“Little Lea was born in 2021. She is a twin and has been in her mother’s way from the very beginning. Did these parents murder out of hatred and cruelty? Did they want to silence their own child?”
“If a father reports his daughter to the youth welfare office, I naturally assume that alarm bells will ring.”
“Dehumanization is also a basis for being able to act so cruelly in the first place.”
“With the exception of Lea’s name, we have omitted or changed all names in this film to protect the family and relatives as much as possible. And if the subject of violence against children upsets you too much, please do not watch any further, at least not alone.”
“Lea and, let’s call her Mia, are twins. Even during the pregnancy, their mother said that Lea would take up space in Mia’s womb. And even after their birth, the two girls were treated completely differently. While Mia and her older brother were fully accepted by their parents, Lea was repeatedly tormented and abused. Different rules applied to Lea than to the rest of the family. If she hadn’t finished her food, she wasn’t allowed to eat with the others and had to sleep in the bathtub. Whenever she did something wrong, her parents cut a piece off her favorite stuffed animal. Even on the twins’ third birthday, the mother wanted only one of the girls to be celebrated. Lea didn’t deserve to be celebrated, she said. All of this can be read in the court ruling on the case. And when I started looking at the ruling and the files, I kept asking myself: Is it really possible that no one in their circle of friends or family noticed anything about the brutal abuse?”
“However, it seems that Lea’s grandfather became suspicious and found his own daughter’s parenting methods so inappropriate that he reported her to the youth welfare office on suspicion of child endangerment. The city of Dinslaken reacted immediately. We received a tip from the family concerning the situation. The youth welfare office was on site within two days and assessed the situation in the house. They also reviewed all the investigation records, possibly to investigate indications that the children were not being properly cared for.”
“And there was nothing unusual about it. In Germany, these examination booklets document the physical and mental development of children up to the age of six. At that time, there were no visible signs of abuse in Lea’s case. Therefore, the youth welfare office is not pursuing the case further, even though the staff did not find any of the three children when they visited the apartment.”
“A mistake? We have an appointment with Michael Kutz. Kutz is the state chairman of the German Child Protection Association in North Rhine-Westphalia and has been advocating for children’s rights for over 20 years. Lea’s mother was eventually reported by her own father on suspicion of child endangerment.”
“Does this already suggest that there was actually some truth to it? Because I imagine that you don’t just report your own family member, your own daughter, to the youth welfare office.”
“If a father reports his daughter to the youth welfare office, then I naturally assume that alarm bells will ring there as well.”
“I find it hard to understand how this case could not be pursued further, even though the staff had not even seen the children.”
“It is quite possible that the employees of the youth welfare office, for example, obtained information from the daycare center or the school and said: ‘Okay, so far everything is fine’.”
“What’s wrong with scheduling another appointment or following up if you didn’t see the children the first time?”
“If I, as a social worker, have a bad feeling, then of course I have to take a closer look, then I have to examine the children myself and simply see what’s going on. Yes, but there are so many uncertainties, and you simply have to see what you can do well in such situations.”
“Is it possible that mistakes happen because the youth welfare offices have too few staff or because of a lack of money?”
“We are complaining about overburdened youth welfare offices and overburdened youth services, including those run by independent organizations. That’s definitely the case. I don’t believe that a youth welfare office employee would make a decision lightly and say, ‘Oh well, come on, nothing will happen.’ I can’t imagine that. So I do believe that we need to have a great deal of trust, a fundamental trust, in the work of the staff there. Nevertheless, such circumstances can certainly lead to misjudgments.”
“The city of Dinslaken informed us in writing: For Lea, the decision of the youth welfare office not to pursue the case further is fatal.”
“The parents repeatedly tie and gag their daughter in a chair in the bedroom, supposedly to make feeding her easier. The father usually does the forced feeding, but the mother also participates. We know all this so precisely because the two parents discuss it extensively in a chat. It’s clear that the parents show absolutely no love or compassion for one of their children, while treating their other two children completely normally.”
“How can this be? We want to know from Lydia Benike. She is a criminal psychologist and author. Lydia, how is it possible to raise and treat two of your children completely normally, while abusing and torturing Lea so severely?”
“The overall picture of this family dynamic shows that even before Steffi and Stefan had children, their relationship was far from harmonious; there were apparently frequent arguments from early on, and Steffi expressed that Stefan was very dependent and that she was very unhappy with the relationship. This is important to understand the whole story. Clearly, there was already dissatisfaction in this relationship between the two before they became parents. And there were also several breakups, always initiated by Steffi. And apparently, Stefan repeatedly tried to rekindle and save the relationship. Ultimately, they decided to marry and have a child, but then Steffi became pregnant again, and now the first clear signs of problems appeared, because during the pregnancy, Steffi told others that she had the impression one child was taking up space from the other.”
“And it has been proven that she already developed a negative attitude towards one of the two children back then. And this negative attitude obviously continued directly after the birth. Steffi then said directly that she saw Lea as the more dominant and manipulative of the two twins and quoted her as saying: ‘That’s why she needs a firm hand.’ And that was right after the birth.”
“During the trial, it emerged that the mother herself was a kindergarten teacher. However, she apparently didn’t send her daughter Lea to daycare. Eventually, the parents deleted their entire chat history and then jointly wrote a kind of confession message. What do you say to that?”
