Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A murder straight out of a horror film took place on 11 February 2002 in the Swabian town of Gersthofen. That evening, 12-year-old Vanessa and her 10-year-old brother Christoph were home alone, as their parents, Romana and Erich Gilg, were at the Rose Monday Ball in the town hall. The couple had met 18 years earlier on a Rose Monday and wanted to celebrate this special day. The town hall was just six minutes’ walk from their house on Winterstraße. They had also asked their neighbours to keep an eye on the house, and Erich had taken his mobile phone with him so he could always be reached by his children. The couple were celebrating exuberantly both the anniversary of meeting and Romana’s recovery from breast cancer. They could not have imagined that their lives would change forever that very night. For when they returned home the next morning to check on their children, they found Vanessa’s blood-soaked body lying in her bed. Twelve-year-old Vanessa, with her long black-brown hair which she liked to wear in a ponytail, had been killed with over 21 stab wounds, whilst her brother had been sleeping peacefully in the next room. Who on earth was capable of such a heinous crime? The ‘Soko Vanessa’ task force was set up immediately. The Augsburg Criminal Investigation Department was working flat out on the case. A witness named Marja N. had been followed and frightened not far from the crime scene by a young man dressed as Death, wearing a black cloak and a death mask. He turned out to be Michael Weinhold, then aged 20, who lived with his mother Rita and her partner Gerhard in a 75-square-metre flat in a high-rise block on Thyssenstraße. The DNA secured at the crime scene matched that of Michael, who eventually confessed to Vanessa’s murder. But what drove Michael to commit this heinous crime? Michael was a man 1.82 metres tall with blond hair and a slight build, who was born on 8 September 1982 in Rodewisch, Saxony, the son of railway track layer Werner and pyrotechnician Rita. He grew up in a sheltered environment until his father was struck and killed by a train whilst on his way to work. At the time, Michael was 12 years old and simply could not come to terms with his father’s death. Following his father’s death, Rita moved house with Michael time and again, which meant he frequently changed schools, until Rita settled in Gersthofen and moved in with Gerhard, an unemployed gardener. Michael became increasingly isolated, eventually ending up at a special needs school, where, thanks to the St Elisabeth Support Foundation, he was able to train as a metalworker. Michael himself referred to himself there simply as ‘Kobold’; he was addicted to horror films, which had replaced his friends. He watched them almost every day; his favourite film was Scream. A Ghostface mask just like the one in the film hung on the wall of his bedroom. He wanted to be like the killer Billy from Scream. After Michael had been celebrating in the marquee with his mother and her partner, he went alone to the ‘Schampus’ bistro at around 10.45 pm. When he left, he followed the student Marja N., who had just got off the bus. When his plan to scare her to death failed, he wandered aimlessly around the neighbourhood until he stopped at a white house on Winterstraße. There he saw Vanessa sitting in front of the television with her brother Christoph. When they went to bed, he tried to get into the house to shock her whilst dressed as ‘Death’. He eventually made his way into the house via the garage, where he went upstairs to Vanessa’s bedroom. When he stood in front of Vanessa’s bed and she suddenly woke up and screamed, he simply stabbed her. He stabbed Vanessa a total of 21 times with a knife that had a 16-centimetre-long blade. He allegedly took the knife from the kitchen of the house. However, Vanessa’s mother, Romana, insisted she had not owned such a knife. Michael was sentenced by the court to the maximum juvenile sentence of 10 years. He was due to be released in 2012. However, the public prosecutor’s office considered Michael to be extremely dangerous and therefore argued for his detention in a secure institution. The risk that Michael might kill another child was too great. The Juvenile Division of the Augsburg Regional Court granted the public prosecutor’s application, meaning that Michael remained in secure detention. The Federal Court of Justice upheld this decision.
