A two-year-old girl was found dead in an apartment in Halle on Sunday. Now the child’s father has been arrested. He, his wife and the child’s grandmother are under investigation.
After the death of a two-year-old girl in Halle, the child’s father was arrested. The Halle police station announced on Wednesday that an arrest warrant had been issued against the 36-year-old due to the risk of absconding. The public prosecutor’s office has begun investigations against the child’s parents and grandmother. They are accused of joint manslaughter by omission.
The autopsy on the two-year-old’s body revealed that the child died last Sunday from major skin scalding. According to current investigations, the girl suffered the scalding two days before her death.
The father, the 36-year-old mother and the 63-year-old grandmother are accused of knowing that the girl had life-threatening injuries and yet not having her rescued, the police said. In doing so, they would have accepted the death of the child. According to the information, investigators searched the suspects’ apartments on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the girl’s parents spoke up in “Bild”. They say that the father wanted to shower the little girl on Friday evening. The water was too cold for the girl, so he made it warmer. But suddenly boiling hot water ran down his child’s back. “It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” the father repeatedly says to “Bild”.
Grandma treated the scalds with quark, but the family did nothing more. As the mother reports, the girl did not “scream” or “whine”.
Then on Sunday morning came the shock. The two-year-old was dead in her bed; her grandmother had found her. The parents were on a trip with the other two children in the family. Grandma called the emergency doctor, but there was nothing more they could do for the little girl.
But why didn’t the parents do more? Why didn’t they call a doctor on Friday? The two told “Bild” that they were afraid of the youth welfare office. Accordingly, they had to give their three children into the care of the authorities. At that time, the father said he dropped the child in the bathtub. The girl suffered a broken rib and thigh. In addition, the father had a drug problem, which the office knows. But he has been clean for a year, as he reports to “Bild”.
On Sunday around 2 p.m., the control center received an emergency call about a medical emergency in an apartment in the Paulusviertel. The emergency call came from a family member. According to police, the rescue workers found the little girl lifeless in the apartment in an apartment building. Attempts to revive it were therefore unsuccessful.
The spokesman said that there is currently no information about the cause of death. Since it was a two-year-old girl, the forensic medicine and criminal police were called in immediately. “We can’t say anything about the exact circumstances yet.”
According to police, a family with a total of three children lived in the apartment. Against this background, the youth welfare office was called in on Sunday, the police spokesman explained.
The city did not want to specify this measure with reference to data protection. However, the case is “currently being intensively examined by the youth welfare office,” said a spokesman for the city administration. The spokesman left it open whether there could be any omissions on the part of the youth welfare office. “An assessment of the overall circumstances and the details will take place after the examination has been completed.”
Various media outlets had reported that the girl had burns; Accordingly, the child could have been badly scalded. The police spokesman did not want to comment on the media reports. The spokesman emphasized that there are currently no criminal investigations underway, only investigations to determine the cause of death. There have been no arrests so far.
The Paulusviertel in Halle is considered a well-off and middle-class residential area. The scene of the incident is on the edge of the district in an area with a relatively high level of vacancy.