Horrible Person Charged In Horrible Incest Case

Oy vey. A 48-year-old German man has been charged 350 counts of sexual abuse — including molesting his daughter from the age of 12, fathering 7 children by his stepdaughter, abusing his stepson, and prostituting out the two girls to other men. The kicker? If convicted, he faces, at most, 15 years in prison.

The man, a truck-driver known only as “Detlef S,” hails from western Germany and has admitted to fathering the 8 children (one of whom died at birth.) Reports the AP,

Detlef S. first began molesting his daughter when she was nine, and after the 12th birthday party he regularly sexually assaulted her, prosecutors told the court, the DAPD news agency reported. He had already been abusing his twin stepchildren, who are now 28, starting in 1987 when they were only four years old, until 2010, according to the indictment.

Oh, and they’re worried he may have abused one of the daughters he fathered with said stepdaughter, too.

Naturally, the comparisons to Josef Fritzl are coming thick and fast, but in that case — although admittedly due in part to kidnapping and body-disposal charges — he faces more than a mere 15 years. And if that’s what more than 300 counts gets you, well, the math’s not very comforting. Like the Fritzl case, this one will no doubt generate much lurid interest: against our better natures, we are all fascinated by real evil — and its punishment. The horror of this story is unimaginable — but better that it be told than not at all.