Published: 10:25pm, 10 Feb 2025Updated: 11:19pm, 10 Feb 2025
A German couple who confessed to killing a Ukrainian refugee and her mother last year to steal a newborn baby were sentenced to life in prison on Monday.
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The Mannheim District Court in southwestern Germany determined the incident involved a particular severity of guilt, meaning the pair are unlikely to be released even after 15 years in prison.
Last month, on the first day of the trial, the couple admitted to killing the 27-year-old Ukrainian woman and her 51-year-old mother to abduct the younger woman’s 5-week-old baby.
The accused told the court that after suffering a number of miscarriages and failed fertility treatment, they hatched a plan to kidnap a newborn girl and pass her off as their daughter.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the couple have a total of four children, including one son together. The 45-year-old woman and her 43-year-old husband are from Sandhausen, near Heidelberg.
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“I regret everything I have done,” the man said in a statement read out by lawyers on January 7. His wife added, “I made a big mistake.”