Courtroom Killer

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From an early age, Marianne Bachmeyer
had a complicated relationship with motherhood. She

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grew up in West Germany in the
nineteen sixties, raised by highly religious and

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conservative parents. Her father was an
alcoholic who acted as the family's unquestioned authority

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figure. He was also, by
the way, a member of the Nazi

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ss But when Marianne's mother remarried,
she found her new stepfather was not much

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better. By her mid teens,
mary Anne had been kicked out of the

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family home and forced to make her
way in the world by herself. At

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sixteen years old, mary Anne gave
birth to a child of her own and

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decided to give the baby up for
adoption. Two years later, she became

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pregnant again, but just before she
was due to give birth, a heavily

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pregnant mary Anne was sexually assaulted,
and despite the rape, she gave birth

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to a healthy baby, but she
knew that she and her current boyfriend were

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not in a good position to raise
a child once again, the baby was

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given to adoptive parents. In nineteen
seventy two, mary Anne started dating a

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new man, the manager of the
bar where she worked. At twenty two

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years old, she fell pregnant again, but this time was different. After

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experiencing the loss of two babies up
for adoption, mary Anne was determined to

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keep her third baby, and in
November of nineteen seventy two, Anna Bachmeyer

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was born. Anna's father had broken
up with mary Anne, so she raised

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her alone, working late night shifts
to make inns meet. Often, Anna

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came to the bar with mary Anne
and played or slept while her mother did

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her job. It didn't seem to
matter how long mary Anne spent at work.

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There just wasn't enough money, and
as the years went by, she

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had no choice but to spend her
days catching up on sleep, forcing Anna

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to learn how to take care of
herself. To an extent, mary Anne

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wanted to escape from the constant struggle
of her life, spending more and more

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time drinking and partying, and deep
down she knew this was no way to

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raise a child, and she began
to consider putting Anna up for adoption as

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well. As Anna got older,
she began talking back to mary Anne,

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rebelling and acting up because of her
chaotic, unstable childhood. On the fifth

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of May nineteen eighty, Maryanne and
her daughter argued for the last time after

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the argument, seven year old Anne
decided that she didn't want to go to

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school that day. Instead, she
wanted to visit a nearby house where she

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had previously been allowed to play with
the owner's pet cats. Anna Bachmeyer never

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made it home. The cat's owner
was a thirty five year old butcher by

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the name of Klaus Grabowski. Although
he'd met Anna several times before, this

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day was different. He figured out
that nobody knew where Anna was and took

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advantage of her vulnerability. Klaus kept
Anna captive in his home for the rest

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of the day to sexually assault her, and when he realized Anna had been

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gone too long, he used a
pair of his fiancee's tights to strangle her.

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Klaus disposed of Anna's small body by
packing her tightly into a box and

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dumping it in a nearby canal.
Thankfully, Klaus never even came close to

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getting away with the crime. He
had previously been arrested for sexually abusing two

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other children, and had consequently been
chemically cast created in nineteen seventy six in

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secrets, He had since used hormone
therapy to reverse the castration's effects, restoring

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his sexual performance and libido. Klaus's
fiancee, aware of his history, was

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the one to report him to the
police after finding out that Anna Blackmeyer had

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gone missing. After his arrest,
Klaus claimed that he had been forced to

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kill Anna after she threatened to financially
extort him by telling others that he had

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abused her. Keep in mind,
she's seven years old. Klaus was terrified

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of going back to prison, so
he felt that he had no other option

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but to kill the girl. Meanwhile, mary Anne Backmeyer was devastated. For

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years, she had struggled with the
thought that she was failing as a mother,

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which she was, and now she
felt that she had failed in the

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worst possible way. The last interaction
she had with her daughter was an argument,

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and she had not been able to
protect Anna from the monster that lived

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nearby. With the thoughts of Anna's
last hours in the back of her mind,

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mary Anne attended every day of Klaus
Grabowski's trial. On the third day,

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she smuggled in a semi automatic pistol
to the courtroom. She couldn't go

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back in time and save Anna's life, but in her mind, she had

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one chance to get revenge for Anna
and save other little girls from Klaus.

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Grabowski. Wearing a heavy coat,
mary Anne made her way through the security

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checkpoint without arousing suspicion from the guards. She entered the courtroom carefully, keeping

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her face emotionless and her hands in
her pockets. She walked until she stood

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behind Klaus, who was already seated
and facing away from her. Once she

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was sure she had a clear shot
at her daughter's killer, mary Anne drew

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the pistol, shooting at him seven
times. She had intended on shooting him

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eight times, but one bullet missed
and the final shot didn't go off.

