The Murder Witch

A criminal case that could have come straight out of a horror movie took place in 1984 in Mönchengladbach, which, with its 272,000 inhabitants, is the largest city on the left bank of the Lower Rhine in western North Rhine-Westphalia. It was February 20, 1984, when the city gardener made the discovery of his life in the Bunter Garten on Bettrather Straße. He found a bag with gruesome contents under some rhododendron bushes. Forty-two freezer containers and plastic bags contained human flesh. Some of it appeared to have been processed into a kind of goulash, while other body parts, such as a skull, had apparently been cooked in an oven. The city gardener immediately alerted the police, who formed a 13-member special commission. Who could have been capable of such a heinous act? But the central question was: who had been so cruelly dismembered and disposed of in the colorful garden? Based on fingers found intact in the freezer bags, the dismembered body was identified as 32-year-old Hans-Josef Wirtz, a convicted felon who had been in a romantic relationship with 26-year-old Martina Zimmermann. Martina was an extremely attractive woman who was divorced and the mother of two small children. When she was interrogated, she confessed to the murder of Hans-Josef Wirtz, whom she had drugged and then dismembered on April 29, 1983. Martina had then bought a freezer specifically to store the body parts. Due to lack of space, she had placed the freezer in her bedroom. To cover up the smell, she had baked the skull in the oven, with which she repeatedly had conversations. She had turned other body parts into goulash. When the stench became unbearable, she disposed of the body parts in the botanical garden. Martina was a fan of occult literature, loved horror movies, and kept snakes and spiders as pets. In addition, Martina was heavily addicted to medication and had suffered from anorexia at the age of 14, which was accompanied by binge eating. Martina testified that she had attempted suicide with Hans-Josef, but that the attempt had failed. She suggested that she would murder Hans-Josef and then follow him once her children were safely cared for. Of course, the murder case attracted a lot of media attention. Martina was given the nicknames “Murder Witch,” “Horror Martina,” and “Bloodthirsty Martina” because she had cold-bloodedly killed her lover without remorse, dismembered him with a circular saw, cooked him, baked him, and frozen him. Martina was diagnosed with a profound psychiatric disorder. Due to her diminished responsibility, she was sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by placement in a psychiatric institution. Martina made several attempts to escape, but allegedly died while at large in Amsterdam.