Margarethe K.
born: 1970
murdered: 9 June 2010
Residence: Detmold/NRW
Origin: Kosovo
Children: 7
Perpetrator: her divorced (in prison) living husband Isa (aged 49 at the time of the crime)
In 1992, Isa and Margarethe come to Germany from Kosovo. The Serb finds work in a tree nursery, the Kosovo Albanian in a hotel.
Because Isa seriously injures his son's ex-girlfriend with an iron bar, he is sentenced to three and a half years in prison. She had testified to the police against her criminal ex-boyfriend.
Because of good behavior, the inmate is allowed to serve his sentence in the open prison system for 4 weeks. He claims that he wants to solve family problems. Allegedly, his wife is neglecting their 7 children. But 3 of them are already out of the house.
On June 9, 2010, it comes to an argument. Margarethe tells her husband that she wants a divorce. Then Isa stabs her. She runs out of the house to the front yard and collapses. He chases her, yanks his wife's head up by the hair and slits her throat (honor killings often involve ritual slaughter). "Like a piece of cattle," a witness will say later in court. He also inflicts cuts on her genitals.
In January 2011, the trial begins at the district court in Detmold. Isa denies the intent to kill. He also shows no remorse, rather he is the victim of his bad wife. His former lawyer from the iron bar trial explains that he considers it negligent to let a prisoner who can be so aggressive come to his family to solve problems there. The perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison for murder.