“The ruling also addresses the question of which of the two individuals likely had what role in writing this message, and that the content of the message was assessed as originating somewhat more strongly from Steffi. I find this plausible, as the overall picture of this lengthy message makes it very clear that someone is writing deliberately, for example, regarding the overall situation, in order to create the impression that everything was done with good intentions. For instance, things are written about how they tried to somehow mix vitamins into her food because vitamins are important for a child.”
“You can tell that someone has rationally considered how to present the overall situation in a less hostile light, almost as if the whole thing were well-intentioned. I also had the impression that Steffi’s professional knowledge, namely about childcare, what to pay attention to and when something could endanger a child, was clearly incorporated into passages of this text.”
“Why do you think these parents kept the child despite all their problems?”
“This is a crucial question in this case, as Steffi, due to her training as a childcare worker and her professional experience, certainly possessed the knowledge to seek help or, in the most extreme case, even to place the child in foster care. Looking at the overall dynamics of the relationship, there were problems and dissatisfaction from the very beginning. And from the moment these twins were born, indeed even during the twin pregnancy, Lea was explicitly chosen as the child who ultimately served as the scapegoat. This means that problems Steffi had, problems that were also present in the relationship and that her partner also had, were, from the moment of Lea’s birth, projected exclusively onto Lea as the cause.”
“For example, that the two of them can’t spend enough time together as a couple, that they are supposedly stuck at home because Lea is there. Or that they simply can’t spend the evening happily and peacefully together as they wish. In the chats, it is repeatedly emphasized that the family could supposedly be super happy if Lea weren’t there.”
“Nevertheless, the parents, and Steffi in particular, decided to keep the child based on their knowledge. Therefore, a plausible explanation for me is that the existing problems were completely projected onto Lea as a scapegoat from that point on.”
“What I found truly shocking was their choice of words and how they spoke about their daughter, becoming truly insulting and derogatory. I jotted down a few examples; she’s called a shitty brat. A stupid nut, or, what I find particularly creepy, the Turkey of Panem. What does that say about these parents?”
“These insults are indeed an expression of this aggression, but also of this attitude, namely of actual hatred. This is how it was described in the verdict, and obviously both parents felt the same way. And it is logical that they no longer perceived Lea as the child that is their child, as a child in need of protection, but rather dehumanized her. And these terms are an expression of dehumanization. And dehumanization, in turn, is also a basis for being able to act so cruelly in the first place.”
“One day, Lea’s parents decided to lock her in the basement of their rented apartment. The little girl’s health deteriorated rapidly. Force-feeding made it difficult for her to breathe. Nevertheless, Lea’s parents continued to force her to eat. They even taped her nose and mouth shut. As a result, more and more food entered the little girl’s lungs until she finally suffocated in the basement.”
“The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the three-year-old girl was locked in the basement storage unit of the shared apartment for six days. She is said to have been bound with tape and gagged at times. She is said to have suffered repeated suffocation attacks during this period.”
“One of these choking episodes is said to have ultimately led to his death. The father took his dead daughter to the Rhine-Herne Canal near Oberhausen. He weighed down her body with his wife’s dumbbells and sank it in the water. A few hours later, the father went to the police. He claimed that Lea’s death was an accident. He said he and his wife had previously agreed to this.”
“The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the actual acts of the crime were carried out by the girl’s father, but that the crime was planned jointly by both parents and that the father was also encouraged by the mother to carry out the crime.”
“How could such cases be prevented in the future?”
“So, if the youth welfare office assesses that a child’s welfare is at risk and help is needed, and the parents say: ‘Yes, we are ready to help,’ then I have a very wide range of support options that can be offered.”
“Yes, for example, I can help support parents in strengthening their parenting skills. Perhaps I’ll start working with the children themselves, yes? By including the systems the children are in, like kindergarten and school, so that they simply receive significantly more attention.”
“What can we learn from this case?”
“Basically, it’s important to reflect on this case for yourself, and you’ve certainly already done that at the youth welfare office.”
“Take another very close look, take another look. The state child protection law also includes the obligation to re-examine cases, yes, with so-called case workshops. You have to keep looking closely, reflecting carefully, and then you can learn a lot from such cases.”
“Would you say that in this particular case there was a point where Lea could have been better protected?”
“I think it’s important to always learn from such cases, to look at them very closely afterwards and see where we could have changed things, where we might have had to make a different decision.”
“Yes, it’s true that social workers who work with such families don’t make their decisions lightly. Yes, there are good reasons for making that decision. But there are also good reasons why one could decide differently. You always have to consider the big picture, and that makes it very, very difficult.”
“The parents constantly discussed via WhatsApp what they would do to their daughter. They deleted this chat history, but the police were able to recover it. This allowed the court to clearly prove the parents’ guilt. The court sentenced the perpetrators to the maximum penalty. The regional court here in Duisburg assumes that the parents acted intentionally and were fully aware of their actions at all times.”
“The exceptional gravity of the crime means that Lea’s parents will remain in prison for at least 20 years. Only then can they request a review of their sentence. I hope that the surviving children are doing well under the circumstances and that they will eventually have the strength to cope with the terrible death of their sister.”
