On March 6, 1981, a woman named Marianne Bachmeier entered a courtroom in Lübeck, Germany, on a calm but determined morning. The events that followed would shock a country and have a lasting impact on the world for decades. With a small loaded pistol in her handbag, Marianne aimed at Klaus Grabowski, the man who is suspected of kidnapping, abusing, and killing her daughter Anna, age seven. He died on the courtroom floor after she shot him seven times in a few seconds.

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Marianne was arrested right away, but she didn’t apologize. In her most broken moments, she had done what many parents might secretly wish they could do: she had exacted her own justice. Her emotional and unvarnished act provoked controversy around the world.

Marianne Bachmeier’s name continues to ring true forty years later as a representation of grief, retribution, and the morally ambiguous space between justice and vigilantism.The beginning of Marianne’s story was difficult. Tragic events, trauma, and severe emotional scars characterized her early years. The family was plagued by the shadow of her father’s service in the Waffen-SS during the rule of Nazi Germany. Marianne experienced trauma and abuse as a young child. At sixteen, she became pregnant and placed her child for adoption. She made the same tragic choice when she became pregnant again two years later. However, everything changed when she gave birth to her daughter Anna in 1973. Marianne raised the child alone this time and kept the child.

According to all accounts, Anna was a lively, inquisitive, and intelligent young child. Marianne worked diligently to run a small pub in Lübeck, where she lived with her mother. Despite their difficult lives, the two had a strong bond. When Anna vanished on May 5, 1980, following a small argument at home, that bond was cruelly broken. She had never followed through on her plan to skip school and go to a friend’s house. Klaus Grabowski, 35, a convicted sex offender who had previously molested two young girls, lured her and kidnapped her on the way.

The neighbor, Grabowski, had a violent and manipulative past. He had voluntarily undergone chemical castration as part of his sentence for his previous crimes. However, he later underwent hormone therapy to undo the effects in an effort to return to a “normal” life. Despite his past, he had returned to the community with little fanfare and was living with his fiancée at the time of Anna’s murder. He tortured Anna and finally strangled her to death while she was imprisoned in his apartment for several hours.

He left Anna’s little body by a canal in a cardboard box. After learning of the crime, Grabowski’s fiancée informed the police, preventing him from moving and burying her later that day. That same evening, he was taken into custody at a nearby bar.