The 27-year-old entered hearing room 2,002 in baggy sweatpants, a sweatshirt, sneakers and shackles. He covered his face with folders from the cameras that were initially present. The allegations against him weigh heavily. He is said to have killed his father on February 7 in Rövershagen near Rostock, then his sister and a few days later his mother with arrows from a crossbow and stabs from a machete. The charge is triple murder. At the start of the trial at the Rostock District Court, the 27-year-old retracted all statements previously made, which also means that his confession is no longer valid.

It is above all the sequence of events that the public prosecutor described in the relatively brief indictment on Tuesday that is shocking. He is said to have shot his father, who was sleeping on a couch in the living room, with a crossbow in the back of the head in a family home in Rövershagen. Since the 52-year-old was not dead immediately, the son is said to have taken a garden machete from a shed and stabbed his victim with it. The father bled to death.

Lured to their deaths under pretense

On the same day, according to the indictment, he lured his sister into the house. Under the pretext that he had a surprise for her, he made the 25-year-old kneel down in the hallway he had laid out with pond liner and fleece and put on earmuffs and opaque glasses. Then he is said to have shot her three arrows from behind in the head with the crossbow. Since she did not die immediately either, he is said to have stabbed her in the chest, which pierced her heart and lungs.

His previously absent 48-year-old mother died at the home in the same gruesome manner a few days later on February 11. To cover up his actions, the accused is said to have built coffins, procured a transporter and an excavator and then buried the bodies on February 28 about twelve kilometers away near Kösterbeck on a lonely edge of a field.

The son had long harbored a grudge against the violent and alcoholic father. Shortly before the crime, it became clear to him in a conversation with his father that he was "nothing" to his father, said the prosecutor. The accused, who was born in the Russian Federation and has German citizenship, did not want to comment on the matter on Tuesday. His defense attorney Beate Falkenberg read a statement in which she contradicted all of the statements he had previously made on behalf of her client.

Not properly instructed

All of her client's statements are not to be used because he had not been properly instructed several times during his arrest and interrogation, she justified the step. He was also not brought before the magistrate immediately after his arrest. All evidence, expert opinions, photos and witness statements should not be used either, demanded Falkenberg, who also requested that the prosecutor present be replaced by another.

However, the lawyer gave a partial testimony of the accused, which gave insights into his family environment. During the investigation, the 27-year-old was initially questioned as a witness. He told the officers that he was dealing drugs with his father and sister. With his sister he sold cannabis packed in foil in small quantities in Schwerin and Wismar, among other places. Larger quantities were sold in Poland.

The public prosecutor accused the man on Tuesday of malicious murder, in two cases of murder to cover up a crime and in one case of murder with base motives. The accused has been in custody since the end of March. If found guilty, the accused faces a life sentence. The trial will continue on Thursday.