Murder at Lake Starnberg

A horrific triple murder took place in January 2020 at the famous Lake Starnberg. In this idyllic spot, the P. family lived in a single-family home. On January 11, their daughter discovered the bodies of her 64-year-old father, a lighting technician, her 59-year-old mother, a psychologist, her 21-year-old brother Vincent, an apprentice gunsmith, and the family dog. She immediately alerted the police. They initially assumed it was a horrific family tragedy. Everything pointed to Vincent P. having committed an extended suicide. He had first shot his parents in their bedroom, his father with three shots and his mother with four, then the family dog, and finally himself in his own room. He had one of the two murder weapons in his right hand, with which he had apparently shot himself in the head. The gunshot residue on his hands and the blood on his sock, which turned out to be his father’s, support this theory. But the motive remained a mystery. Why had Vincent P. murdered himself and his parents? Vincent was considered a gun enthusiast who, according to friends, illegally possessed a large arsenal of weapons. But there was no trace of the weapons. The search for the missing weapons eventually led to 21-year-old Maximilian B., who, along with his 18-year-old roommate Samuel V., was a close friend of Vincent’s. The trio called themselves “Idiots from Lake Starnberg” on WhatsApp, all three sharing a passion for weapons. When police officers questioned Maximilian about his illegal possession of weapons, he unexpectedly confessed to the triple murder. Vincent P.’s missing weapons were found in his apartment. Maximilian stated that he had killed Vincent P. because Vincent had planned a shooting rampage at the Pasing-Arcaden shopping center in Munich. He named his roommate Samuel as an accomplice, who had driven him to Vincent’s parents’ house on the night of January 10-11, 2020. After Vincent had smoked a joint, he shot him. To prevent Vincent’s parents from identifying him as the perpetrator, he shot them too. He also had to shoot the family dog because it was barking loudly. He was afraid that this would wake the neighbors. He then gathered the weapons and sent Samuel a WhatsApp message so that he could pick him up. It was Samuel who had given him the idea of extended suicide, and Maximilian’s testimony weighed heavily on Samuel. Although the police officers believed that Vincent P. had indeed planned a rampage, it was not a matter of stopping him, but rather of killing him because of his weapons. Both Maximilian and Samuel were chronically broke. They hoped to make between €400,000 and €600,000 from selling the weapons. They wanted to use the money to buy expensive clothes and technology. They dreamed of being real gangsters with the world at their feet. But their plan didn’t work out. The weapons couldn’t be sold as expected, so the duo decided to rob a supermarket. This led to a spectacular trial at Munich Regional Court II, in which the main perpetrator, Maximilian, was sentenced to 13 years in prison under juvenile criminal law, and his accomplice Samuel, who had saved Maximilian’s number in his cell phone under “Big Brother,” was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in prison. This put an end to the two men’s gangster careers, at least for the time being.