In a sad, disturbing story out of Germany, a woman has been found guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of two of three dead babies found in her freezer by her teenaged son, who was only looking for a Coke.
Prosecutors had sought jail time for the woman, 44-year-old Monika Halbe, while her defense team had asked for probation only in the case, which involved the deaths in 1988 and 2003 of baby girls (a third daughter, born in 1986, was also found frozen, but the statute of limitations had expired in that case). Apparently Halbe had turned herself in to police after her son made the discovery.
According to the International Herald Tribune, "she kept the babies'
bodies in the freezer because she wanted them to remain near to her." She did not say how they had died, but the court found that she had killed them. Apparently this kind of thing has happened in Germany before; the story ends with this:
In the worst case, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and
sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her
newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the
garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.
Maternal filicide is a horror that happens in all cultures, of course, but this story feels particularly gothic, perhaps because of the Hansel and Gretel overtones, or the idea of such a cold grave.
Related: Japanese Filicide Linked to Social Changes
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