In the midst of madness

Delusional Styrian wanted to set fire to acquaintance’s house

The jury courtroom in Graz

(Bild: APA/KARIN ZEHETLEITNER)

43 years old, a Styrian man wrote delusional e-mails to acquaintances, urging them to set fire to a friend's house and kill her. Due to his mental state, he is committed to a forensic-therapeutic center (not legally binding).

Once again on Wednesday at the Graz Regional Criminal Court, it becomes clear what it means to suffer from a serious mental illness. The matter becomes even more delicate when the person concerned does not even think about seeking treatment. Because they think they are healthy.

Paranoid schizophrenia
The following story says a lot about the problem: the native Styrian is 43 years old and actually seemed to have a promising professional future ahead of him. After graduating from high school, he completed a technical degree and worked as an industrial engineer in the automotive industry. But then his head stopped working. He didn't take any pills, so his paranoid schizophrenia took full hold.

Everything in his world is deadly serious. That's what makes him so dangerous.

Der Staatsanwalt

"He feels threatened and persecuted," the prosecutor explained to the jury. Freemasons are his greatest concern. His particular enemies were two women from the society who wanted to drive him to his death. At the end of 2022, his illness became even more dramatic. He began writing reviews and emails on Google in which he denigrated various people from the left-wing spectrum. For example, the principal in his town would grope children and men would die in turn between the thighs of a woman named above. As the grand mistress of a lodge full of Greens, left-wingers and Freemasons, this woman would circulate broken condoms in order to provide for new political blood.

Styrian feels threatened and persecuted by freemasons and women
The man himself caused his exposure by going to the police and reporting that women had coerced him into setting fire to a Styrian collegiate church. If he did not do so, they would drive him to suicide. The officers quickly realized that he had psychological problems and contacted his parents, who confirmed his illness.

Judge Andreas Lenz

(Bild: ERWIN SCHERIAU / APA / picturedesk.com)

Shortly afterwards, however, the situation got even worse: He wrote emails in which he pretended to be a woman and ordered the recipients to buy gasoline at a gas station, to set his enemy's apartment on fire at 8 p.m. on Easter night. "Drah sie ham," he wrote in it. In another email, he asked whether the matter had already been settled. If not, they would be like his family doctor, whom he, or rather the woman he pretended to be, had also killed. In fact, the doctor had died unexpectedly shortly beforehand. For the public prosecutor, one thing is clear: "In his world, everything is deadly serious. That's what makes him so dangerous."

"I have nothing to say"
"I don't have anything to say about it," the victim replies to the presiding judge's question as to whether he wrote the emails, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs and putting his hands in his trouser pockets. He certainly feels he's in the wrong place, explains the well-read Goethe fan.

But the chairman doesn't give up and pesters the man until he starts to talk and his bitter mental state comes to light: the Freemasons are trying to murder him with their telepathic torture, activated in the brain by the pineal gland. The higher the rank of the Freemason, the stronger the torture. Only when the torturer was dead would the pain caused by this person stop. Further, completely confused statements follow. In the end, he admits to having written all the emails and evaluations.

By the afternoon, it was clear that all eight jurors shared the prosecution's view. The man is committed to a forensic therapy center. Not legally binding, he has asked for time to reflect.