Lady Lawyer's Wrath

Sep 20, 2010

Probe into mother's bloodbath

People hug each other front of the Elisabethen-Krankenhaus hospital in the southern German town of Loerrach. Four people were killed and at least one person seriously injured when a woman armed with a gun opened fire in and around a hospital in the southern German town of Loerrach. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

BERLIN - GERMAN investigators said on Monday they believe a domestic row drove a woman to murder and torch her estranged husband and small son and kill a hospital employee before being shot dead by police.
Investigators suspect that the 41-year-old lawyer shot dead her husband and their five-year-old son when they were visiting her flat in Loerrach in southwest Germany late on Sunday.
The mother, who has not been named, had recently separated from her husband, and the son lived most of the time at his father's home, police said.
The woman then set the apartment, which doubled as her law practice, ablaze with the dead bodies inside, police believe. Their charred remains were later recovered from the smoking wreckage, reportedly along with empty petrol cans.
But just as emergency services arrived to put out the fire, the woman ran across the road to the Saint Elizabeth hospital, armed with a handgun, shooting two bystanders on her way and leaving them seriously injured.
Media reports said that panic broke out inside the hospital, with patients screaming for help and seeking refuge in rooms, the cellar and even on the roof.
Authorities said that the hospital employee, who according to press reports worked in the hospital's gynaecological department, died from gunshot and stab wounds to the head. They were at a loss to say whether the woman bore any particular grudge against the hospital or any of its employees. -- AFP