A 67-year-old stateless man is on trial in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg for allegedly killing his German ex-girlfriend nearly 42 years ago after the cold case was reopened at the end of 2024 and authorities were able to track him down.
Prosecutors alleged on Thursday, the trial's opening day, that the man, then 25, killed Maria Köhler, then 19, after she let him into her room at a home for trainee nurses in in Aschaffenburg on July 30, 1984. He tightened a scarf around her neck in a jealous rage, they said.
The state is arguing that the man murdered Maria out of jealousy, as she had split up with him and had a new boyfriend, a US soldier stationed in Hanau, near Frankfurt.
"The defendant acted out of a crude, exaggerated jealousy devoid of any comprehensible reason because the injured party, Maria Köhler, had turned to another man," senior public prosecutor Jürgen Bundschuh told the court.
The man is charged with murder, which is the only charge that is not limited by the statue of limitations. Five trial days are scheduled until the end of June
The victim made it clear to the defendant that the relationship was over and that he should no longer visit her," Bundschuh said as the indictment was read out. "This led to a row between the two with mutual insults and abuse, possibly also with slaps."
The man also acted out of vindictiveness because the young woman did not want to marry him and he would therefore have had no chance of obtaining a residence permit in Germany, the prosecution argued.
