Charging cable with consequences

Help with suicide: acquittal for defendant

The defendant could not have known that the woman would attempt suicide.(Bild: Chantall Dorn)

A patient at Rankweil LKH (Vorarlberg) meant well and provided a mentally ill woman with a charging cable for her cell phone. The consequences were fatal.

In August 2021, a 20-year-old psychiatric patient tried to strangle herself with a cell phone charging cable in a toilet at Rankweil Regional Hospital. The charging cable had been bought for her the day before by the accused fellow patient at her request. On Thursday, the 22-year-old had to stand trial on suspicion of "assisting suicide". In the jury trial, the young man pleaded not guilty. "If I had known that she wanted to strangle herself with it, I would never have got her the charging cable." He did know that his fellow patient suffered from bipolar disorder. However, due to the fact that she specifically asked him for a charging cable for an iPhone, he assumed that the woman wanted to use it for this purpose.

If I had known that she wanted to strangle herself with it, I would never have got her the charging cable.

Der Angeklagte

Statement against statement
The next day, he received a message from her saying that she was back in the "locked cell" because she had wanted to strangle herself. His first conclusion was that she might have tried to do this with the new charging cable. In the end, it was testimony against testimony. A few weeks after her suicide attempt, the woman had stated during questioning by the police that she had told the accused that she wanted to kill herself with the charging cable. During her interrogation at the trial on Thursday, she could no longer remember anything. Defendant was sane
After a brief deliberation by the panel of lay judges, Judge Sabrina Tagwercher acquits the accused. The public prosecutor's application for the 22-year-old, who was mentally ill but sane according to court expert Reinhard Haller, to be placed in a forensic therapy center was therefore rejected. The verdict is not final.