Couple sentenced in Germany for torture and murder Published duration 5 October 2018

image copyright Reuters image caption Angelika Wagener and her husband blamed each other for what had happened.

A German court has sentenced a couple who tortured and killed two women they lured to their home with personal ads.

Angelika Wagener, 49, received 13 years in prison and her former husband Wilfried Wagener, 48, was sentenced to 11 years in a psychiatric ward.

The pair tortured women at their house near Höxter, in the north-western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The two women died as a result of their injuries in what was known as the "House of Horrors" case.

Victims were beaten, strangled, burned and scalded, the trial heard. Their hair was ripped out and they were subjected to electric shocks and doused with pepper spray.

image copyright Getty Images image caption The killers lived in a village near Hoexter

Who were the victims?

The case came to light when the couple tried to drive a 41-year-old woman to her home in the neighbouring state of Lower Saxony in April.

But their car broke down and as they waited for a taxi, the woman's health deteriorated.

They called an ambulance but the woman died later in hospital, where suspicions about her injuries arose and the police were alerted.

A 33-year-old woman, also from Lower Saxony, had died in August 2014 after responding to a dating advertisement in late 2013.

The couple dismembered her corpse, froze the remains and burned them, scattering the ashes, Angelika Wagener admitted in court.

Who else was abused?

One of the key witnesses described answering a personal ad saying "Farmer is looking for a wife. I am kind, nice, gentle…."

She fell in love with Wilfried Wagener, she said, but he handcuffed her and left her in a pigsty.

During the trial, the couple blamed each other , according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

In her final statement just before the verdict, Angelika Wagener apologised to her victims while Wilfried Wagener said he had not known "what was right or wrong".

Related Topics Germany