Violinist Charged With Attempted Murder Through Poisoning

A 62-year-old musician in Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra is accused of giving rat poison to three people, including two fellow musicians

An unnamed 62-year-old violinist of Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra is suspected of poisoning his mother and two colleagues with rat poison. 

The charges against the German violinist are that he mixed rat poison in his 93-year-old mother’s food in a retirement home in Hanover in early September 2022. 

Further, he is said to have given a male and a female colleague of the orchestra a garlic dip mixed with the poison, who both became seriously ill after a bus trip while the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra was on tour — also during September 2023.

All three victims survived, after almost dying of blood clotting disorders from the poison brodifacoum that was found in their blood from the food offered to them by the accused.

The accused at the Hanover Regional Court room before his trial (PC: Michael Matthey/DPA)

The public prosecutor’s office in Hanover charged the violinist of attempted murder with insidious intent in both these cases, according to prosecutor Kathrin Söfker. 

The man has been in custody since January 2023 and recently denied the allegations before the Hanover Regional Court during the start of his trial.

According to Stern news, the violinist stated through his lawyer that “he had not tried to kill his beloved mother or his best friends.” He will be questioned further on the second day of the trial in two weeks' time.

Additionally, the court has scheduled nine more days of hearings until the end of September 2023.