This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and
sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Talia and I'm Tanya, and together we are Crimes and
Consequences, a true crime podcast. Hi everyone, I'm Talia and I'm Tanya,
and together we are Crimes and Consequences. We are two attorneys and friends
and love true crime. Yes, I'm talking about it and dissecting it and
dissecting it and then talking about it, freaking out about it and then sharing
it with you guys. Yes, So today I'm going to tell a story.
And I know a lot of people complained I talk slow, so I'm
gonna talk really fast this time. Right, bookle up, bookle Up.
This one was suggested by our Patreon And for those that don't know, we
have a patrion account. It's Patreon dot com and then it's the letters T
N T and then crimes dot com. And she is a subscriber, Thank
you, Kelly A. And she suggested this story. All right, this
story is a bit of a roller coaster and it's very controversial. Okay,
you don't know it. I don't know it. So the location is in
Lubeck, Germany, and Lubik is close to Hamburg. There are several like
medieval buildings and spires and lubig. Oh it sounds beautiful, right. And
the story mainly involves Marianne Bachmeyer. And I'm going to give you some background
on Marianne Bachmeyer. She was born June third, nineteen fifty in star Set,
star Set, Germany. Marianne grew up there and her family had fled
from the Second World War. They were from East Prussia at the time.
She was raised in a very conservative and religious home. Her father had been
a member of the Waffen ss OH, the combat portion of the Nazis ss
unit. I'm sorry, you're right, Yeah, I don't have to apologize
for coughing. He was your stereotypical German father, this thirty figure that demanded
respect. He became a very heavy drinker and spent most of his time at
a bar very close to their home. His constant drinking only made him more
aggressive. Yeah, meaner. He wasn't a fun he wasn't a fun drunk.
But if he spending a lot of time at the bar, like stay
there, you're not terrorizing your family, right, But he would come home
and he would be very aggressive. Her parents eventually divorced, and Marianne's mother
moved in and remarried a guy named Paul. She did not really like Paul,
and she's in her early teens. She called him uncle pauw and he
wanted her to call her papa. Oh okay, but she did. She
wouldn't do it. She believed he was too dictorial too Oh another stern one.
But she's also a teenage girl. Yeah that's true. Right, So
there's a lot of conflict in the household, and Marianne was perceived as a
troubled child. Her mother eventually kicked her out of the house because it was
causing like the tension between her and uncle Paul, where it was causing all
these problems. But her mom secretly paid for her to have an apartment and
didn't tell Paul. Didn't tell Paul, her husband. I mean, she
didn't want to just kick her out, right. I was gonna say,
geez, you just kick your kid out? Yeah, okay, she has
some redemption in my eyes then, yes. So in nineteen sixty six,
at the age of sixteen, Marianne became pregnant, she was still going to
school, which I got to give her credit for. She continued her education.
She didn't have any income coming in right, and she's only secretly getting
her apartment paid by her mom. And Paul did eventually find out, so
she gave this baby girl up for adoption. She continued to go to high
school. I'm not sure where she lived. I just know that Paul found
out at some point and ended that. Two years later, she became pregnant
again with her boyfriend from high school she was attending now when she was about
eight months pregnant. I'm not sure how far along. I read something that
said eight months. It could have been earlier. She was at a disco.
Oh good for her. So it makes me wonder if she was actually
eight months pregnant and a man raped her. It's actually assaulted her. She
called the police, he was arrested, and he was charged and convicted.
But this gave her a lot of trauma, and she's already on her own
right right pregnant, so she decides to place her second child up for adoption,
and the baby's father, her ex now boyfriend from high school. A
baby's father, and mother adopted that baby. Okay, okay, the grandparents,
the grandparents, thank you. Now, Marianne did end up graduating from
high school and she got a job at a bar called to Passa. She
worked there and she was really good. People liked her. She kind of
worked her way up into a bartender position instead of just being a server.
