Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A brutal crime committed in the name of the devil took place in June 2013 in the Czech capital, Prague. The victim was an innocent 38-year-old father of three, whose new girlfriend was expecting his child. This man was the Czech taxi driver Jan K., into whose taxi the 16-year-old Jan D. and his 22-year-old friend Hendrik M. got at around 10 pm on 8 June 2013. Both were from Rottenburg am Neckar and had travelled to Prague on the spur of the moment to experience something exciting. In his Peugeot 304 SW, Jan K. drove the pair to a cemetery on the outskirts of Prague, where all three got out to smoke a cigarette. This was to be the last cigarette of Jan’s life, as Hendrik M. suddenly put him in a stranglehold whilst his friend took a hatchet out of his rucksack. He struck the taxi driver with it. However, the first blow merely hit the taxi door, whereupon the shocked taxi driver fled. What happened next could not have been written better by a crime novelist – except that it actually happened. Whilst fleeing, Jan K., who was being pursued by the two young men, stumbled. When they caught up with him, they struck the taxi driver, who was lying on the ground, with the axe and a spanner. A total of 42 blows struck the taxi driver, who had raised his right arm to shield his head, until not only his thumb but also his carotid artery had been severed. They disposed of Jan K.’s body in the bushes. They then stole his watch, his mobile phone and the equivalent of 100 euros before driving off in his taxi to a car park to sleep there. It was not until two days later that the pair returned to Germany by train, where they were caught travelling without a valid ticket. Once back in their home country, Hendrik M. had his hand stitched up and bandaged at a clinic, as Jan D. had accidentally struck him with the axe during the attack. Just six days later, on 14 June 2013, both were handcuffed, as a document belonging to Jan D. had been found in the murdered taxi driver’s vehicle, in which he had applied to change his surname. Both confessed to the murder of the taxi driver. But why had they killed him – merely out of greed? The 42 blows suggested a different motive. Both were regulars at psychiatric hospitals due to their aggressive behaviour, and it was there that they had met two years earlier. Whilst Jan D. suffered from Asperger’s syndrome and a personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial traits, Hendrik M. had been diagnosed with a severe schizotypal disorder. The latter believed himself to be the witch ‘Bellatrix Lestrange’ from the Harry Potter novels, and insisted on being addressed only by that name. His younger mate Jan was a fanatical vampire enthusiast who loved nothing more than dressing up as one. Both had become obsessed with Satanism and vampirism, which they revelled in. During the investigation, it came to light that both had already attempted to act on their murderous fantasies once before, in April 2013. After a night out at a pub in Metzingen, they had driven to the vineyards, where they spotted a man in a parked car. Jan D., who had hidden a hatchet under his black coat, and his mate Hendrik M. ran over and peered through the window. Just as Jan D. was about to yank open the car door and strike the man with his hatchet, the man instinctively put his foot down and drove off. In a fit of rage at having missed his chance to commit murder, Jan D. struck an electricity pylon with his axe. The Tübingen Regional Court sentenced 22-year-old Hendrik M. to life imprisonment, whilst his friend Jan D. received the maximum sentence of 10 years under the Juvenile Criminal Code.
