The Mannheim District Court in Germany has begun the trial of a couple accused of murdering two Ukrainian women - a 27-year-old woman and her 51-year-old mother.. The crime arose from the desire to kidnap the baby of a younger woman and pass it off as her own child. At the beginning of the trial, the accused admitted guilt. This was reported by the German publication Spiegel..

“I regret everything I did,” the man said.

His wife said she made a big mistake and if she could, she would turn back time.

According to investigators, the 45-year-old woman and her 43-year-old husband from Sandhausen near Heidelberg had long harbored the idea of \u200b\u200bhaving a daughter together.. The woman deliberately sought contacts with Ukrainian refugees in Telegram groups. This is how she met a pregnant 27-year-old Ukrainian woman who was looking for an interpreter for her future childbirth..

The mother, grandmother and child were in a refugee home in the Rhine-Neckar region at the time of the crime.

On March 6, 2023, the couple invited women and their baby to dinner. There they were given drugs that made the older woman feel unwell. Under the pretext of taking her to the hospital, the man took the woman to a lake near Karlsruhe, where the man struck her several times with a hammer and then drowned her.. The defendant said he used a rubber hammer from a hardware store..

The couple took the 27-year-old woman away under the pretext that her mother had a heart attack and was in hospital.. According to the prosecutor's office, they went to Hockenheim, near the dam on the Rhine. There, a man struck a young woman in the head with an unknown object at least three times “with considerable force.”. Woman died from severe traumatic brain injury. The body was burned and the child was taken home.

On March 7, the body of a young woman was found by a passerby on the banks of the Rhine.. Later, her mother's body was found in the pond.. The child was found alive in the suspects' house.

Now the 11-month-old child lives with a 21-year-old aunt, who took custody and returned with the girl to Ukraine. The sister of the murdered woman acts as a co-plaintiff in the trial. The lawyer for the relatives of the victims insists on life imprisonment for the accused with a designation of the special gravity of the crime.. This means they will not be eligible for parole after 15 years in prison..

The court hearings will last until the end of February, and the verdict is planned to be announced on February 21.

Let us remind you that on November 11 it became known about the murder of a truck driver from Ukraine in Germany. According to media reports, a dispute arose between men in the parking lot regarding the war in Ukraine.

In June 2024, the body of a 9-year-old Ukrainian woman was found in a forest near the German city of Debeln..