- A couple who killed a friend by stabbing him 66 times
in a Satanic ritual were jailed today in a case that has fascinated Germany
with bizarre details of devil worship and vampirism.
-
- Daniel Ruda, a 26-year-old former car parts salesman,
and his 23-year-old wife Manuela had confessed to the killing in their
apartment, surrounded by human skulls, cemetery lights, scalpels and
incense.
-
- They have shown no remorse, saying the devil ordered
them to send him a human sacrifice because he wanted a "court
jester".
-
- A judge in the western town of Bochum sentenced Daniel
to 15 years and Manuela 13 years in a psychiatric ward.
-
- The court heard how Manuela acquired a taste for
vampirism
during a visit to London, where she attended "bite parties" at
which people voluntarily had blood sucked from their veins.
-
- Throughout the case, the couple shown defiant behaviour
in court, making rude gestures, rolling their eyes maniacally and sticking
their tongues out.
-
- Manuela, a former high school student who said she
drifted
into the "Gothic" scene after the devil contacted her when she
was 14, slept in a coffin in their apartment.
-
- She met Daniel after responding to his advertisement
in a heavy metal magazine that read: "Pitch black vampire seeks
princess
of darkness who hates everything and everyone."
-
- The dead man, a 33-year-old colleague of Daniel Ruda's,
was found in the couple's apartment covered in knife wounds and with a
scalpel protruding from his stomach. A pentagram, the sign of the Devil,
had been carved into his chest.
-
- The couple spent a week on the run after the murder last
July, driving around Germany and attempting suicide several times.
-
- They were arrested after being spotted at a petrol
station
in Jena.
-
- During that week Daniel had bought a chainsaw, saying
he did not want to be empty-handed when the Devil called again.
-
- The court heard during the trial how the two had launched
themselves into a world of devil worship, inciting each other to commit
violence.
-
- Daniel said he had merely been a tool of the devil.
"If
you run someone over with a car, you don't prosecute the car," he
said at one point.
-
- © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 31 January 2002
- http://www.thisislondon.com
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