The magistrate judge of the Court of Violence against Women number 1 of Arona, Sofía Román Llamosí, has issued an order to open a trial for two crimes of murder and one of attempted murder against Thomas Handrick, the German resident of Adeje who is accused of killing his wife and one of his sons, aged 10, and hiding their bodies in a cave, before trying to kill his second son, who was only seven at the time.
The judicial authority has imposed a bail of 910,000 euros on the defendant to ensure the civil liabilities that they may incur, and have seized three houses in the city of Halle (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany). Handrick is currently in unconditional pre-trial detention.
The issuance of the order to open an oral trial, against which there is no recourse other than that referring to his personal situation (that is, whether he is still in preventive detention or not), implies that the accused will inevitably sit in the dock of the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to answer for the triple crime. The judicial resolution thus responds to the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, which, as it transpired last December, has requested a reviewable permanent prison for the accused.
Handrick with his wife and son that he murdered
The investigating judge understands that the investigation carried out in these years shows that the prosecution of the following facts are appropriate:
- In 2019, Thomas Handrick, then 44 years old, had a marital relationship with S., as a result of which they had two children, aged 7 and 10 years old.
- The defendant was in the process of divorcing his wife and lived for long periods in Adeje, "a place where his wife and two children travelled to, to occasionally visit him, according to judicially approved agreements."
- Thus, in execution of these agreements, on April 22nd 2019, the wife and children of the accused arrived on the island from Germany.
- The judge assures that, prior to this trip, the defendant had already decided "to end the life of his partner, who he understood could not divorce him and lead an independent life, and that of his children."
In the morning of April 23rd 2019, in execution of the meticulously preconceived plan, the magistrate continues, “the accused invited his wife and two children to take a walk around the Camino de Ifonche to La Quinta in Arona, with the false promise of giving them some gifts that he had hidden in a cave that is located about ten kilometres from the family home, a cave of great dimensions , in a lonely and secluded place, which he had purposely chosen to ensure the execution of his acts and avoid the defence of his family by third parties.”
“Once there, taking advantage of these circumstances, moved by the intention of ending the life of his wife and children, outside the aforementioned cave, he attacked his wife in an unexpected and surprising way, hitting her with a rock, and despite the woman desperately trying to defend herself, she couldn’t prevent the accused from stunning her, and she fell to the ground, where he crushed her skull with a rock, causing her death.”
"His eldest son, only ten years old, tried in vain to protect and defend his mother," explains the instructor. It details that the accused, “moved by the same intention to end the life of his son, Handrick began to brutally and repeatedly beat him on the head with rocks in the cave causing his death as a result of multiple trauma to his skull and face.”
The court decision adds: "The accused failed to complete his purpose, as he had previously devised, to end the life of his youngest son, barely seven years old, who, given the terrible events he was witnessing and being aware of, despite his young age, the extreme risk to which he was exposed, fled the place wandering through the mountains alone for hours, reaching more than four kilometres of narrow road, with his life in danger. According to the instructor, that the child's life was in danger was something "fully known to the accused"; in fact, he stresses that Handrick had "left him to his own devices, believing that he would die before getting help."
The document concludes that after committing the crimes, Handrick went home, "where after taking off his bloodstained clothes, showering and changing, he went to bed, until at about 7:00pm, the Local Police came to his house and detained him for questioning."