In nineteen seventy two, Marianne began dating the manager of the pub, his
name was Christian. At the age of twenty two, she became pregnant with
a third child, her third child. Now, she had a stable income
and she lived above to Passa. Like in a room you can run,
you know what I mean. So she had a home, she had some
money, and she said, I'm going to keep this baby. Christian was
like, I'm I'm not really ready for all this. So basically she said
I will raise the baby on my own. But he did end up being
a part of the child's life. But the main focus of the little girl,
her name was Anna, was Marianne. That was her primary parent.
Now, on November fourteenth, nineteen seventy two, that's the day that Anna
was born, Marianne got sterilized. She's like, no more kids, I'm
gone. Yeah, I'm good, and she, as I said, was
raising Anna. She said that she liked living above the where she worked because
I mean, obviously, as Anna got a little older, she could just
go and check on her, so it saved her money with childcare and the
stuff. And as Anna got older, Anna would come to the bar and
hang out with her mom. Her mom's working, you know. Yeah,
And by the time Anna was seven, Marianne how it worked was she would
work very late. I mean, you just got to close the bar.
Oh yeah, so she's getting upstairs like I don't know, three whatever,
whatever time. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what closing time
is in Germany. I don't even know if it closes in Germany. Sure
it's late, it's late. They were. It was described in multiple articles
as being very late into the night into the early morning. So when Anna
was seven, she would often be left alone during the day because Marianne was
sleeping. You know, she gotta she's gotta sleep, right. Often Anna
would just go outside and play with the neighborhood children unsupervised, and Marianne knew
it was an unconventional lifestyle that she had, you know, living above a
bar. Her daughter's alive, on her own, but then her daughter's very
close. If there's a problem or you know, Anna just got to go
right downstairs. And there was a point when it got really hard for Marianne
and she did reach out to a friend about maybe her friend fostering Anna because
she felt like she couldn't give her the supervision that she needed as Anna was
getting older, and Anna was expected to have a lot more responsibility than your
normal seven year old just because yeah, she's home alone. She's home alone,
yeah, right, As I said, she frequently would sleep at the
bar, and after work, Marianne would sometimes stay and like party. You
know how, anybody that's ever worked at a bar, you probably never have.
No, I never have. Well, I have after work drink with
your coworkers. And Marianne went stay and you know, party few, have
a few, have a few, and party, you know, till early
hours. And Anna was described as a vibrant child who had never really had
the normal childhood, but she was happy and open minded and pretty carefree.
She didn't complain. Now. On May eighth of nineteen eighty, Anna had
had an argument with Marianne. It was I think it was actually the night
before May fifth, and The next morning, Marianne was sleeping and Anna always
got herself up and walked to school. This morning, Anna was really mad
at her mom and decided to skip school. What was she like ten?
She's seven? Oh seven? Okay, she's seven. Okay. She went
to a friend's house, but her friend was at school school. Instead of
walking her normal route home, she took the long way because there were witnesses
later that testified that she did. Meanwhile, marian wakes up and she had
this appointment was actually an appointment for a photo shoot. She's very beautiful.
I don't know what the photoshoot was for, but she had an appointment with
a photo shoot. And then she came home. But she'd met with some
friends after the photo shoot. And then she came home, and this was
after Anna should already be home from school. From school, she gets home,
there's no Anna. She went to all of Anna's friends' houses and none
of them had seen her during the day. She ended up like going to
neighbors' houses. Nobody saw her, so she calls the police. She reports
Anna as being missing. Now some reports say on the same day, others
say the next day, but either way, a woman walked into the police
station, claiming her fiance confessed to the abduction and the murder of Anna.
Oh no, and his name was Klaus Rabowski. Klaus, he's thirty five
years old. He was a butcher. Oh great, and he was neighbors
with Marianna Nanna, and he had a horrible criminal history. I'm gonna tell
you a little bit about Klaus Klaus. Yes, thank you. I have
Grabowski, but we'll call him Klaus. Nineteen seventy three, Klaus was placed
on a one year probation after trying to strangle a six year old girl.
Oh lovely, probation one year. How many cases do we have like this?
So many kids, so many cases, Yeah, so many try to
murder. He tried to murder a little girl. He got community service.
Yeah, he got community service, exactly right, Like, okay. He
had multiple offenses on his record for sexual assault against young girls. I mean,
he's a convicted sex offender and he'd been sentenced for these sexual abuse of
two girls. So this is really interesting. He was given a choice.
He could go to a psychiatric hospital where he could stay there until he was
cured. Yeah okay, yeah, whatever indefinitely, or he could become chemically
castrated. Oh well, let me guess which one he picked. He picked
castration, of course, but it's not physical castration, chemicals, chemical.
He's got to be relied upon to take his medication. I guess well,
I'm going to read about it. Yeah, in nineteen seventy six, he
voluntarily submitted to being chemically castrated. But two years later because he got out.
Yeah, of course, and nobody's really watching him, believe it or
not. He underwent hormone treatment to reverse the castration, and I know that
includes testosterone, and the doctor that did the reversal never knew about his criminal
history. Let me tell you a little bit about chemical castration. Okay,
I don't know anything about it. It is the introduction of female hormones into
the male's system in an effort to lower the testosterone levels of male sex offenders.
The drug it's known as MPa and I'm not gonna say I even try
to pronounce it, is often used and known as depo privera. Oh that's
a birth control, yeah, the one the yes. Studies have shown that
twenty five percent of the men who've been chemical castrated are still able to achieve
an erection with even just visual stimulation. Chemical castration has some negative side effects
asiporosis, cardiovascular disease, and impaired glucose in lipid metabolism aka hearts easy blood
sugar and cholesterol problems. Man, really are those I don't know anything about
dapperprop But other than the name of it, does it cause it for women
too? That's kind of crazy? Well probably, I don't know. I
don't know. You're look at m I don't know that. Yeah, those
are crazy side effects. So he had testosterone injections given to him. Now,
as I said earlier, he was engaged and his fiance came into the
police with the story. Imagine your fiance be like, well, you know
what, I abducted and killed the little girl. Hey, honey, I
gotta get something, Ja, I got it. I gotta tell you something.
So they arrested Laus and he confessed. He stated, and you're just
you're gonna hate this guy so much. I'm sure, Well, I already
do. He stated that Anna had stopped by his house and she often did
to play with his cats. Okay, but this was the first time his
fiance wasn't there and he was alone with Anna. Oh Anna played with the
cats for a few minutes and then house attacked her. But he stated he
didn't intend to sexually abuse Anna. Sure, okay, sure, you want
to know what he said? What he said that she tried to seduce him.
I was just gonna say she wanted it right, seven years old and
when he didn't fall for her seduction. Okay, she said that she would
tell her mom that he'd touched her inappropriately if he didn't give her money.
Oh so now she's blackmailing him, she's extraor blackmailing. Yeah, okay.
He was so afraid he would end up going back to prison that he had
no choice. But he had no choice to kill her. He had no
choice, would sexually assault her and then kill her? Right? Yeah?
Yeah, okay yeah. He would later claim that he acted out because of
his hormonal imbalance. This is what he stated in court after being castrated.
According to reports and his own confession, he kept Anna for several hours.
Oh man, he never admitted to sexually assaulting her. But but I'm gonna
say he did because he's had a file. Yes, we're gonna say he
did. He then strangled her with a pair of his fiance's tights, Her
panios and then he tied her tight packed her into a cardboard box, and
then threw her on a canal bank in a little bit of a shallow grave.
When Marianne found out, oh yeah, she was broken, I mean
she broke down. She refused to go to the morgue to identify Anna,
and she wouldn't leave her house for days at a time. She blamed herself,
thinking if I just hadn't gotten into a fight with Anna, she would
have went to school as usual and none of this would have happened. It
took ten months after Anna's death for Klaus, his child, to begin his
defense again. Was this hormonal imbalance because of this castration and also because of
the reversal of it. At trial, he testified to Anna's last few minutes
alive. He said she was on a chair, she was struggling, she
was fighting for her survival. He watched her take her last breath, and
then he stared at her for a few minutes before putting her in the cardboard
box and dumping her at the canal. Marian was beside herself, oh,
devastated with anger and grief. On March sixth, nineteen eighty one, this
is the third day of his trial. Marian had sat through the first two
but she wasn't just going to sit through day three. She couldn't take any
more of her daughter being accused of seducing him and all all these horrific things,
blaming Anna, blaming everybody but himself. She walked into the traial and
we have pictures of it, and she was wearing a trench coat. She
smuggled a baretta pistol into the courtroom at the Blue Back District Court. While
walking in the courtroom, she had her hands in her trench coat pockets.
She walked into the courtroom and she goes from the doors directly to the front
of the courtroom, towards the seat where Klaus was sitting. Marianne pulled out
a gun, aimed it at his back, and pulled the trigger eight times,
what yelling pig, oh damn as she shot him, did all eight
seven seven? Hit them? Good for her? Sorry? He died instantly.
Fuck her. When she was done shooting him, she lured the gun
and was like, you know the resistance from her, Maryann stated, he
this is quote, he killed my daughter. I wanted to shoot him in
the face, but I shot him in the back. I hope he's dead.
Then, according to Marianne, she had initially gotten the gun a week
prior with the intention of committing suicide. So she's starting to build her defense
because she's arrested. She's arrested, but other people at the bar would later
testify that in the basement she was doing target practice, oh, which is
not what you do when you're when you want to kill yourself. No.
No, many of the public showed an understanding like you just apparently did,
of Marianne's actions, and she became known as the vigil Anti mother in West
Germany because it's still West Germany now. A lot of people judged her because
she sold her life story for about two hundred and fifty thousand dutchmarks, which
is about two hundred and seventy one seventy two thousand dollars in the US and
right now would be worth nine hundred and twenty two thousands, so a lot
of money back then. But she sold it to her story to this magazine
called Stern, and she use all that money to fund her legal battles because
she's there only you know, it's many people sent her messages, flowers,
gifts while she was in custody to show they understood her actions, and a
lot of people, like I said, they supported her. After her life
story was made public in Stern, some people stopped supporting her because they were
upset because she gave up two kids for adoption, which is no reason,
no for anybody to be judged because option was beautiful. And they also didn't,
you know, like the fact that her dad was a Nazi soldier.
Well, she can't help that. I mean really just telling you, I
know, she couldn't help that. So there was this division in Germany.
But either way, Marion was just crushed and heartbroken. The West German judiciary
was criticized by allowed like allowing Klaus to be chemically castrated, but not checking
on him because it's chemical, it's going to go away. I mean at
some point, yeah, he should have been like on like parole or something
where he had to check in, right, yeah and yeah, yeah,
or probation or something. So Marian goes to trial November second, nineteen eighty
two. She was initially charged with murder. The Presscutters later dismissed that in
charge of with the man's slaughter okay, not premeditated murder, probably like heat
of passion man slaughter right even though she brought it, even though she bought
a gun the weak earlier and brought it or Marianne's defense attorneys argued that she
was under severe emotional distress, which was probably true, and wasn't responsible for
actions. For the defense team argued that she had a troubled life and was
unstable. But they, I mean, I'd be fucking unstable too. They
if my neighbor like kidnapped and murdered my child. I mean, but I
mean they had a hard time because she went out and made that statement,
I shot I wanted to shoot him in the face. Oh yeah, that's
right, she did say that, right. Instead I shot him in the
back. He's dead. Yeah. Maryanne testified at her trial that she shot
Klaus and she had had a dream and also visions of her daughter in the
courtroom right before as she's entering it. She had a dream the night before
and that her daughter wanted her to do this, and so for some reason
they wanted a handwriting sample from her, and I could not find out no
matter what I did, why. But she wrote, I did it for
you, Anna, and wrote and made seven hearts for each year of Anna's
life. She doodled some hearts. Prosecutors contended that Marianne acted out of revenge
and was in total command of you know, her faculties at the time.
