Aargau Severely disabled daughter killed - parents appear before high court
The High Court of the Canton of Aargau is dealing with an extraordinary homicide today, Tuesday: in May 2020, parents in Hägglingen AG killed their severely cerebrally disabled three-year-old daughter.
01.07.2025, 06:06
SDA
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- The High Court of the Canton of Aargau is dealing with an extraordinary homicide today, Tuesday: in May 2020, parents in Hägglingen AG killed their severely cerebrally disabled three-year-old daughter.
- They allegedly drugged their daughter with ecstasy and then suffocated her with a cloth.
- The district court sentenced the father, now almost 35 years old, and the 33-year-old mother - both German - to eight years' imprisonment each for intentional homicide and ordered them to be deported for ten years each.
- Both the prosecutor and the defendants contested the verdicts.
Before the Muri-Bremgarten District Court in September 2024, the confessing parents described what had happened at the time. On the evening of May 6, 2020, they put ecstasy in their three-year-old daughter's bottle to sedate her. They then suffocated the girl by obstructing her airways.
It was clear to the public prosecutor that the child, who had to be looked after around the clock, had become a nuisance to the couple and they wanted to get rid of her - unscrupulously and cruelly. The prosecutor accused the two Germans of murder and demanded 18 years imprisonment and 15 years expulsion from the country for each of them.
The defense took a completely different view: The parents had been desperate in the face of their child's suffering. Out of love and powerlessness, they had decided to save their little daughter. They should be sentenced to three years' partial imprisonment for manslaughter. They should not be expelled from the country.
Eight years each for mother and father
The district court followed neither the prosecution nor the defense. It sentenced the father, who is now almost 35 years old, and the 33-year-old mother to eight years imprisonment each for intentional homicide and ordered them each to be deported for ten years. Both the prosecutor and the defendants contested the sentences.
The grandmother of the child who was killed was charged with complicity to murder. However, the court acquitted her, as the defense had requested. The public prosecutor's office appealed the verdict. They had demanded five years' imprisonment and a 15-year ban from the country for the now almost 54-year-old woman.