Murder of Lucie Trezzini: trial next week

On the day in question, Daniel H lured Lucie to his apartment in Baden with promises of modelling jobs.

Prosecutors say he had approached approximately 110 girls and young women with similar offers until Lucie finally agreed to accompany him.

Having bought an estimated four grams of cocaine from Langstrasse, and having consumed half, Daniel H came across Lucie on his way to the station, online news website Blick reported.

He promised that she could easily make 500 francs ($546) with just a couple of hours of work that afternoon at a jewellery show in Baden.

Taking her back to his apartment, he drank beer and continued to take cocaine. There he pretended to prepare for a photo-shoot, fixing a black bed-sheet to the bed, and setting up a floor lamp.

According to the indictment, Daniel H spent a long time deliberating whether or not to commit the crime. Having decided to go ahead with it, he fetched part of a dumbbell from his office.

Rejoining Lucie in the bedroom, he proceeded to beat her repeatedly with the metal bar until she lay motionless on the floor. In order to be sure he had killed her, he then took a carving knife from the kitchen and slit her throat.

He used the pillows and sheets from the bed to try to mop up the blood, Blick reported.

Following the murder, Daniel H visited his parents, who claim they saw nothing unusual in his behaviour. He then called his girlfriend, before lying down to sleep next to Lucie’s body.

He later told police that he saw no sense in his life anymore, having lost his job as a chef and having had problems with his girlfriend. He said he had committed the crime in order to be locked away forever.

In the following days, he carried on drinking and tried to clean away the bloodstains.

After Lucie had been missing for four days, police finally located her body at the apartment. Daniel H had fled the scene but he was found in Zurich a few days later.

At the time of the murder, Daniel H was on parole for having nearly beaten another woman to death following a cocaine binge in 2003. The prosecutor is hoping for life imprisonment.