By Karin Hendrich
“Yes, I killed her. It was unbearable for me to see her suffer like that.” Pensioner Karl-Heinz N. (78) sits deeply shaken in the trial for manslaughter in front of the district court – a broken man.
It’s the saddest love story in town. 40 years ago, N. met the Norwegian Oddrun on vacation in Cyprus. They married. Got a daughter. He went to work, she did the housework. “Oddi was my great love. I had heaven on earth,” he says, close to tears.
As she grew increasingly frail in old age, he naturally took on more and more duties. As of 2021, she was less and less able to do anything herself. Also needed maintenance. He cleaned, shopped, prepared the food, washed them, dressed and undressed them. She also had to change diapers in the end.
The accused (skinny, 1.60 meters): “Gradually my strength decreased. But give up? That didn’t work.” They had promised each other: in good times and in bad. “Now were the bad ones.”
He requested professional help. Which he was denied after a telephone assessment (because of Corona). A second request went unanswered. The search for a home was also unsuccessful.
A neighbor (37), the only one who supported Karl-Heinz N. from time to time: “No one listened to him. You left him alone in the situation.”
In the spring of 2022, Oddrun N., who was suffering from heart disease, was getting worse and worse. The accused: “I was desperate.” The fire brigade took her to the hospital. From which she quickly dismissed herself (“That was her Scandinavian stubborn”). The accused: “She was only wheezing. whimpered.”
The morning of May 31, 2022. “Should it go on like this every day?” he asked himself. “I put her to bed. Then the curtain went down for me.” He pressed a pillow in the face of the 79-year-old. She choked. He put all the important papers in the hallway and wrote a farewell letter to his daughter in Sweden. called the police. And threw himself out the window…
The accused is crying. And says: “How am I supposed to live on without Oddi?” But he survived with broken bones and a sprained pelvis.
The neighbor: “It was the greatest act of love – to put her out of the suffering and misery.” Continued: Thursday (February 9)