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As it turned out, the number
of shots didn't matter. Kaus fell to

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the floor and died instantly, with
no time to react or shield himself.

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Because of the near instant fatality of
the wounds, it's likely that Klaus never

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knew he was shot in the first
place. Marianne put the gun away and

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surrendered to the court's security guards.
She felt that her job as a mother

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was now done. As she was
being escorted away, she glanced at Klaus

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one final time and called him a
pig. Some witnesses reported hearing mary Anne

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state that she wanted to shoot Klaus
in the face instead of the back,

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and that she hoped he had died. Immediately after Klaus's death, media coverage

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of the case exploded, and Marianne
Bachmeyer's story became Germany's most famous vigilante killer.

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She sold her full life story to
a magazine, using the money to

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cover her legal fees, and even
while Marianne was in custody awaiting her murder

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trial, she was flooded with support, with well wishers sending her gifts and

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flowers. Still, especially after the
public found out about mary Anne's two pregnancies

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as a teenager, there were people
who viewed her as a murderer like any

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other murderer, a single mother who
had given up two of her children and

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then neglected her third. It didn't
fit the image of a grieving mother that

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had initially been on the front page
of the papers. Mary Anne's original murder

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charges were dropped by the prosecution after
her defense team argued that the shooting had

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been spontaneous instead of premeditated, and
she was instead convicted of manslaughter as well

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as unlawful possession of a firearm.
She was released from prison after serving half

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of her six year sentence. After
she became a free woman, mary Anne

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went on to live a normal life. She got married, moved to Guyana

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with her new husband, and then
got divorced five years later. She worked

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in a hospice in Cecily until her
health prevented her from working, and after

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being diagnosed with cancer, she returned
home to Germany for the final time.

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Mary Anne continued to acknowledge her role
in Klaus Grabowski's death, and later she

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admitted that her defense had been wrong. The killing had been premeditated as a

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way to make sure Klaus saw the
consequences of his actions. She had also

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been influenced by Klaus's lies about seven
year old Anna trying to extort him,

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and wanted to kill Klaus to prevent
him from tainting her daughter's memory with that

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story. One of mary Anne's friends
spoke in a documentary about the case,

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sharing a memory of mary Anne's practicing
her aim with a pistol after Anna was

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killed, and this explained how a
single mother who had never held a gun

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before was somehow able to stand up
in court and, despite her nerves and

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grief, shoot a man six times. Despite admitting that she had planned this

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active vengeance, Marianne remained unremorseful for
the remainder of her life, only stating

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that she had done it for Anna. In nineteen ninety six, Marie Anne's

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terminal pancreatic cancer that she had very
little time left to live, and her

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health quickly began to decline. She
requested that a reporter accompany her to film

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and document the final weeks and days
of her life. On the seventeenth of

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September nineteen ninety six, mary Anne
died in a German hospital. She was

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only forty six years old. After
spending seven years of her life trying and

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failing to care for Anna, mary
Anne had spent the rest of it being

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known as the mother who shot and
killed her daughter's murderer. She was buried

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alongside Anna in a Lubeck cemetery with
their names engraved next to a photo of

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mary Anne and Anna smiling. That
is ten Minute Murder for today brief and

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bingeible True Crime. I'm Joe,
I'm the host, and thank you so

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much for taking the time to listen
to the episode today. If this is

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your first time listening to Ten Minute
Murder, welcome, super happy that you're

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here. Please subscribe now so that
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can hear everything that's going on with
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what we're talking about here on ten
Minute Murder. And now let's quickly get

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to an email from one of you. Joe, is there a killer or

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serial killer that there isn't a movie
or documentary about that you'd like to see

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be made? That comes from Melissa
in New York. Thanks for the email,

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Melissa, and yes, that's a
really good question. I did an

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episode about Marcus Wesson in the past. It's an extremely disturbing but also interesting

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story, and I wouldn't mind seeing
something on that case. Also coming up

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later this week, you're going to
hear about another story the episode after this

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one. It's about Jolie. It's
a young lady in Alabama that broke up

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with her boyfriend and he didn't take
it well and during a hike that she

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agreed to go with him on because
she thought he was just trying to return

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to their friend zone, he killed
her and he pushed her over a cliff

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and the story raises a lot of
questions about our legal system and how far

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it should go, to what extent
we should give leniency to someone with a

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mental defect, And that story is
coming up later this week, or if

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you're listening to this way later and
after this has been released, it's the

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one right after this one. Again, thanks to Melissa for the email.

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Very good question. And if you
have a question for me about the podcast

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about true crime or anything else that
you want to know, Joe at ten

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minute Murder dot com is my email
address. All right, that's it for

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this episode. I appreciate you listening