Orchestra player gets 6 1/2 years for poisoning colleagues
NewsA long-running case in north Germany ended today with a musician of the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony being jailed for six and a half years for attempting to kill his mother and two fellow-players with rat poison.
The defence said the perpetrator, 62, was feeling bullied and depressed.
Report here.
Jeez. I’m not a right-wing law-and-order type, but that seems like an awfully light sentence for crimes so viciously heinous.
He’ll be 68/69 when he gets out. What do you imagine a longer sentence would accomplish? Remember also that this was an attempt crime.
It’s less viciously heinous than actually killing them. You have to leave room for that.
Maybe his advanced age played into the sentence? Maybe they figured he was unlikely to do this again and extended incarceration was unnecessary fro a public safety view?
But he’s going to have trouble finding roommates after this.
For comparison, in Texas, the penalty for attempted murder is “2 to 20 years”, a surprisingly broad range.
So, times-3-victims, he’s getting out on the lowest end of Texas-style justice.
But, but … he felt he was bullied and depressed!
Six and a half years is a very harsh sentence in Germany.
Welcome to our world!! Better late than never. Did you not factor in victimhood, that modern catch-all excuse for leniency?
Murder is a way of life in American Orchestras.
Why do you think all those middle-age +
Second Wind Players
always seem to have such young Principals?
And why so few of them make it to Tenure?
Survival Baby!
But they can’t fire you for your thoughts…
“The Mozart Effect”.
Another tangible proof point as to why kids should listen to Bach and not to Metallica.
Parents: push play at your own risk.
Sir, I’m feeling bullied and depressed. Have you got any rat poison?
Yes, it’s over is aisle 9. Oh, but it doesn’t seem to kill rats!!!
Katarina Izmailova.
She made him to practice too much! The rest is also the mother’s fault! But seriously, I feel for the guy. There is a lot of pain and mental illness among artists. And yes, bullying and competition. Even the comments in this site often bare telltale signs of it…Folks, let’s all be more compassionate and kind, even online. You never know what you might be doing to someone else.
Relieved to hear he’s not a violist. (bullied and depressed)
Ah…rat poison…the “great equalizer”! Hey, at least he didn’t Ho Pakshoot anybody (I knew right off the bat he wasn’t an American)! BTW…whatever happened to Jung-Ho Pak?
Intriguing that the German word for poison is “Gift.”
Bullied by his mother and colleagues?
Maybe he was a really bad player, and never grew up? Zero sympathy.
20 years in prison and make him eat what he tried to feed them. Then send him off to war for awhile.
Then make him practice. Back in prison.