A 65-year-old man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the double murder in the artists' village of Fischerhude a year ago. The district court of Verden also found on Wednesday that the guilt was particularly serious, which rules out early release.

It found the economically failed horse breeder guilty of shooting a 73-year-old woman and her 56-year-old son on December 28, 2021 in Fischerhude near Bremen. The dead were the mother and brother of a former business partner and friend of the accused. A woman who happened to be at the scene of the crime, now 54 years old, was shot through the head and survived with serious injuries. The verdict is not yet legally binding.