BERLIN (AP) — An 81-year-old man admitted to sexually assaulting and killing an American tourist in Germany more than 30 years ago at the opening of his trial on Tuesday, German news agency dpa reported.
The defendant, whose name was not given in line with German privacy rules, admitted to killing 24-year-old Amy Lopez in 1994 in the western German city of Koblenz, the news agency reported.
Prosecutors accused him of “killing a person in a treacherous manner and for base motives in order to satisfy his sexual urges.”
The defense lawyer, Volker Klein, said during the session in the Koblenz district court that the defendant admitted fully to the crime. When the presiding judge, Rupert Stehlin, asked the defendant if that was true, the 81-year-old nodded and said “yes.”
The crime took place Sept. 26, 1994, when Amy Lopez was visiting Koblenz as a tourist.
The prosecution accuses the man, who was 49 years old at the time, of luring her under false pretenses into a secluded room of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in Koblenz, where he then allegedly handcuffed her, sexually assaulted her and killed her with nine knife wounds to the chest area.
The suspect allegedly also strangled Lopez with a belt and struck her on the left side of her head with a rock when she tried to defend herself and shouted, dpa reported.
Shortly afterward, children playing nearby found Lopez’s body.
The cold case remained unsolved for decades until investigators analyzed old DNA traces using new methods, ultimately leading to a breakthrough. DNA found on the victim’s waistband and thigh were eventually linked to the man, dpa reported.
The man was arrested in late February at a nursing home in the Koblenz area and has been in pretrial detention since.
A total of eight trial days have been scheduled and a verdict is expected in September.
Related Posts:
- All eyez on Tupac: Long-awaited trial begins in rapper’s 1996 killing News By JESSICA HILL LAS VEGAS (AP) — Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the trial of a man accused of orchestrating the killing of Tupac Shakur, kicking off weeks of testimony that will revisit what happened on a Las Vegas street nearly 30 years ago. Duane “Keffe D”…
- Twelve dead after tourist bus crashes in Hungary News To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Up Next Previous Page Next Page At least 12 people were killed after a packed tourist bus crashed into a ditch in Hungary. The fatal collision happened at about 1am local time…
- US tourist dies after being struck by lightning while hiking Sicily’s Mount Etna News MILAN (AP) — An American tourist was killed by a lightning strike on Sicily’s Mount Etna while hiking in an area that was closed to visitors due to recent volcanic activity, Italian firefighters said Monday. Related Articles Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea Kushner sits…
- Pull up to the window, please, for a glimpse of an American icon: The drive-thru News By ASHRAF KHALIL WASHINGTON (AP) — Full disclosure: this should really be two tales. How better to pay tribute to the natural and perhaps inevitable combination of two distinctly American icons: fast food and cars? Those two massive sociological forces had already joined up, Voltron-style, early in the 20th century…
- Palestinian American returns to besieged West Bank home but Israeli settlers remain News By SAM METZ RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian American whose home in the occupied West Bank has been besieged for more than a week confronted Israeli settlers on Tuesday and demanded Israeli forces remove them from his property. But on his first day back at his home in…
(Visited 1 times, 1 visits today)