A father-to-be has killed his heavily pregnant teenage girlfriend, by burning her alive, to avoid becoming a dad.
Maria Peiner, 19, was lured into the woods on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, by Eren Toben and his 20-year-old friend Daniel Mueller, The Mirror reports.
The expectant mom, who was eight months pregnant at the time, believed Toben wanted to go shopping for baby clothes.
A court heard that once there, Toben hit Peiner over the head with a piece of wood, stabbed her with a bread knife and then poured gasoline over her and set her alight.
The following day, her body was discovered by a walker and the two men were soon arrested and blamed each other for the crime.
Toben’s fingerprints were on the handle of the knife that was found near her charred remains.
Judge Regina Alex sentenced both men to 14 years behind bars.
“She was still conscious, it could have been 10, 20, 30 seconds — she was still moving,” Alex said of Peiner’s brutal death.
In describing Toben’s actions, Alex said, “For him the crime was a solution, he wanted a free, happy life which he had control over.”
“He abused Maria’s love for him to lure her into an ambush.”
As for his accomplice, Mueller, the judge said, “he acted for the sole purpose of taking pleasure in the destruction of another human being’s life.”