A glamorous vet who hired contract killers to murder her heart medic husband with a horse bolt gun to plunder his multi-million-pound fortune has been jailed for life.
Cold-blooded Annegret Beinrucker had hired two accomplices to carry out the killing after dosing her husband with alcohol and drugs.
But the pair bungled the brutal killing and had to return to finish off the job while their 69-year-old victim, Dr Klaus Kleinertz, was slowly bleeding to death.
Image shows Dr Klaus Kleinertz, 69, from Chemnitz, Germany, undated photo. His wife Annegret Beinrucker, 58, is under investigation for murdering him one year after they got married in 2023. Note: Photo is a screenshot from a video. (Newsflash)
Horse specialist Beinrucker, dubbed the Black Widow at her trial at the Chemnitz Regional Court, in the German state of Saxony, ordered the killing so she could inherit her husband's fortune.
Judge Janko Ehrlich, 53, rejected the glamorous 60-year-old's not guilty plea and dismissed her sobbing in the dock as "crocodile tears".
At a sentencing hearing on 28th April, the judge declared Beinrucker and her two accomplices guilty of murder and sentenced all three to life behind bars.
Beinrucker, who had been married to Dr Kleinertz for less than a year, was also barred from receiving a penny from her husband's will.
Annegret Beinrucker, 58, poses in undated photo. She is under investigation for murdering her husband Dr Klaus Kleinertz, 69, from Chemnitz, Germany, one year after their wedding in 2023. Note: Private photo from social media. (Annegret Beinrucker/Newsflash)
Prosecutors told how Beinrucker had spent the evening of her husband's slaying in March 2024 drinking and smoking cannabis with him at his luxury apartment in Chemnitz.
Just before midnight, Beinrucker left under the pretext of returning to her Zwickau horse clinic but instead met her accomplices in a nearby car park.
The court heard how she handed over the key to her husband’s apartment to her surgery assistant, named only as Simone I. and her partner, Michael C.
Later that night, Michael C. let himself into the flat and stabbed Dr Kleinertz repeatedly and then tried to finish him off with a bolt gun, used to put down injured horses.
But the attack left Dr Kleinertz with injuries to his neck, back, and head, which were not immediately fatal.
Image shows Dr Klaus Kleinertz, 69, from Chemnitz, Germany, undated photo. His wife Annegret Beinrucker, 58, is under investigation for murdering him one year after they got married in 2023. Note: Photo is a screenshot from a video. (Newsflash)
Simone I. then entered the apartment in the early hours of the next morning and battered the doctor mercilessly around the head to make sure he was dead, the court heard.
Prosecutors said Dr Kleinertz has amassed a fortune from his successful career as a celebrated cardiologist and medical equipment inventor.
He was a well-known figure across northern Germany for his collection of classic cars and his generous charitable activities.
The court heard how, before the killing, Beinrucker had plundered his safe of cash and gold to keep her family's debt-ridden luxury stable and horse therapy spa going.
Police said that she had tried to stage the murder as a brutal burglary.
But when suspicious investigators began searching phone messages between the three accused, they discovered the murder plot.
In summing up, Judge Ehrlich said of Beinrucker: "Her testimony speaks strongly against her innocence."
Her lawyer, Herbert Posner, said he will appeal the verdict.
The lawyer accused the judge of bias, saying his body language during the trial revealed he had already made up his mind.
(Joseph Golder/newsX)