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4. Material evidence: Stomach Contents
The post-mortem showed that Karola's stomach was ,quite filled" with "light brown, slightly creamy liquid". The same goes for Melanie. Her stomach contained 30 nil. The examination of the stomach contents by the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt (Prof. Gerchow) revealed starch grains suggesting that both girls had eaten wheat-flour products before they died. It might have been a roll for breakfast, but it might also have been cookies accessible to them in the dining room.
As, by mistake, Melanie's stomach contents was totally used up for a toxicological examination, it could not be determined whether Melanie had drunk or eaten anything and what it had been. The forensic examination of Karola's stomach contents revealed very small quantities of caffeine and slightly larger quantities of theobromine. Gerchow concluded that she must have consumed a beverage containing cocoa. Another examination of Karola's stomach contents was carried out by the Institute for Dairy Farming in Kiel (Prof. Schlimme). In his report submitted to the Regional Court in Fulda during the first trial, Prof. Schlimme came to the following conclusion:
"It is safe to say that Karola Weimar consumed food containing milk fat and milk proteins (whey proteins and casein). Milk fat and milk proteins are the main fat and protein components in the stomach chyme. Beside the milk fat, further lipids were found which stem from a non-milk fat, based on the fatty acids analysis this probably was, among other things, a wheat pastry (e.g. wheat roll?). Although the fats and proteins were broken down to a large extent, the relatively high amount of immunoreactive, non-denatured whey protein, above all - which, as stomachphysiological findings show, passes quickly through the stomach - shows that the motor and transport function of the stomach came to a standstill soon (between 30 and 60 minutes) after the intake of food. ( ... ) The milk product which was doubtlessly consumed was - based on the relatively high amount of intact whey protein in the stomach - probably low-fat pasteurized milk."
Prof. Schlimme's report contained a cardinal statement which he explicitly confirmed in Gießen The high amount of "immunoreactive, non-denatured whey protein" would have had to pass the stomach within 30 minutes or 60 minutes at the most. The gastroenterologists Prof. Bloch (Bad Hersfeld) and Prof. Rösch (Frankfurt a. M.) heard during the retrial also confirmed this finding. This meant: Karola survived her last meal by one hour at the most!
Thus, the time schedule on which the Regional Court in Fulda had based its conviction (breakfast at around 10 am, between 10.15 and 11.30 am the children were playing outside the house and were noticed by a neighbor and two visitors of the neighbor between 10.50 and 11 am, at 11.30 am Monika Weimar returned unnoticed to the house and left again with the children which were killed at around 11.45 am in the Bengendorfer Grund) could no longer be sustained. What was this time schedule about?
Ascertaining the truth in criminal proceedings is a reconstruction of reality. The reliability of the evidence and the objective judgment of the judges determine how close the reconstruction is to reality.
The events on the morning of August 4, 1986 were partly indisputable, partly disputable concerning the chronological order. It is a fact that Monika Weimar left her home in the Ausbacher Straße with her car at around 10.50 am. It is a fact that she had made some money transfers at a savings bank and the post office nearby shortly before 11 am. It is a fact that her car was seen between shortly after 11 and 11.20 am on the car park near which, three days later, Melanie's body was found. It is also a fact that she was back in the Ausbacher Straße at around 12.15 am at the latest. The big problem was the almost 20-minute stay of Monika Weimar near the place where Melanie's body was found later. If this stay, the exact time of which is documented by a witness on his way to the dentist, is considered to be part of the actual crime (according to the public prosecutor in his indictment as well as in his summing up), the neighbor witnesses who, with increasing precision, said they had seen the children between 10.50 and 10.57 am on the gravel path in front of the house in the Ausbacher Straße and/or on the adjacent playground, must be deemed unreliable since it takes at least ten minutes to drive to the car park. But then there would have been no witnesses at all who had seen Melanie and Karola on the morning of August 4, 1986 (out of a total of eight children who were also playing outside during the period in question none had seen the two; the great-grandmother who allegedly had been shortly greeted by Melanie and Karola in the corridor later stated that she had confused this with the previous day) which would have made a conviction of Monika Weimar impossible. The Court in Fulda realized the problem; in the reasons given for the judgment it relied on a slightly unrealistic construction with regard to the chronological order and dynamics: The Court describes a mother who wants to get rid of her children but carries out two transactions at the post office and the savings bank, then drives to a car park where she tries for 20 minutes to find a suitable hiding place for the bodies of her children still alive at home, who then returns home at high speed, tells her children to get into the car, drives, again at high speed, to another car park, then suffocates and strangles her two children one after the other at around 11.40/11.45 am - to put it bluntly: brutally kills them -, leaves one body at the scene of the crime, puts the other body back into the car and drives it to the car park where half an hour earlier she had stayed for 20 minutes, throws the second body in a thicket of stinging nettles and finally returns back home at around 12.15 am to greet her husband lying on the couch.
While the chronological restriction of this construction seemed to make it unrealistic enough, the statement of the Regional Court in Fulda was even more shaken by the reports on the stomach contents: Karola and - because of the similarity of the stomach contents - probably also Melanie had to have eaten something (a wheat-containing product and a milk beverage, possible cocoa) between 30 and 60 minutes before they were killed at around 11.40/11.45 am. During most of the relevant time period - 10.40 to 11. 10 am - their mother was not at home. In addition, this time period overlaps with two points in time (10.50 and 10.57 am) at which the neighbor Mrs Nordheim as well as her brother and his girl-friend claimed to have seen the children on the gravel path in front of the house and/or on the playground. The intake of food by both children during this time span - which, according to the expert statements, must have taken place in any case (with regard to the time of their death) - is not very probable either, if they - as assumed by the Regional Court in Fulda on the basis of the first, later modified statements of Monika Weimar - had already had a similar breakfast (allegedly rolls and cocoa) before 10 am. One breakfast shortly before 10 am and then a second one at around 11 am? Did this first breakfast take place at all? And if the first breakfast did not take place, how did they get breakfast at around 11 am during the absence of their mother? Did not all this prove that the earlier statements of Monika Weimar on the chronological sequence of events in the course of the morning of August 4, 1986 could not be correct? (She herself had declared later that the children had already been dead on the morning, that she had used the events of the previous day in her original statement.) And one could even ask: Did all these events during the morning take place at all? Was it a fact or fiction?
Of course: Theoretically, even another intake of food - on their own initiative and unnoticed by Reinhard Weimar who was in the apartment - cannot be totally excluded (this was a consideration of the public prosecutor in Gießen). However, on how many unproved assumptions and improbable possibilities is it allowed to base a judgment?
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