German court sentences US man to life in prison for tourist rape-murder
- Judges also noted the ‘particular severity of guilt’, meaning he is unlikely to be released after 15 years as is customary with life sentences in Germany
- Troy Philipp B was convicted of raping and murdering two US women who were hiking near Bavaria’s Neuschwanstein area in June last year
A German court handed an American man a life sentence on Monday for raping and killing a fellow US tourist near Bavaria’s famed Neuschwanstein castle last year.
The District Court in the southern town of Kempten convicted the defendant, identified only as Troy Philipp B., 31, after he made a wide-ranging confession on the first day of his trial last month.
Troy Philipp B was convicted of raping and murdering the 21-year-old US woman as well as the attempted murder of her friend, 22, also a US citizen.
The two women were hiking in the Neuschwanstein area in June last year at the end of a European trip that had taken them to Italy and Spain.
The pair got speaking to the accused after he and the younger of the women slipped at a similar point on a mountain trail, prosecutors said.
“That’s enough adventure for today,” B is said to have remarked to the women, before offering to take them to a nearby viewing point on the way back to the castle.