Thomas Handrick laments that his family “is destroyed” and says that his ex-wife first attacked him with punches and kicks
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Jan. 25 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Thomas Handrick, the man of German nationality accused of killing his wife and one of his children in a cave in Adeje in April 2019, has alleged this Tuesday, through his defense, transient mental disorder on the day of the events.
In his statement to questions from the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense — he did not want to respond to the particular accusations — he has shown his regret and has stressed that he was not aware of what happened in the mountains of the southern municipality.
“I was not aware of what happened, I just thought it was a nightmare, a horrible dream and I just wanted to wake up,” he added, stressing that his family “is destroyed” and that he was “very well” in the company of his children. “I couldn’t have imagined better children,” she pointed out through tears.
Handrick has reported that he organized an excursion through the upper area of the municipality to hide some gifts following the German tradition of the ‘Easter bunny’ on the occasion of a visit to the family island and despite his physical problems derived from a hernia operation which causes him severe pain, he chose to follow the trail –they reached up to ten kilometers– because his children “had a great time.”
In fact, to combat the pain, since he has a prosthesis, he takes a treatment of morphine combined with other drugs against depression – that day he took his medication -.
At one point along the way, he has commented that the eldest son, Jacob, 10 years old, found a cave near a pond of water and it seemed to him the ideal place to hide the gifts and later, he heard screams from Silvia, his wife, who outside the cave she had “a lot of blood on her head” and said he had hit her on the head.
He asked her for help and to call but there was no coverage and when he tried to get closer to look at the wound, she began to hit him many times until he fell to the ground, he was “kicked” and had a “ringing in his ear”.
He has also said that when he got up he was “angry and dizzy” and “in a panic” because “stones were flying” everywhere — “like the meteorites in the Star Wars movie” — and he thought he might die.
“I had no intention of hitting anyone, Jacob got in the way, he wanted to separate us and said stop, stop,” he indicated, also pointing out that the other son, Jacob, seven years old -survivor-, was not next to the cave so he went looking for it until he found it.
“HE WAS LIKE A GHOST, HALF OF HIS FACE WAS MISSING”
When he returned to the place, he found Silvia lying down and “roaring from the ground” with a face “full of light” and her eyes with a “greenish glow, she was like a ghost, half her face was missing, it was horrible”, for which returned to throw a stone.
At that moment, he has indicated, he saw Jacob at the end of the cave lying down and “he was no longer moving” and Jonas “had disappeared”.
“I don’t know how I got home, I was disoriented, dirty, full of blood,” he said, and ended up throwing the clothes into a garbage container.
What he remembers later is that local police officers knocked on his house and talked about Jonas but he was “dizzy and with blurred vision”. “He thought it was a nightmare, that he would wake up and it would all be a dream,” he added.
NO HISTORY OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
Handrick has pointed out that during the 10 years of marriage and the three years of courtship there was no episode of violence with his wife and that both were economically independent, she working in a software company as an engineer, with a salary of 2,300 euros and he as manager of the employment agencies in Saxony, with remuneration of 3,000 euros, which dropped to 2,000 euros when they gave him the incapacity for work.
In addition, they managed up to three residential buildings and had the assets distributed through marriage agreements in the event of divorce.
He has indicated that his father committed suicide when he was 16 years old and that he began with depressions from the age of 25 when he was team leader at a time of great pressure because there was a lot of unemployment in Germany – he lived in the former East Germany -.
Due to the weather and to improve his ailments, in 2017 they bought a house in Adeje and he had been alone on the island since November, six months before the events.
The magistrate of the Chamber has admitted as evidence the statement made by the surviving youngest son in 2019 – there will be no waiver – and understands that more expert evidence on the DNA of the victims’ nails is not necessary, as the defense has requested , and also, at the request of the defense, has also accepted radiological tests and marriage certificates.
THE PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE ASKS FOR 51 YEARS IN PRISON
The Prosecutor’s Office requests for Handrick 51 years in prison, reviewable permanent prison and supervised release for 20 years for two crimes of murder and reviewable permanent prison and the prohibition of approaching his other son within 500 meters for 10 years, plus another 10 years of supervised release for the crime of attempted murder.
Likewise, she requests the deprivation of parental authority with respect to her son and compensation of 500,000 euros, of which 300,000 euros will go to the minor’s legal representative and 200,000 euros to the parents of the allegedly murdered mother.
