29-Year-Old Killed Own Son in Delusion: Conditional Placement in Specialized Clinic
The woman who killed her four-year-old son with a throat cut in her apartment in Vienna-Favoriten on November 17, 2024, was placed in a forensic-therapeutic center by the Vienna Regional Court on Tuesday due to proven incapacity. However, the execution of the measure was conditionally waived with a five-year probation period, during which the 29-year-old was given a multitude of instructions. The decision is already legally binding.
Incapacity at the Time of the Crime
The prosecution had requested the woman's placement in a forensic-therapeutic center in accordance with § 21 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. According to two psychiatric reports, the 29-year-old acted under the significant influence of a severe and persistent mental disorder. The fact that she slit her son's throat with a kitchen knife while he was asleep was attributed to an acute polymorphic psychotic disorder with symptoms of schizophrenia. Thus, according to the experts, on whom the prosecution relied with their application for placement, the mother was deemed incapable at the time of the crime. The woman could not be charged with murder.
The illness had taken a "fulminant course," psychiatrist Peter Hofmann explained on today's trial day. It had "progressed very quickly," and the clinical picture manifested in a very short time. However, the illness is "well treatable," and as a result, the woman's condition has sustainably improved thanks to appropriate medication.
Strict Conditions in the Execution of Measures
The mentally ill woman is currently housed in a facility specialized in her form of illness, where she is closely monitored. It is ensured there that she continues to take her medication. This will not change for the time being. A jury court decided to suspend the execution of measures on probation and to keep the 29-year-old in the facility. She must continue to take her medication, continue her psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatments, participate in the offered daily structure, and report on her therapy progress without being asked. Additionally, probation assistance was ordered.
Mother Apologized: "We Were a Beautiful, Happy Family"
"I was not myself. I was completely out of it," the woman explained to the jury court at the start of the trial in early June. She thought she had to "save" her child. She had started hallucinating two days before the crime and imagined that men she had seen earlier at Reumannplatz would rape her child. When she heard key noises in the apartment on the night of November 17, she panicked and became afraid, and found "a knife" in the kitchen, the young woman said: "Panic made fear, fear made panic. I thought I had to protect my child. I had to save my child. I killed my child."
At the end of today's trial day, the 29-year-old apologized to her husband, who continues to stand by her despite the child killing and wants to live with her again. "We were a beautiful, happy family. I loved my child, but suddenly I became a different person," said the composed-looking woman. Now she is "stable again."
(APA/Red)
This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.