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Courtroom Killer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:34
  From an early age, Marianne Bachmeyer had a complicated relationship with motherhood. She
• 0:39
  grew up in West Germany in the nineteen sixties, raised by highly religious and
• 0:44
  conservative parents. Her father was an alcoholic who acted as the family's unquestioned authority
• 0:51
  figure. He was also, by the way, a member of the Nazi
• 0:54
  ss But when Marianne's mother remarried, she found her new stepfather was not much
• 1:00
  better. By her mid teens, mary Anne had been kicked out of the
• 1:03
  family home and forced to make her way in the world by herself. At
• 1:07
  sixteen years old, mary Anne gave birth to a child of her own and
• 1:11
  decided to give the baby up for adoption. Two years later, she became
• 1:15
  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
• 1:30
  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
• 2:32
  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
• 2:42
  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
• 3:00
  school that day. Instead, she wanted to visit a nearby house where she
• 3:06
  had previously been allowed to play with the owner's pet cats. Anna Bachmeyer never
• 3:10
  made it home. The cat's owner was a thirty five year old butcher by
• 3:15
  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
• 3:36
  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
• 4:08
  his sexual performance and libido. Klaus's fiancee, aware of his history, was
• 4:14
  the one to report him to the police after finding out that Anna Blackmeyer had
• 4:17
  gone missing. After his arrest, Klaus claimed that he had been forced to
• 4:23
  kill Anna after she threatened to financially extort him by telling others that he had
• 4:28
  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
• 4:42
  years, she had struggled with the thought that she was failing as a mother,
• 4:45
  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
• 5:46
  the pistol, shooting at him seven times. She had intended on shooting him
• 5:50
  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
• 6:10
  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
• 6:54
  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
• 7:03
  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
• 7:26
  been spontaneous instead of premeditated, and she was instead convicted of manslaughter as well
• 7:31
  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
• 8:58
  terminal pancreatic cancer that she had very little time left to live, and her
• 9:03
  health quickly began to decline. She requested that a reporter accompany her to film
• 9:07
  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
• 9:18
  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
• 9:58
  bingeible True Crime. I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you so
• 10:03
  much for taking the time to listen to the episode today. If this is
• 10:05
  your first time listening to Ten Minute Murder, welcome, super happy that you're
• 10:09
  here. Please subscribe now so that you can catch up on all the back
• 10:13
  episodes and not miss any of the new ones when they come out on social
• 10:16
  media. Ten Minute Murderer is there. You can connect with me. You
• 10:18
  can hear everything that's going on with a podcast as well as see visuals about
• 10:24
  what we're talking about here on ten Minute Murder. And now let's quickly get
• 10:28
  to an email from one of you. Joe, is there a killer or
• 10:31
  serial killer that there isn't a movie or documentary about that you'd like to see
• 10:35
  be made? That comes from Melissa in New York. Thanks for the email,
• 10:41
  Melissa, and yes, that's a really good question. I did an
• 10:43
  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
• 11:03
  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.
• 11:33
  Very good question. And if you have a question for me about the podcast
• 11:35
  about true crime or anything else that you want to know, Joe at ten
• 11:39
  minute Murder dot com is my email address. All right, that's it for
• 11:43
  this episode. I appreciate you listening