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“Revenge mom” shot her child’s murder in the middle of his trial
In 1973, Marianne gave birth to a third child, her daughter, Anna. Marianne was still a single mom, but raised Anna on her own.
According to sources, Anna was a “happy, open-minded child”, but unfortunately she and her family would soon suffer a terrible event.
In May, 1980, Anna and Marianne had an argument. The little girl decided to skip school and walked to a friend’s house instead. On her way there, though, Anna was kidnapped by 35-year-old Klaus Grabowski, a local butcher.
Grabowski kept Anna trapped in his apartment for hours, and abused the little girl before finally strangling her to death. After murdering Anna, the perpetrator packed her body into a box, which he stored in a hidden place on the bank of a canal.
Grabowski later returned to the location to bury the body of his victim, only to be arrested that same evening at his favorite pub in Lübeck after his fiancé turned him in to the police.
At the time, Grabowski was already a convicted sex offender who had previously been behind bars for sexual assaults on two girls.
During his stay in prison in 1976, he was voluntarily castrated. Two years later, he began hormone treatment to reverse the chemical castration so that he could have a love life with his fiancé.
Grabowski immediately confessed to Anna’s murder but denied having sexually abused the girl. During his trial, Grabowski went even further and claimed that Anna had tried to seduce and extort him.
In fact, Grabowski blamed his murder victim for his shameful act. He claimed that he only killed the little girl because she wanted to blackmail him. According to Grabowski, Anna threatened him and said that she wanted money – otherwise she would tell her mother that Grabowski had touched her in an inappropriate way.
The court didn’t believe Grabowski’s explanation.
Yet his strange and disturbing story drove Anna’s mother Marianne crazy, leaving her in a state of powerlessness, anger and fury. On March 6, 1981, on the third day of the trial, Marianne decided to take matters into her own hands.
Somehow she was able to smuggle a gun into the courtroom, bypassing the security checks and all the guards. Shortly after entering the hall, she pulled the loaded gun out of her handbag, aimed at her daughter’s killer, and emptied the entire magazine. Seven of eight bullets found their mark, and Grabowski immediately went down. He died on the spot.
Immediately after the shooting, Anna’s mother dropped her gun, a Beretta M1934. Her voice then filled the room:
“He killed my daughter… I wanted to shoot him in the face, but I shot him in the back … I hope he’s dead.”
According to two police officers at the scene, Marianne also called Grabowski a “pig” after she opened fire.
She was arrested by police in the courtroom and initially charged with murder. During her trial in 1982, Marianne claimed that she shot Grabowski in a dream state after visualizing her daughter in court.
But according to experts who testified at the trial, Marianne’s act required special practice with the gun, indicating that she had planned and prepared everything ahead of the shooting.
