Alexandra's parents are learning the disturbing facts surrounding their daughter's final hours. (Photo: dpa)
Posted on 01/06/2002 5:16:43 AM PST by csvset
Thomas B. Tells Daunting Story of Little Alexandra's Murder
Alexandra's parents are learning the disturbing facts surrounding their daughter's final hours. (Photo: dpa)
By Alfred Behr
STUTTGART. Last January, when police in Echterdingen near Stuttgart arrested a Peeping Tom prowling around an indoor swimming pool, they soon discovered that this man was a lot more than just a voyeur.
They had arrested the murderer of a young child.
During questioning, the suspect confessed to having abducted, sexually abused and murdered six-year-old Alexandra Noack of Filderstadt-Bonlanden and to having buried the child's body in Leinfelden woodland cemetery in October 2000.
The trial of the 37-year-old Thomas B. of Filderstadt-Plattenhardt, which began on Tuesday in a Stuttgart regional court, has drawn the attention of politicians, too. Ulrich Goll, the minister of justice in the state of Baden-Württemberg, has called for tougher sentencing for sex offenders and said Alexandra's murder proves that exhibitionists and voyeurs are not as harmless as they are often made out to be.
Since statistics indicate that these people are likely to become repeat offenders, it is vital that exhibitionists be included in Germany's central DNA database, he said. Mr. Goll also called for especially grave cases of sexual harassment to be treated as criminal offenses requiring the installation of cameras to monitor toilets and changing rooms -- something that has so far been rejected on the grounds that it would constitute a breach of privacy.
When neighbors and colleagues talk about Thomas B., it sounds like many other descriptions of sex offenders: Thomas B., a certified refrigeration technician, was a friendly and helpful man and people would have never imagined what he was doing in his spare time.
The defendant himself told the court in some detail of how as a child, he often "played doctor" with girls. His mother was depressive and had never had time to cuddle him, he said, so he cuddled up to girls instead.
Only once had he ever seen "mommy" in the nude -- and that only through a crack in the door. He said he discovered his sexuality at the age of 13 in the cubicle of a swimming pool in Stuttgart and told the court, "It came as a big shock to me." At the age of 12, he had his first girlfriend, a girl two years younger who liked to sit on his lap. "I found that exciting, but didn't dare say so. I was too inhibited."
Instead, he spied on her from the hall and masturbated. This then became his primary occupation, assuming what he told the court is true. And as incredible, and daunting, as it may sound, the story does not lack credibility.
Thomas B. admitted to becoming a voyeur at the age of 12 or 13. This was when he took to walking the streets at night in search of places where he could watch girls getting undressed.
When he was 20, he met a 10-year-old called Sandra who "was and still is my dream woman," Thomas B. told the court. The first time he kissed her was when she was 11, and by the time she was 14, she had allowed a certain amount of caressing, too. After that, though, they drifted apart.
The first to seduce him was a woman he had met in a restaurant in Karlsruhe. The judge wanted to know whether Thomas B. enjoyed the experience. "It wasn't very nice," the defendant said. "After all, I hardly knew her." He had other girlfriends, he said, but there had always been problems, causing him to go out on the streets at night to spy on people in their rooms.
When Thomas B. did that, he put on a wig and "a horrible green jacket," so that "I was someone completely different." Thomas B. also told the court that "I dissociated myself from what I was doing, but still couldn't stop doing it. I just had to do it."
He also downloaded pornographic pictures of children from the Internet and left them on sidewalks, in changing rooms and on window ledges so children would find them, then watching to see how girls would react. He also secretly filmed them with a video camera.
"I found that sexually stimulating. It was a real turn-on," he said.
In early October 2000, he decided to take some time off work. It was his second day off, Oct. 5, 2000, Alexandra's last day alive. That morning, Thomas B. hid in the bushes to "watch the girls" at Uhlberg-Bonlanden grade school. Shortly after school, he saw Alexandra set off for her day care center. It was the first time she went there without one of her parents.
The man leapt onto her and pulled her into the bushes.
Alexandra screamed, and Thomas B. ordered her to lie down and keep still. He then fetched his car from the teachers' parking lot, wrapped the child in a blanket and drove her to his attic apartment. He lay the child down on the sofa and went downstairs again to park his car properly. Alexandra was crying and wanted to go home. Her pants had gotten muddy during the struggle in the bushes. Thomas B. washed them for her.
"What will your mommy say!" he said, and then: "Let me clean you up first." He then hung up the washing to dry, and they both had a shower. The man then said to the girl: "Now I'm going to play the doctor who has to examine you," to which Alexandra naively responded "but I'm not sick." This is what the accused told the court, apparently omitting none of the disturbing details.
Alexandra did not enjoy their game, he said. "She lay there all tensed up and terrified. That's why I couldn't get an erection." He then let her watch television and play all kinds of games with her before trying once again to play the part of the doctor.
"I once read in a sex education book that even three-year-olds can climax," he said. That was why he tried stroking her "but she didn't get excited." He also laid on top of her, but she said: "You're hurting me!" That, Thomas B. said, disappointed him because he had so much wanted to cuddle with her. It then occurred to him that if Alexandra was asleep, she wouldn't notice anything.
So Thomas B. drove to a pharmacy in Echterdingen and bought some over-the-counter sleeping pills. He then cooked some spaghetti and crushed four of the pills into the tomato sauce. After the meal, Alexandra indeed fell asleep.
Thomas B. then called his mother. He said he later thought to himself: "If only mommy knew what I've done." He also thought of his boss and wondered whether he was perhaps giving the firm a bad name and putting his colleagues' jobs on the line.
He decided that there was only one way out: "I have to kill her." He pressed a pillow onto the girl's face ("for 10 or perhaps 15 seconds") and then undressed Alexandra. The public prosecutor described what happened next as follows: "He tried to penetrate her, but did not succeed."
When the perpetrator realized the child was dead, he went out onto the streets again in his hometown of Plattenhardt. He put the body into a plastic sack, cut up Alexandra's clothes and scattered them in the forest. He decided to bury the body in a cemetery and chose the woodland cemetery in Leinfelden, thinking: "She would like it there." At around 10 p.m. on Oct. 12, he dug a grave there, about three feet deep.
When asked by the court why so deep, Thomas B. responded: "I thought perhaps the grave site belonged to some old lady who would have been frightened to death if she had decided to plant a tree and suddenly found a hand sticking out."
. . .missed the beginning of this article until I came back to reference this story. . .wondering why 'all the gruesome and personal details' of a case as well as a detailed and grahic persona history of this sicko. . .must be published in news articles. . .save to say, this man is reprehensible. . .but just not responsible.
Liberals writing news, setting agenda's, et al . . .ad nauseum.
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