Germany: Murder of a Strasbourg woman in Offenburg: Murderer sentenced to life, parents denounce "dysfunctions"

At the end of a legal ordeal which began on July 8 before the Landgericht of Offenburg and which took place during days of hearings spread over several weeks, Elena Chaplin's family is overcome by "mixed feelings".

On the one hand, there is the relief of seeing premeditation upheld and Elena's murderer sentenced to the maximum penalty, life imprisonment; on the other, the impression that "this trial has highlighted a series of critical dysfunctions, failings and failures on the part of several authorities."

In a statement read in German and then in French after the verdict, the parents pointed to the "ignored warnings" their daughter had issued, the "distress signals not taken seriously." Ute and Pierrick Chaplin singled out the police, health services, and social services for "failing to protect Elena." They called for an overhaul of the entire German system, hoping that their daughter's death will serve as an "electroshock" to spare other lives.

Married and mother of one child – she was expecting another – and highly regarded by her colleagues , the 37-year-old Franco-German psychologist was stabbed to death on February 11, 2025, as she was leaving her office in Offenburg. Her attacker, a forty-year-old man with dual German and French nationality, was arrested the following day.

Charles Knodel had already been convicted of murder in the past . In 2006, the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court sentenced him to fifteen years in prison for having shot his neighbor dead with a rifle two years earlier in a wealthy residence in Saint-Cloud where he lived with his parents.

After his release from prison, Charles Knodel settled in Ortenau. Suffering from psychiatric disorders, he spent several stays in specialized clinics and homes. It was during this time that he met Elena Chaplin, who became his therapist. The young woman deemed him dangerous and suggested he be transferred to a secure ward, but to no avail.

The man subsequently found an apartment in Offenburg. To the social workers who were monitoring him, he confessed that he harbored deadly fantasies about his former psychotherapist, whom he held responsible for his mental health problems: he suspected the young woman of having hypnotized him without his knowledge and of having participated in a plot of which he was allegedly a victim during his incarceration in France.

During his trial, the 43-year-old defendant remained mostly silent , refusing to explain the reasons for his actions. According to our colleagues at the Badische Zeitung , who covered the entire hearing, he even asked his lawyer not to ask any questions of the various witnesses who came to testify.