Life Imprisonment for Child Rapist

A German man charged with sexually molesting and murdering two children was sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by detention in a psychiatric clinic in the city of Stade near Hamburg on Wednesday. Judges in the trial, which sparked outrage throughout Germany, said 31-year-old Marc Hoffmann posed a danger to the general public and would have to spend his life behind bars. Hoffman, an unemployed electrician who has two children himself, sexually assaulted and murdered two eight-year-olds, a girl and a boy, after luring them into his car in separate incidents in 2004. Their corpses were found later, one in a forest near a lake in the vicinity of Hoffmann's village of Attendorn and the other in a lake. Judges on Wednesday offered 10,000 euros ($12,000) each as compensation to the families of the dead children. Anja Wille, the mother of the boy, Felix, said after the sentencing that she was glad "the trial is over." Wille added she wanted to try and begin a new life. "There's nothing left of my old one," she said.