Ukrainian women dead

German couple murdered to kidnap child

Two women - mother and daughter - have apparently been killed in Germany in order to take the younger woman's child. According to the public prosecutor's office, the two suspects in North Baden are a married couple. The 43-year-old man and his 44-year-old wife were from Sandhausen, a small town south of Heidelberg, the Mannheim public prosecutor's office announced on Thursday. They are therefore a German couple.

According to the police, the two suspects have not yet commented on the allegations. On Wednesday, the public prosecutor's office and police announced that they had recovered the body of the 51-year-old mother from a fishing lake near Bad Schönborn (Karlsruhe district) after almost two weeks of intensive searching.

Infant in the care of the youth welfare office
The body of the woman's 27-year-old daughter had already been discovered on the banks of the Rhine near Hockenheim at the beginning of March. The young woman's baby was found unharmed last week at the home of the couple from Sandhausen. The couple have been in custody since then. According to the investigators, the six-week-old girl is still in the care of the youth welfare office. Neither the public prosecutor's office nor the police are commenting on the baby's father. Police spokesman Stefan Wilhelm merely said: "The possible father of the child is not under suspicion."

According to a statement issued on Wednesday, the suspects have so far been identified as being close to the woman who was killed. There is therefore a strong suspicion of "joint insidious murder to conceal a crime" in two cases. According to the investigators, they assume that the couple first killed the grandmother on the evening of March 6 and then the baby's mother a few hours later.

Couple probably wanted to pass the baby off as their own
The Bild newspaper reported at the weekend that the suspects had told neighbors and work colleagues in recent months about the alleged imminent birth of their own daughter. They are said to have killed the 27-year-old woman in order to pass the baby off as their own. However, neither the police nor the public prosecutor's office have yet commented on the couple's possible motive.