The Eritrean migrant accused of dismembering his partner and the mother of his daughter was once held up as a “model migrant” 10 years ago in a variety of German newspapers. These papers reported that he was an example of how “integration” could work.
Today, 41-year-old Asmerom G. is accused of butchering his own wife. In fact, authorities have still not found her head.
German media were still singing his praises in 2016. The man from Eritrea had landed a job as an electrical assistant at a firm in Rheinbach, in North Rhine-Westphalia, and gave interviews about leaving his homeland three years earlier to escape political persecution.
He wanted German citizenship, he said. His boss at the time was quick to describe Asmerom G. as talented, reliable, and “capable of anything,” according to Bild newspaper.
However, then reality arrived. Within a year, Asmerom G. was in trouble with the law. A brawl led to a conviction for grievous bodily harm at Siegburg District Court, earning him a six-month suspended sentence.
He moved on from Rheinbach and took up work behind the wheel of a freight truck.
Somewhere along the way, he made a trip back to his home country — for reasons that remain unclear — and returned to Germany with a woman named Weghata A., who was 31, his wife under Eritrean law.
On July 26, 2025, she delivered their daughter.
Three months later, Weghata A. was dead.
What happened next garnered headlines across Germany.
On Nov. 17, on Autobahn 45 near Olpe on Nov. 17, a driver said she spotted something on the side of the road. When officers investigated, they found two severed women’s hands. Forensic teams matched the fingerprints to Weghata A., who had already been reported missing from her asylum accommodation in Bonn, where she had been living alone with her infant daughter.
Days later, Weghata A.’s torso was recovered, but her head remains missing.
The baby was found the day before, alive and unharmed, abandoned in a stroller in Hesse outside the Kröffelbach monastery in Waldsolms. A monk found the child and two handwritten notes giving only her name and date of birth.
While investigators quickly identified Asmerom G. as the prime suspect, he had already boarded a flight to Ethiopia. He was arrested there in late November.
In early February, he was extradited back to Germany, where he is now in pre-trial detention.
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