Cleaner gets life sentence over murder of elderly woman

A former cleaner was sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment by a court in Germany after confessing to a fatal attack on an elderly woman in 2023.

The defendant, a 30-year-old woman, admitted to having beat, kicked, and stabbed the 86-year-old woman in her apartment in the western German city of Essen.

According to the court, the defendant had previously stolen jewellery from the elderly woman and sought to do so again.

She had been dismissed from her job as a cleaner and admitted during the trial that she had stolen from other senior citizens during her work.

The 86-year-old woman died of her injuries, with an autopsy revealing numerous broken bones and eight puncture wounds on her neck.