Trial in Ravensburg: Mother in court for attempted murder of daughter

A mother in Ravensburg is on trial for the attempted murder of her daughter. The public prosecutor's office accuses the 34-year-old of going onto the tracks at a railway crossing on Lake Constance with her then four-year-old daughter in February in order to allow herself and the child to be run over by an approaching train.

According to the prosecution, the Ukrainian woman walked under a lowered railway barrier in Friedrichshafen. She is said to have put hearing protection on her daughter's head and pulled a cap over her eyes so that she couldn't hear the approaching train. The child felt safe in her mother's hand, the prosecutor said at the start of the trial.

Only through the intervention of witnesses could mother and daughter be saved. They pulled or pushed the two of them off the tracks in time.

The public prosecutor accuses the woman of knowingly taking advantage of her daughter's defenselessness. In addition to attempted murder, the prosecution also suspects attempted dangerous interference with rail traffic. Many passengers could have fallen in the event of an emergency braking. This didn't happen because the witnesses got mother and daughter off the tracks in time.

The defendant is housed in the psychiatric ward

The woman also has to answer before the regional court for an incident from October 2025. She is said to have attacked a man and a woman in Friedrichshafen. After the police arrived, she resisted violently, tried to break away and kicked at the officers.

On the first day of the trial only the charges were read out. According to her defense attorney, the defendant, who is housed in a psychiatric hospital, wants to comment on the allegations herself. In addition to a possible conviction, placement in a psychiatric hospital is also an option, as the presiding judge explained.

The trial before the jury chamber is scheduled to continue on Thursday. A verdict could come next week.