Outwardly, the defendant mostly appears composed as she answers questions from the public prosecutor's office in the trial surrounding the death of eight-year-old Fabians from Güstrow in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She becomes particularly emotional when describing a previous relationship that was characterized by alcohol and brutality. She is close to tears as she describes the violence in her relationship with Fabian's father in a more everyday tone.
According to the Rostock public prosecutor's office, the 30-year-old treacherously murdered the child. The defendant continues to vehemently deny the crime. During the questioning, Judge Holger Schütt questions several of her statements. A good two weeks ago, the defendant presented her view of the events in an hour-long statement, initially without allowing any questions. Now she has turned around.
The purpose of the questioning is to clarify contradictions and ambiguities in the statements made, but not to introduce the defendant, Schütt makes clear at the beginning of the 27th day of the trial. “It’s not a formal cross-examination like you see in American films,” says the judge.
And yet the survey will take hours because there are many contradictions to be clarified. Schütt asks the defendant about her relationship with the child's father, a former partner with whom the defendant has a child of her own, financial worries, but also depression, jealousy and her contradictory relationship with Fabian.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the 30-year-old is said to have lured the eight-year-old from his apartment in Güstrow on October 10, 2025 and then stabbed him to death at a pond near Klein Upahl, about 15 kilometers south of the small town, and then set the body on fire. The motive is said to be related to the defendant's relationship with Fabian's father and the temporary end of this relationship.
Public interest in the process is huge. On the 27th day of the trial, people also waited in a long line in front of the regional court in Rostock to attend the trial. The first spectators lined up shortly after 2 a.m.
The defendant has once again denied involvement in the crime. Instead, she portrays herself as Fabian's protector in a violent relationship with the child's father. "He raised his hand against the children several times," she says at one point. She intervened and was subjected to violence.
She had already claimed in her statement that she loved Fabian like her own son. But when questioned, she also said that if Fabian's father had hit her son, she would have thrown him out of the apartment. The judge asks, irritated, why she stuck to the relationship with the man despite his violence against Fabian.
The court repeatedly plays back voice messages that clearly show contradictions to the defendant's explanation. At one point, Schütt is surprised by a voice message from the defendant in which she accuses Fabian of “false play.” It sounds as if “you didn’t want him to have contact with his father,” says Schütt.
This is relevant because, according to the public prosecutor's office, the defendant committed the murder in order to have the child's father for herself. A psychotherapist had already reported on one of the previous days of the trial that the defendant had a personality disorder with borderline symptoms. She herself admitted during the trial, which had been going on for more than four months, that she suffered from attacks of jealousy and compulsion to control.
But on this day of the trial, the defendant sticks to her version: “How was I supposed to know that Fabian would disappear that day? “I have nothing to do with it,” she says in an emotional outburst.
She was never with the killed child in the apartment from which she is said to have lured Fabian. “I don’t know the apartment.” She also doesn't know which floor he lived on with his mother. When she picked up Fabian, she waited with the car on the street.
She only claims to have been in Güstrow on the day of the crime because her grandparents sent her to the small town to collect money for her from the bank. The judge questions that. On an earlier occasion, she presented the incident as her own initiative, says Schütt. The defendant also claimed that she had not picked up any money because she had forgotten her card and wallet at home. However, she later paid with it elsewhere.
The judge also confronts her with contradictory statements about her voice messages to acquaintances and her Internet searches. She said on the tape to an acquaintance on the day Fabian disappeared that the boy had stayed at home because of stomach pain. The judge wants to know how she knew about it at the time. “That seems conspicuous,” he says.
The defendant initially states that she was informed about this by the child's father. Schütt calls this statement unbelievable. The defendant only later telephoned the child's father. She then changed her statement during the trial and claimed that she found out about it on the Internet.
An internet search by the defendant shortly after the crime to find out whether wild boars eat dead people also made the judge suspicious. Why did she want to know that, asks Schütt. She cannot give any precise explanations.
In particular, switching off the cell phone at the time of the alleged crime arouses skepticism from the judge. He therefore does not consider the alibi she gives to be conclusive. Even after 27 days of trial, the evidence continues to be based on circumstantial evidence. However, the judge's questions show that he questions a number of statements made by the defendant. The hearing is scheduled to continue on September 15th.
