a likeable student with a smile on her face.

On videos from last year, on the other hand, she appears aggressive when she insults police officers or a street sweeper "with a barking voice".

The film excerpts had been shown on an earlier day of the trial. 

Voices in the head, action in paranoia

Jan Schiefenhoevel

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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In her imagination, the woman was spied on and harassed by stalkers, Wagner said.

She believed the tormentors had technical devices with which they could generate voices in her head.

A conspiracy theory in this sense can be found on the Internet under the keyword "voice to skull".

Reading relevant websites strengthened the student in her idea.

It was also part of "her reality" that the stalkers projected images of torture and rape into her head.

Such thoughts eventually became a "closed delusional system" into which she classified the people around her.

She mistook her neighbors and employees of the Technical University for stalkers against whom she had to defend herself.

First, the woman tried criminal charges.

Chemicals in milk and coffee water

Public prosecutor Ansgar Martinsohn had previously outlined the course of events in his plea.

According to him, the student broke into building L2/01 on the Lichtwiese campus on the night of August 23.

There she stirred together chemicals from a laboratory and distributed the mixture into containers with coffee water, milk and honey in two tea kitchens, a shared office and a break room.

Seven scientists were poisoned while drinking coffee or tea on a Monday morning.

One of them was in mortal danger and almost suffocated internally because one of the chemicals in the mixture blocked the delivery of oxygen from the blood to the organs. 


The chairman said that if Paulina P. remained free, she was dangerous because similar acts could happen again: "A court must not allow people to die." In addition to security, the accommodation in the psychiatric ward also serves to help for the accused.

For them there is still hope for improvement in treatment with psychotropic drugs.

Like cancer, schizophrenia can be treated.

Wagner said he saw the chance that Paulina P. would trust the doctors because she had also trusted her defender Seelbach.