Monk – Germany in early summer 2006. People are eagerly awaiting the upcoming World Cup in their own country when a bloody murder shocks the residents of Munich: Millionaire heiress Charlotte Böhringer (59) is brutally murdered in the attic above his garage on Baaderstrasse with 24 rounds .
Charlotte Böhringer: A seemingly perfect case
It only takes a few days for the criminal police to find the culprit: Böhringer’s favorite nephew Benedikt Toth, who is said to have killed her out of fear of being disinherited. In 2008, Toth, who has maintained his innocence to this day, was convicted in a controversial circumstantial trial.
His defense attorney, the Munich lawyer Peter Witting, failed twice with the retrial questions of the proceedings. In the meantime he has started a third attempt (reports AZ). Now CSU member of parliament Hans Ritt is also getting involved in the case. He comes from Straubing, the city where Toth is imprisoned. AZ spoke to him.
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AZ interview with Hans Ritt: The master chimney sweep from Straubing was a CSU deputy in the state parliament from 2013 to 2018 – and has been again since 2022 as Bernd Sibler’s successor.
AZ: Mr. Ritt, opinions on the Charlotte Böhringer case have been divided for 16 years. So right at the beginning the crucial question: Do you think Benedikt Toth is guilty or not?
HIS RACE: I have met him twice and I feel he is innocent.
Why do you think that?
You know, as chairman of the prison advisory board, I held consultation hours in Straubing prison and also in the forensic clinic there. I met many convicted criminals there. Benedikt Toth does not fit into this picture.
Bence Toth: ‘He’s different from normal inmates’
How did you experience it when you met him?
Polite, courteous, open minded, but not the typical prisoner as you usually see him.
But it could also be a scam to appear trustworthy.
Possible. But I thought to myself: If I had been in prison innocently for nearly 17 years, I would have reacted differently than he did. Of course he’s broken in some way, maybe he’s given up after all this time, but in my eyes he wasn’t a guy like the people who came to my office hours. He’s different from the men I’ve seen there.
For life, despite distorted evidence
Nevertheless, Benedikt Toth became final and was sentenced to life imprisonment, taking into account the particular gravity of the offense.
What makes me wonder: He’s left-handed and the action was demonstrably done with his right hand. I am a craftsman, a chimney sweep and right-handed. Everything I do, I do with my right hand. Rumor has it that he killed his aunt, not just anyone, an absolutely stressful situation. It is impossible to change the hand of execution. This is not good. At such a moment, a righty will always strike with the right hand and a lefty with the left. Of course, when I was in school, people still tried to reverse the left-handed polarity. But I’m 60, Mr. Toth is 47 – that was no longer the norm in his day.
The point you make has also been made by lawyers, without success.
Perhaps the investigation was too bogged down from the start. Mr Toth was not the only beneficiary. There were others too. And if, according to the investigation, Ms Böhringer was still thinking about changing something in the will to the detriment of another heir on the day of her murder, then I wonder why more thought hasn’t been done to that effect. Especially since it now appears that a relative of this heir testified falsely in the 2008 trial and this relative’s alibi could therefore turn out to be void. One of the reasons Bence Toth’s attorney filed for retrial is the third!
Do you give in to legitimate doubts?
How confident are you?
I am concerned that the district court of Augsburg will decide on this for the third time, which has already rejected a reopening twice. I don’t think it’s smart, even though the judiciary is obviously independent, decisions on jurisdiction are made in advance and judges rotate. Also, as a master chimney sweep and publicly appointed sworn expert witness, I know the courts can’t keep up when they read through all these mountains of case files. You are overloaded. I have experienced this quite often as an appraiser. But in any case, I will be following very closely how all this is progressing and whether the justified doubts will finally be addressed.
Ude in the circle of supporters
You are by no means the first Bavarian politician to deal with this criminal case. In 2016, Florian Streibl of the Free Voters asked the state parliament about legal inconsistencies. The former mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, is the most prominent member of the new circle of supporters founded a few months ago. Why should you be able to do more?
Well, you know, chimney sweeps are said to bring good luck…seriously: I’ve been made aware of the case and see it as my job as an MP to deal with things where I have a feeling something is wrong or that it might be unfair. That’s why I want – just like the circle of supporters – people to look closely.
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