A woman from the western German city of Solingen on Thursday received a life sentence of 15 years after being found guilty of murdering five out of her six children.

The children were aged between one and eight years, however, the woman’s eldest son survived her actions.

The court found no extenuating circumstances, virtually ruling out the release of the woman, 28, after she has served the normal life term of 15 years.

During the trial, the prosecution alleged that she had first sedated the children and then drowned or suffocated them one at a time.

The investigating officers believe that seeing a photo of her husband with a new partner was the incident that motivated the crime, which shocked Germany.

She then messaged him that he would not see the children again. The children’s bodies were later discovered in their beds on September 3, 2020.

The woman insisted that an intruder had broken into her home, tied her up and forced her to send chat messages before murdering the children.

Psychiatric experts found no evidence of serious mental illness, but her defence lawyer called for her release on the grounds that doubts remained over whether she committed the murder.

The court found that Melina, 1, Leonie, 2, Sophie, 3, Timo, 6, and Luca, 8, had been murdered by their mother, who had subsequently thrown herself in front of a train at Dusseldorf central station but survived.

She had sent her eldest son, who survived unscathed, to his grandmother.

(dpa/NAN)