Christiane Hartmann
Died 25 June 2021
Who they were
Christiane was a Brazilian art teacher who planned to teach German in Würzburg. In January 2021 she had moved there from São Paulo with her 11-year-old daughter. She loved outdoor trips with her daughter and also left a son in Brazil. Friends and family remember her as warm and full of life.
What happened
On Friday 25 June 2021, Christiane was stabbed to death in the Woolworth store at Barbarossaplatz while trying to protect her daughter, who was seriously injured but survived. An elderly woman who intervened to help was also killed. The court found the attacker not criminally responsible because of paranoid schizophrenia and ordered indefinite placement in a psychiatric hospital (26 July 2022).
Verdict / confirmation
Landgericht Würzburg, 26 Jul 2022: not criminally responsible (paranoid schizophrenia); indefinite psychiatric hospitalisation.
Perpetrator: A Somali asylum seeker (arrived Germany May 2015; asylum rejected, subsidiary protection). Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia; LG Würzburg 26 Jul 2022: indefinite psychiatric placement (Sicherungsverfahren), no criminal sentence.