Mario N. shot a man because he had pointed out the mask requirement. The district court of Bad Kreuznach has now sentenced him to murder. One searches in vain for a plausible motive for the crime. But it is clear that the perpetrator was a fanatical opponent of the Corona measures.
Flowers and candles to commemorate the shot gas station employee in Idar-Oberstein.
Idar-Oberstein is known as a jewelery and precious stone town. Numerous commuters work in the jewelry industry of the Rhineland-Palatinate town. Some of them drive past the Aral petrol station in the town center every day. A year ago there was a crime that was talked about throughout Germany: fifty-year-old Mario N. killed a gas station employee. He had previously gotten into an argument with the twenty-year-old about the mask requirement. On Tuesday, the district court in Bad Kreuznach sentenced the accused to life imprisonment for murder. To this day, he has not been able to explain his actions, said N.
Was it the insane act of a single person shooting around while intoxicated? That only seems so at first glance. Mario N. acted irrationally, but his hatred was not a diffuse feeling, but was fueled by a fanatical rejection of the Corona measures. The act thus has a political dimension. The accused is obviously interested in social contexts. A psychologist characterized him during the court process as an “intelligent, educated person”, writes the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
Apparently he got lost in the maze of conspiracy myths about the pandemic. For example, he thought the vaccination against Covid was deadly and broke off contact with an acquaintance when he heard that he had been vaccinated. N. said of the then Health Minister Jens Spahn that he would stab him “without batting an eyelid”.
The accused was heavily intoxicated
Other statements by him read like self-fulfilling prophecies. Almost a year before the crime, he wrote in a chat: “I’ll end up in jail this year for murder or manslaughter.” About three weeks before the crime, he threatened consequences if someone pointed out the mask requirement. “I know it sounds stupid, but I no longer see a solution that does not involve violence.”
It is September 18, 2021 when his hatred breaks out. The federal elections are coming up in a few days, Corona is just one of many topics in the election campaign. For N., however, the pandemic still seems to be a huge issue.
He drives to the Aral gas station in Idar-Oberstein to stock up on beer. At 7:45 p.m. he enters the gas station without a mask. The employee behind the counter points out the obligation to wear a mask. N. reacts annoyed and leaves the salesroom without a beer. He drives to another gas station where he gets beer. After the fact, the police will determine that his blood alcohol level is two per thousand.
The victim wanted to earn money for the driver’s license
N. sees a humiliation in the reference to the mask requirement. He sits at home, writes wild chat messages, gets angry. He drives to the gas station again and enters the sales room at 9:20 p.m.; this time with a mask. Again he puts beer on the counter – and pulls his mask down. “Put your mask on,” says the cashier. “Really?” replies N., pulls out a revolver, shoots the cashier in the face and fatally hits him. The young man was about to graduate from high school, he wanted to earn money for his driver’s license at the gas station.
Surveillance cameras recorded the murder, there are witnesses. The question of the perpetrators no longer arises. The process, which lasted more than five months, was all about the sentence. N.’s defense lawyers do not want to see murder in the crime, since the murder characteristics of insidiousness and base motives are not met. They pleaded manslaughter and consider N.’s culpability to be limited because of his alcohol consumption.
The public prosecutor’s office, on the other hand, had pleaded murder and saw the necessary characteristics as fulfilled. A psychiatric expert came to the conclusion that N. was fully culpable. The expert does not consider the deadly shot to be a typical emotional reaction. In addition to the prison sentence for the murder, the court also found the defendant guilty of illegal possession of a firearm.
The cashier’s mother appeared as a joint plaintiff in the process. The perpetrator never looked her in the eyes, wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He showed feelings of guilt, but are they real or just a tactic because he was speculating on a lighter sentence? “I deeply regret it,” he said of his act. A few hours later it sounded different. At that time he told the police that he simply had to “put a sign”.