81-year-old convicted of murder and rape in Koblenz sentenced to life imprisonment
The Koblenz regional court has sentenced an 81-year-old man to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of a US tourist in 1994.
Life sentence after 32 years: cold-case verdict in Koblenz
The Koblenz regional court has sentenced an 81-year-old man to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of an American tourist. The court also determined that the crime involved particularly grave culpability, as reported by Google News AT — Crime (de) citing a court spokesperson. Release after the minimum custodial period of 15 years is thus largely ruled out.
The chamber found it proven that the defendant raped and killed 24-year-old Amy Lopez from the United States near the Ehrenbreitstein fortress in Koblenz in September 1994. According to the verdict, he acted with treachery and to satisfy his sexual drive. The victim was selected arbitrarily. "Amy Lopez was fatefully in the wrong place at the wrong time," said court spokesperson Eva Maria Kahn.
With the sentence, the court in Rhineland-Palatinate followed both the prosecution and the co-plaintiff side — the victim's family. The defence had also called for life imprisonment, though it disputed the finding of particularly grave culpability.
The case remained unsolved for decades. It was only the re-evaluation of old DNA traces that led in February to the arrest of the man in a nursing home. According to investigators, he confessed to the crime at that time without going into detail.
Kathrin Kienle, the lawyer representing Amy Lopez's relatives, emphasised after the verdict: "The verdict cannot of course undo the crime, nor can it bring Amy back." The victim's father and brother nevertheless appeared at the reading of the verdict — for them it was an "attempt at closure," according to Kienle. Both had told her that over all these years they had found no inner peace as long as the perpetrator remained at large.
Source: Google News AT — Crime (de)