The jilted man who confessed to stabbing his toddler son’s mum to death while she was sleeping and then having sex with her corpse has gone on trial for murder.
The District Court of Deggendorf – a town in Bavaria, Germany – had sentenced muscular Dominik Stefan Riedl to 12 years in prison for manslaughter in 2017 after prosecutors were unable to prove he had acted with stealth and deceit, both necessary in this case for a murder conviction.
But the 28-year-old returned to court yesterday (Tuesday, 19th April) for a fresh trial after two witnesses in the first case admitted that they did not tell the truth and provided evidence that he did indeed plan and intend to kill the defenceless woman – both points of which are needed to prove murder.
The shocking crime in Freyung – a town in Bavaria – in October 2016 made headlines when it was discovered the following month.
Prosecutors say Riedl stabbed Lisa H. to death as she slept and then had sex with her corpse.
It is believed he committed the crime because he was unable to accept their separation.
He then lived alongside the 20-year-old’s corpse with his 18-month-old son for a few days before fleeing with the toddler to Spain.
In a morbid commemoration, he tattooed Lisa’s name on his upper arm, as well as her dates of birth and death and the phrase ‘Thank you for everything’ in Spanish.
A Spanish task force apprehended Riedl in Lloret de Mar – a coastal town in Catalonia – in July 2018 and extradited him to his home country.
But the judges who tried him could not see the criteria for murder and thus sentenced him to manslaughter after ruling he experienced a ‘situation of despair and anger’.
However, two years after his first trial in Passau – a city in Bavaria – two witnesses confessed to having given false testimony, saying that Riedl had admitted to stabbing H. while she was sleeping and then having sex with her corpse. As a result, the District Court of Deggendorf ordered a retrial.
Sixty-one witnesses and five experts will now be called on to get to the bottom of what really happened on 27th October 2016 and the days that followed.
In court, the victim’s mother, 48-year-old Alexandra, described how she found her daughter’s body in bin bags 16 days after the crime.
She also described how her grandson, now aged seven, was left traumatised by the event.
She told the court: “Sometimes he wakes up at night and calls out ‘Mama ow’. When we cut a cake with a knife for his birthday, he started screaming.”
The trial continues, and the judgement will be pronounced on 3rd June.
If found guilty of murder, Riedl faces life in prison.
