WAS IT the husband or was it the dog? A Düsseldorf court has to decide whether a 44-year-old woman was strangled to death by her husband or, as he claims, smothered by the family Labrador.
The 50-year-old man’s wife was found strangled in the bathroom of their Düsseldorf flat in November 2010.
The husband, who claims to have no memory of the killing, was nevertheless convicted of manslaughter last year.
A higher court threw out the conviction, saying it had not been proven that the strangulation was intended to kill the woman, and ordered a retrial.
In the second trial, the man’s defence has produced the 34-kilo Labrador as scapegoat.
After a day of heavy drinking and a lengthy argument, the man says his wife fell over unconscious in their bathroom.
Unable to lift her up and put her to bed, he says he gave her a pillow and a blanket and left her to sleep.
“When we drank we had the rule – leave the other in peace,” the man told the court.
The next afternoon, after taking the dog for a walk and talking to his mother on the phone, the man claims he found his wife dead.
A coroner has dismissed the claim of dog smothering, saying the marks of the fatal strangulation on the woman’s throat could not have been caused in this way. The coroner told the court that “even if the dog sat on the woman as described, it would never have reached her neck”.
A dog expert dismissed in testimony the claims of the defence that Labradors are known for smothering other dogs.
An expert on Labradors said the dogs accidentally smothered their young occasionally, but they never smothered people.
The case continues.