It took twenty eight days of deliberation. Wow, twenty eight days. Damn
right, Yeah, that's how cool. That's her. They agreed to convict
her of me onslaughter. And what do you think she got? Sense?
I hope she got probation. No, she got six years. Six years
okay, yeah, she was out after three Okay, she's put on probation.
So they did a study in Germany about people's feelings about Marianne. Oh,
I can't wait to hear this. Yeah, it's Allen's Bach Institute did
a survey. Twenty percent of Germans deemed Marion's sentenced to be appropriate, twenty
seven percent thought that the sentence was too extreme, and twenty five percent thought
the sentence was too light. Huh there is a polarizing yes, right,
it's a polarizing issue. Hmm do you how do you feel? Was it
too light? Was it too heavy? Was it just right? Like the
porrige that goldils I think six years it's good. I mean, you got
to have some control, but I don't. It's hard for me to say
because if it happened to me, I know I would do the same thing.
Yeah, you know, I would do the same day. I want
to do the same thing for sure. Being a lawyer being objective seems a
little light. I mean she did, Yeah, she did walk in and
it's premanitated. I mean, yeah, totally, it's premeditated. And she
was out in three years. Yeah. You can't just have people in the
courtroom shoot people. And that's good because we're in the courtroom a lot.
And think about how it affects other people around to see somebody getting shot.
Like, I'd be all, shavee the fucked up, Tanya. Yeah,
I'll shake the fucked up. Yeah, they'd be pretty traumatic. You're right,
but I kind of. But that's why they have metal detective. I
think it was too hard. She didn't have a criminal record, she just
walked in it. Okay, we'll talk about this later, okay, Okay.
I do sympathize with her. So Marianne ended up moving abroad in nineteen
eighty five. She even moved to Lagos, Nigeria, and she got married
and then she they lived in they lived in a German camp, and her
husband was a teacher of I think English at the German school. The two
duck got divorced in nineteen ninety and Marianne moved to Sicily. She found employment
as a hospice. Oh that's merrow. It's going to be a hard job.
That's a hard job. That's hard to give credit to anybody that works
in hospice. I mean. So she's in Sicily and she gets diagnosed with
a creative cancer. Oh, oh, that's a bad one. Yeah.
She moved back to Germany and in nineteen eighty she gave an ninety four sorry,
in nineteen ninety four, thank you, you're welcome correcting me. In
nineteen ninety four, she gave an interview to a German radio program. This
was thirteen years after she'd already she shot and killed Claus. She stay to
quote, I think it's a very big difference if I kill a little girl
because I'm afraid that I'll have to go to prison for my life and then
also the how so that is why I stand behind the girl. I'm sorry,
that is why I stand behind basically my daughter. And she was trying
to explain, I guess what I'm trying to explain. Is that She's like,
there's a little there's a difference between what he did, right, And
I understand that. I understand that, but I think you have to treat
all crimes kind of like like in Christianity, where you have a sin,
like there's no level of sins. A sin is a sin, so a
crime is a crime. I mean you kind of have to treat it that
way. And I get what she's saying, because yeah, it is.
It is different when you're killing a seven year old innocent girl as opposed to
killing her killer. And then she mentioned a statement that Klaus had made,
which is really upsetting. He said, quote, I heard something come out
of her nose. He's talking about Anna. I was fixated that I could
not stand the sight of her body any longer. Yeah, I mean that
would piss me right off. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean he kind
of deserved it, so yeah. She also released an autobiography around the same
time. She appeared on a talk show I can't pronounce it. She admitted
what she did, and I think was just trying to explain herself to everybody,
and that she couldn't stand the lies about what he was saying about her
little girl Anna. She I ended up having this one show follow her around
during her dying days, and so there's a whole video about it, and
she she literally went on like a tour, Oh wow, to talk about
Vigiliana. Vigiliane, justye Vigilian and rusty Vigiliana, help me out, Vigilant,
thank you. And you can see her face getting thinner and thinner.
She's she's dying, and on September seventh, nineteen seven, nineteen ninety six,
marian died at the age of forty six. Before her death, she
asked an NDR reporter, Lucas Boumar to follow her around, like I said,
And what's really interesting is she got reunited with one of her adopted daughters,
her name was Natasha, and they videotape that Marianna is buried next to
Anna the cemetery. And there's so much information on this case. There's so
many documentaries. One's called Anna's Mother, No Time for Tears, Vigilante,
Justice of a Mother, The Case of Marion Bachmer, the Slow Death of
Marianne Bachmer. These are all like when women kill Marion Backner, you can
Bachmeyer, It's okay. We did talk about this case. We did,
Yeah, we had. We had a Patreon episode where I kind of casually
mentioned it, like we were just bullshitting, Like we did a Patreon episode
where you and I just kind of were talking off the coffin. I had
to kind of seen this story. I didn't get interested in it, Yeah,
like I didn't. I didn't go into it in depth and everything.
But some of her Patrion members may remember listening to that, So I'm glad
you did an episode about it. I don't know what's going on with Klaus.
I think he's probably dead. I hope. So he's out there.
I hate him, I know, causing problems. And no, he's dead.
She killed him. Oh, she killed him, girl, he got
murdered. Why did I go along with it? I'm like, wait a
minute, Oh my gosh. Yeah, everyone is dead. That's the mooring
of the story. What's wrong with you? You can tell he started going
to autopilot right, I'm so sorry? Oh my god, that's that's hilarious.
Sorry, he's dead. We do know what happened to him. I
don't know what happened to me. It's just a buzz. Help me with
it. I did it just took me a second. That was a big
fuck up. I'm like, yeah, I hope he I hope he's you
know, wait a minute, it's not a funny story. No, it's
not. You could tell we've had a long day. I had a brain
fart there, right, Wow. Yeah, sometimes they're just going on that
long COVID you suffered really affected you brain fuck? Oh anyway, anyway,
Well, I'm sorry that she developed cancer so young, and I'm sorry that
she had to go through this, but I'm not sorry that Klaus, that
she blew them away. I mean I kind of I'm kind of here for
it, so I mean, right, I have no comments. He deserved
it, but knows how I feel. Yeah, he deserved it. I'll
say it when you don't want to. Even though, like I said,
there's really no a crime as a crime, and if I was a prosecutor,
I would have prosecuted her. But I get where she's coming from.
Yes, but doesn't make it right.
No, it doesn't make it right anyway. That's why we have rules and
laws in this country, right, I can't have this happen and in Germany
because she didn't do it here she did in Germany. But hopefully our production
team can edit that that. I think they need to leave it in.
I edit it out anyway. This is a very sad story. When we
laugh and stuff, it's not because we think true crime is funny. It's
because we think stupid things like we do and other things that are stupid that
people do are funny. But it is very sad what happen sometimes when it's
a really heavy story. I mean, it's just to lead to alleviate some
of the uncomfortableness, right, And nobody wants to see his crying. No,
I really, would you really want to listen to a podcast or watch
us and we're just somber and everything. No, there's so many out there
if you want to do that. I'm sure there's one out there. So
anyways, y'all welcome. I want to thank you guys all for take the
time to listen to our story. We have that Patreon dot com with the
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Consequence. They should be watching it right now. Yeah, if you're
watching, you're going to say, yeah, and I think is that it.
We have website Crimes and Consequences dot com. Oh yeah, that's there's
merch. It is. We are way behind and updating that website with our
episodes, my list, but there's merchant. There is things that you if
you if you love us that much, and it does always show the latest
episode because it's automatic, Yeah, it does. You can listen to the
latest one. And there's some there's some episodes that are we can get only
on the web. There's about eight. Catherine Knight is one of them.
Yeah, yeah, because I've had people ask me, yeah, she's there,
Yeah, she's there. So anyway, it's a bad one. Well,
Teleia, until our next episode, don't kill each other. Bye bye.