A far-left German mayor has accused her adopted African daughter of torturing her for hours, setting her on fire and stabbing her 13 times, but police will not arrest the teenage girl.
Iris Stalzer, 57, from the Social Democratic Party almost died from knife wounds and skull fractures suffered in the October 7 attack in the town of Herdecke in western Germany, where she was elected mayor on September 28 and due to take office next month.
Her 17-year-old adoptive daughter called emergency services and said her mother had been attacked by several men outside the home, but police found the mayor-elect bleeding in her armchair and soon suspected a “family connection”.
Ms Stalzer has since told investigators that her stepdaughter tried to set her hair and clothes on fire with a flaming deodorant can, and stabbed and sliced her with two kitchen knives during an hours-long ordeal, while saying she wanted “revenge” for an unknown reason, German media outlet Bild reported.
One of the bloodied knives was found in Ms Stalzer’s 15-year-old adopted son’s backpack along with his sister’s blood-soaked clothes, while another was found in his room, and a police forensics team found large amounts of blood had been cleaned from the crime scene.
The son also told police at the scene that multiple men stabbed his mother outside her home.
But despite the evidence found and testimony from the victim, prosecutors refused to issue a warrant for the teens’ arrests, and the siblings have instead been handed over the the Youth Welfare Office.
Prosecutors also said they would pursue “dangerous bodily harm” charges against the teenage girl rather than attempted murder, and police are treating her emergency call as a “withdrawal from the act”, which under German law removes grounds to issue an arrest warrant.
Investigators have not revealed a suspected motive.
Police were called to the home weeks earlier after the daughter allegedly threatened her mother with a knife.
Header image: Left, Iris Stalzer. Right, the adopted son being taken into custody (BILD).
