FIVE YEARS ago Bavarian farmer’s wife Hermine Rupp was found guilty of killing her husband Rudolf, chopping him into pieces and feeding him to their dogs.
Yesterday she returned to court for a retrial after Rudolf’s body turned up in the river Danube, eight years after he vanished.
The retrial in the Bavarian town of Landshut began with a reading of the 2004 prosecutor’s indictment. It described a colourful chain of events in which a drunk Mr Rupp, a 52-year-old known locally as Rudi, was allegedly set upon by his wife, two daughters, Manuela and Andrea, as well as Matthias, Manuela’s fiancé.
According to the indictment, the four beat him unconscious with a plank, cut him up and fed him to their two Dobermans, bull terrier and Alsatian. They boiled his head, the indictment added, threw the remains left by the dogs on the dunghill and sold his black Mercedes for scrap.
After a high-profile case in 2005, a court found the farmer’s wife and Matthias guilty of manslaughter and handed down eight-year sentences. The daughters were found guilty of acting as accessories.
Now they are on trial a second time and everyone in the courtroom knows the original accusations and verdict are completely wrong.
“That makes this case unique,” said Regina Rick, defence lawyer for Manuela Rupp. She said she would be calling for a full inquiry into the original police investigation, in particular their questioning methods.
She said the four accused were intellectually challenged and were unable to deal mentally with the original police questioning. The verdict was based largely on a confession from Matthias, which he later withdrew.
“The police wanted a confession and they got one,” said Mr Klaus Wittmann, representing Ms Rupp, who said his client had an IQ of 53, well below average.
“I wouldn’t rule out that [Rupp] was drunk and drove his car into the Danube.”
Today the court will hear from police witnesses.