A German man faced manslaughter charges over allegedly killing his wife, days after their wedding day.
Ralph Jankus, a 52-year-old man, allegedly killed his new wife Christel, 49-year-old, after been together since 2011, after having a wild and steamy 48-hour-long sex marathon.
Just days after the wedding, Jankus went to his Facebook account, and posted:
"Unfortunately, I have to tell you that my dear wife died suddenly just eight days after our wedding."
"All the happiness I have experienced was during the years with my wife."
While the human body can certainly take a lot of battering, it was the BDSM sex that killed Christel.
Jankus told the police in Germany that he had been involved in BDSM for 30 years. And following the wedding, the couple had already discussed whether to go on a normal honeymoon like ordinary couples, or engage in the marathon sex session.
While Jankus was into BDSM, Christel herself had a fetish for extreme sex. The two were apparently a match.
Christel had previously spoken to her friends about this.
The sex session involved bondage and other sadomasochism techniques. But things then got too harsh.
Judge Johannes Hochguertel hit out at Jankus for failing to take Christel to the hospital for so long, adding that she would have survived her injuries.
However, he said that Christel’s death had had a profound effect on Jankus.
Christel is said to have taken her part, and her role willingly, and had said that she said she did not want to go to the hospital at first.
Jankus claimed that he wasn’t aware that Christel’s life was in danger, and said that all the sex acts they did were consensual.
The sadomasochistic sex session the two were having, include inserting foreign objects as sex toys.
And the device that ended Christel's life, was the Wartenberg wheel.
The device that is also called the Wartenberg pinwheel, Wartenberg neurowheel or the Nervenrad, is actually a medical device for neurological use. By rolling the wheel across the flesh, the spikes that look like evenly spaced radiating sharp pins, are designed to test nerve reactions by testing a subject's nerve sensitivity.
While the device is purposefully designed for professional medical specialists, the Wartenberg wheel is also used as a BDSM or sensation sex toy, and is often used as a device to tickle, in what's called a fetish of "tickle torture."
The thing is, Jankus inserted the 20-centimeter long spiked sex toy inside Christel, through her anus.
And during the procedure, the device that was shoved up, way beyond her rectum, was lodged deep inside her. This perforated her bowel, and caused internal damage to her intestines.
Jankus had indeed reportedly admitted that his wife had complained about discomfort. It was four days after Christel's started experiencing pain, that Jankus brought Christel to see an internal medicine specialist who had carried out a colonoscopy on her.
Forensic medicine specialists came to the conclusion that the woman must have had some sort of barbed hook inserted into her. Because it was lodged, removing it forcefully has caused extensive internal bleeding and internal damage.
"It was an object with spikes or bristles," the public prosecutor told the court in Krefeld, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany.
"She had injuries over her whole body and especially in her genital area," Christel's son, who has not been named, claimed.
The victim's 30-year-old son said that his mother had been abused as a child, and was also mentally unstable.
He also said that his mother was dominated by her husband, and had started wearing clothes that covered her up well.
Christel had actually reported her partner for abuse in 2017, but later withdrew her complaint and spent some time in a psychiatric clinic.
Then in 2018, her son claimed that his mother once fled to a women’s shelter, before returning happier and wanting to marry her partner.
"We had no idea about the violence at first, but over time it became more apparent. She was not allowed to leave the apartment and was forced to take drugs. She was beaten for going to the hairdressers without permission."
"I warned her that she was putting up with too much and that it should never have gone this far," adding that Jankus "abused, mistreated and humiliated" his mother.
However, "I do think she loved him though," he said.
Because of what had happened, Jankus was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence.