Horrible case

Boy (3) starved to death: Now murder charges against parents

The tragedy occurred in the district of Kufstein last year.(Bild: ZOOM Tirol)

In the case of a three-year-old boy who died due to severe malnutrition in the Tyrolean district of Kufstein in May 2024, the public prosecutor's office in Innsbruck has now brought charges against the parents - for torture, deprivation of liberty and murder! Investigation details only hint at the horror scenarios the child was subjected to.

"The 27-year-old parents are accused of deliberately torturing their son to death over several months from December 2023," the public prosecutor's office said on Tuesday afternoon. The then three-year-old boy died on Whit Sunday, May 19, 2024.

Parents in custody since then
Just a few days later, the child's parents were arrested following an inpatient stay due to a mental state of emergency. They have been in custody in Innsbruck ever since.

Horrible details of the investigation
It is hard to imagine what the boy had to endure: "According to the shocking results of the investigation, the parents abused the child mentally and physically in the most horrific way. They isolated the boy from the rest of family life and locked him away, completely dehumanized, humiliated and frightened him. They beat him with a wooden spoon, tied his hands and feet with cable ties and sometimes blindfolded him. They also tied him to the taps of the washbasin in the toilet and locked him up for hours in complete darkness," said Hansjörg Mayr, spokesman for the Innsbruck public prosecutor's office.

According to the indictment, they hung him from the shower fixture in the bathroom and showered him with ice-cold or very hot water.

Hansjörg Mayr, Sprecher der Innsbrucker Staatsanwaltschaft

Bild: Birbaumer Christof

Locked in a drawer for 22 hours
But that was not all: according to the indictment, the parents also hung him up in the bathroom from the shower holder and showered him with ice-cold or very hot water and taped his mouth to stop him crying. "Gradually they stopped dressing him, locked him naked or wearing only a diaper in a drawer and left him there in his own excrement for 22 hours a day, sometimes for a week straight. They also made him sleep unclothed on the slatted frame without a mattress and deliberately malnourished him and provided him with insufficient fluids," the spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office continued.

Boy succumbed to his agony completely alone
The boy died in the night hours of May 19, 2024. "According to the results of the investigation, he succumbed alone in the dark and undressed to the agony that his own parents had inflicted on him for months. He died as a result of severe malnutrition and dehydration. At the time of the autopsy, his body weight was just over seven kilograms with a body length of 94 centimetres," it says.

Mystical illusory or fantasy world
The family's financial situation was strained. The family - the three-year-old was one of a total of four children - apparently also lived in seclusion. "Due to the difficult living situation, the parents took refuge in a constructed, mystical illusory or fantasy world, according to which a demon in the little boy's body was responsible for their predicament and would control the fate of the family," Mayr continued.

The parents will have to answer to the Innsbruck Regional Court.(Bild: Birbaumer Christof)

Abuse live via camera
The public prosecutor's office assumes that the parents "created an outlet for themselves to vent and act out their sadistic tendencies." In WhatsApp chats and emails, the defendants discussed the abuse and encouraged each other that the boy had to be destroyed. "The parents also filmed some of the boy's torment and watched it live on a surveillance camera."

The public prosecutor's office based its charges on the aforementioned chats between the two defendants, among other things. "They also documented the abuse with photos and videos."

Parents sane according to expert opinion
According to the public prosecutor's office, the mother confessed and explained the acts of abuse "with the demon living in the boy". The child's father had stated that he had confessed and regretted what had happened. However, he had not made any other statements.

According to Mayr, the parents had a personality disorder with sadistic traits according to a psychiatric expert opinion, but they were sane.

Life imprisonment if found guilty
Lawyer Matthias Holzmann represents the accused father: "My client has now confessed and was questioned by the public prosecutor this morning." If found guilty, the parents could face up to life imprisonment. The presumption of innocence applies. Incidentally, the boy's siblings have been placed with foster families.