Potsdam – The woman, who is led into the largest room of the Potsdam Regional Court at 9:20 a.m., hides her face behind a mouth and nose mask, the hood of her jacket makes the camouflage perfect. When the cameras are switched off, the woman takes off her mask and hood. Long blonde hair is revealed, which Ines R. has tied in a braid. Ines R., 52 years old, mother of two children, one of whom is severely disabled, is charged with one of the most serious crimes that has rocked Potsdam in recent years: multiple murders.
In a state of reduced guilt, she is said to have murdered four people insidiously and systematically. People who were severely disabled and had been cared for in the Oberlinhaus in Potsdam for years. Also by Ines R., who as a nurse in this facility has looked after children, women and men for 31 years. Her job was a calling, she will say in her admission. But also report about their mental illness and about being overwhelmed. “I always had everything under control,” is her astonishing summary.
The indictment read out by public prosecutor Maria Stiller is short, but it gives an insight into what is said to have happened on the evening of April 28 of this year on the third floor of the Thusnelda-von-Saldern-Haus, which belongs to the Oberlinhaus. Accordingly, Ines R. was on late shift that day. She is said to have waited until her two colleagues were busy. Then she first tried to strangle two residents in their rooms.
Ines R. had brought a ceramic knife
When this did not succeed, Ines R. is said to have fetched her bag with her personal belongings. She told her colleague that she wanted to get cigarettes – so that, according to Stiller, no suspicion could arise. Ines R. is said to have pulled a ceramic knife with a blade eleven centimeters long that she had brought with her from the bag. Four patients, two women and two men, were fatally cut in the neck with it, and another woman survived the attack, seriously injured.
Ines R. speaks on this first day of the trial without commenting on the deeds. She tells of her childhood, that she, the unwanted child, was always sick and suffered from fears. She claims to have had nightmares at the age of three. “I couldn’t stand the rustling of the trees,” she says softly. There was a deep sadness in her and the fear of life. She always had the feeling that she was unloved. The mother, an office clerk, beat her six-year-old sister, the father, a civil engineer, was seldom home.
According to her own words, she committed her first suicide attempt when she was twelve years old. In the closed child and adolescent psychiatry, new drugs were tried out on her. “They were human experiments,” she says. Two years ago she received victim compensation for this. The following are descriptions of several hospital stays.
Ines R. says that she always wanted to become a nurse. She worked in the nursing home after breaking off her training as a nurse at the facility for severely disabled children and adolescents. She had to put her disabled son in a home. The second son, born in 1997, has now completed his apprenticeship as a retail salesman. He supports “his dad financially,” says Ines R. Until she was arrested, the 52-year-old was the main breadwinner in the family.
Investigators who were called to the scene are witnesses in court. They describe Ines R.’s fatal campaign, which apparently began around 8 p.m. in room 3020 at one end of the corridor. Here the 42-year-old Lucille H. died, who had been a nursing care case since a car accident. Martina W., 31 years old, was killed in the next room, the next victim was 35-year-old Christian S. from room 3008. Most recently – at the other end of the corridor – Andreas K. died. He was 56 years old.
The people bled to death from the deep knife cuts in their throats. Three of the victims could not move their arms or legs, Andreas K. was paralyzed on one side. The people in need of care had no chance to defend themselves against the insidious attacks. Ines R. was aware of this, according to the indictment. The victims were not even able to call for help.
In the process, which will continue in the coming week, it will probably also be about the care situation in the Oberlinhaus. Ines R. says in her statement that there was a lack of staff. Often the two of them were only responsible for 20 severely disabled people on the late shift. A week before the act, the Oberlinhaus no longer hired any leasing workers. That was too expensive, says Ines R.
.