The murdered millionaire couple

One of Germany’s most exciting criminal cases was the double murder of the entrepreneur couple Karl and Renate Heinzerling from Morschen, a town with 4,000 inhabitants in Hesse. Karl Heinzerling was the son of engineer August Heinzerling, who had obtained a patent in 1937 for his “mixing and beating device,” the hand-operated Rührfix. Between 1937 and 1997, 8.5 million of these devices were sold worldwide, enabling the family to live a carefree life. In addition, the company produced precision plastic parts for well-known car brands. The Heinzerlings, who were the largest employers in the village, lived in Morschen in a luxurious 35-room villa with a swimming pool on the southern slope, which was secured like a fortress with motion detectors, an alarm system, and their German shepherd Xaver, until a real tragedy occurred. On June 15, 1997, a neighbor and the fire chief found the entrepreneurial couple dead in their villa. Both had had their throats brutally slit with a knife. Their 20-year-old adopted daughter Ines had alerted the police because she was unable to reach her adoptive parents. The police then called the neighbor, who made his way to the villa with the fire chief. Since the villa had been ransacked and 2,000 marks in cash were missing, the police apparently assumed it was a robbery-murder. However, it was strange that there were no signs of a break-in, the German shepherd had not barked, and valuable jewelry, other valuables, and even the two BMW sedans had not been stolen. In addition, the murdered wife was wearing only panties and a T-shirt. They would not have opened the door to a stranger dressed like that. Was the robbery-murder just a pretense? The investigators pursued this question and interrogated the adoptive daughter Ines and her fiancé Kai, a Bundeswehr cook, that same evening. Ines had not lived with her parents since her 18th birthday because there had been repeated tensions between them. Ines’ fiancé Kai said that the Russian mafia might be behind the double murder, as Karl had had difficulties in the foreign trade sector. Both were considered extremely suspicious, as they had presented themselves as the new business owners shortly after the double murder. But they had a watertight alibi. Both had rented a BMW, which they used to take a weekend trip to Bavaria, where they checked into a wellness hotel. The younger adopted daughter, 16-year-old Julia, also had a solid alibi. But in the course of the investigation, it emerged that the relationship between the adoptive parents and their adoptive daughters was quite tense. The childless couple had adopted the two girls as infants and raised them strictly, as they were supposed to take over the business one day. But neither girl lived up to the high expectations their adoptive parents had of them. Julia, 16, a former high school student, ultimately only managed to graduate from secondary school, and Ines, who had graduated from high school, was even threatened with disinheritance because she had become involved with Kai, who was not considered suitable by her parents. Renate, who had a violent temper, allegedly became physically abusive towards her adopted daughters on numerous occasions. Rumors began to circulate that Ines, who regularly used drugs, and Kai had been looking for hitmen in Kassel. They actually found them in 22-year-old security guard Sascha and his 18-year-old girlfriend Diana, who agreed to do it in exchange for 2 million marks. The adopted daughters had previously tried to poison their parents by mixing the pesticide E605 into their food. But apart from diarrhea and vomiting, the desired death of their parents did not occur. So Ines, together with Kai, Sascha, and Diana, hatched a murder plot in which the younger sister Julia played a decisive role. She was supposed to deactivate the alarm system and deposit the key to the villa in the newspaper box so that the two killers could get into the villa. But for some reason, Sascha was unable to gain access to the villa with the key, so he rang the doorbell of the factory owner couple without further ado. He asked to use their phone because his red VW Derby had broken down. The entrepreneur invited him in. Sascha slit his throat from behind. Renate, who had been lying down, woke up. When she saw her dead husband, she wanted to flee. Sascha also slit her throat. On January 28, 1998, the murder trial against Ines, Julia, Diana, Kai, and Sascha began at the Kassel Regional Court, where they were charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of murder out of greed. On November 20, 1998, the Kassel Regional Court handed down its verdict. The younger sister, Julia, was sentenced to 7 years and 10 months in juvenile detention. Her older sister, Ines, received the maximum sentence of 10 years under juvenile law. Her friend Diana was sentenced to 7 years in juvenile detention. Ines’ fiancé, Kai, was sentenced to life imprisonment under adult criminal law. Sascha, the contract killer, received a life sentence under adult criminal law with particular severity of guilt. The murder and the trial made headlines nationwide as the “parricide of Morschen.” In 1998, the civil division of the Kassel Regional Court declared the adopted daughters unworthy of inheritance. After serving two-thirds of their juvenile sentences, they are now free again. Their adoptive parents’ inheritance went to the relatives of the deceased. They sold the couple’s company, which was dissolved in 2004 after going bankrupt.