Story By: James King, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
A stalker who killed his lover when she tried to end the relationship has been jailed for 10 years after cops managed to interrogate the only witness – Amazon’s Alexa.
The home assistant device recorded everything and was used by the German cops to successfully prosecute 54-year-old heating engineer Dieter E.
The defendant tried to claim the woman’s death was a sex-game-gone-wrong, but the Alexa evidence shed light on the events on the night in question.
He had been in a relationship with the blonde Ukrainian identified as Nataliya L., 45, for a short period last summer, but his obsessive jealousy encouraged her to end the relationship in mid-November last year.
He continued to pester the victim with phone messages and unwelcome confrontations. He also accused her of being a prostitute, spied on her, and made allegations about her meeting other men.
Prosecutor Thomas Rauscher revealed that he turned up at her house in Regensburg’s Moerikestrasse and broke in 10 days previously.
Dieter E. tried to rape the victim, but she managed to lock herself in the toilet and called a friend for help.
Ten days later, he was back at her house causing a commotion and in the end, she reluctantly allowed him inside and agreed to have a drink with him.
In the end, he had agreed to leave if they could have sex together one more time, and she consented.
However, during sex, he had put his hands round her neck and strangled her to death.
He then slashed himself with a knife seven times on his left arm, and dragged himself out of the house where he was found by the police and taken to hospital.
Dieter E. has now been convicted of manslaughter at the Regensburg District Court in Germany thanks to evidence supplied by Alexa that helped the police to recreate what happened that evening.
Public prosecutors requested a copy of the WAV file from the Amazon clearinghouse in Belgium, and after getting a court order it was handed over.
The prosecutor told local media: “This is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this.”
They found out that the sex was consensual and unprotected and happened at 3am after he had constantly pestered her.
He refused to say anything at all after she was found dead in a pool of blood at the entrance to the property, but police discovered that messages sent from her WhatsApp account to him between 3am and 4.39am were sent when she was already dead.
The forensic reconstruction showed that she had been strangled from behind with a forearm grip and the prosecutor added: “He threatened her and told her ‘you are with me and with no one else’.”
The killer appears to have realised that the recording device was active at one stage because at 3.16am a male voice is heard ordering Alexa to “go to sleep”.
However, because the evidence did not support the theory that he had deliberately planned the murder, he was tried and convicted of manslaughter instead.
Although the accused remained silent, he wrote a letter in which he claimed the death was a result of an erotic game.
He received a 10-year prison sentence for Nataliya L’s death.
The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
