"Begonia Murder" in Gräfelfing: Controversial verdict marks 50th anniversary
Fifty years ago, the wife of a dentist was strangled in a villa in Gräfelfing. The case is still considered one of Munich's most controversial criminal cases.
Gräfelfing villa as crime scene: The "Begonia Murder" and its controversial verdict
Exactly 50 years ago, on 8 July 1976, a verdict was delivered in the jury courtroom of Munich's Palace of Justice that raises questions to this day. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported, presiding judge Hubert Grader sentenced dentist Erich Schromm (then 50) to life imprisonment and his mistress, care home director Albertine Seim (27), to 13 years in prison – for the joint murder of Schromm's wife.
The crime scene was a villa on Professor-Kurt-Huber-Straße in Gräfelfing, an affluent Munich suburb. Seim had strangled the victim – and had appeared with a potted plant, as if it were a harmless social visit. This very circumstance gave the case its name: the "Begonia Murder".
The trial attracted an extraordinarily large audience in February 1976. SZ court reporter Erwin Tochtermann wrote at the time that the attendance was the largest since the Brühne-Ferbach trial. The court was convinced that Schromm had instigated his considerably younger mistress to commit the act – but this point remained disputed.
Whether Schromm was actually the instigator or whether Seim acted on her own initiative could never be conclusively established. The "Begonia Murder" is therefore still regarded as one of the most puzzling and most discussed criminal cases in Munich's legal history.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung