LUEBECK, West Germany -- A woman charged with shooting dead her daughter's alleged killer in a crowded courtroom, said after the shooting she killed the man intentionally, a judge testified Tuesday.
Marianne Bachmeier, 32, accused of pumping seven bullets from behind into Klaus Grabowski, a convicted sexual offender, on the third day of his trial for the murder of her 7-year-old daughter Anna, has pleaded guilty to unpremeditated manslaughter.
But a judge, who spoke to Ms. Bachmeier immediately after the courtroom murder March 6, 1981, quoted her as saying: 'I wanted to kill him.'
Asked why, Ms. Bachmeier said: 'Because he killed my daughter ... I wanted to shoot him in the face but I shot him in the back ... I hope he's dead,' Judge Guenther Kroeger told the court.
Ms. Bachmeier testified she shot Grabowski in a dream and saw visions of her daughter in the courtroom.
Two policemen said they heard her refer to Grabowski as a 'pig' immediately after the shooting.
'Unfortunately I only got the pig from behind,' one of them quoted her as saying.
A doctor who examined Ms. Bachmeier after the killing said that when asked for a handwriting test she wrote: 'I did it for you, Anna,' and drew seven hearts.
Grabowski, who had undergone voluntary castration in 1976 after several convictions for sexual offenses, was later given a course of hormone treatment which, defense attourneys claim, counteracted the effect of the castration and led him to sexually assault and kill Anna Bachmeier.
Ms. Bachmeier's attourneys allege that those who authorized the hormone treatment bear some of the blame for the girl's death.
The trial, which is likely to last until February, has received huge publicity in the popular press. The weekly magazine Stern ran a sympathetic serial on Ms. Bachmeier's life before the trial opened and a later cover story in the same magazine drew responses from hundreds of readers both supporting and condemning Ms. Bachmeier's action.
The trial was adjourned until Thursday.
