Darmstadt American rock-throwing incident

The Darmstadt American rock-throwing incident was a 2000 incident in which three American teenagers, children of military personnel stationed at the U.S. military base near Darmstadt, Germany, threw rocks at vehicles moving on a highway, killing two women.

On the night of February 27, 2000, the three youths, ages 14, 17 and 18, confessed to throwing rocks at vehicles moving along the B3 motorway, saying that they had been "meeting regularly" for the past four to six weeks to throw rocks at cars. A fourth teenager (age 15) was questioned and released.

The teenagers left a bowling alley near their homes in a base housing complex called Lincoln Village at about 9pm. They carried a snow shovel and some rocks to a pedestrian bridge over a motorway, where they climbed a 6' (or 8') plastic wall and began throwing rocks at passing cars. Finding that the rocks were not heavy enough to cause the cars to crash, they returned to an area near their school, where they found larger rocks, up to 18 lbs. in weight, and carried them back to the highway where two of the boys handed the rocks to the third, who had climbed onto the wall.

They threw a 10-pound rock at a Mercedes-Benz driven by Karin Rothermel, 41. It hit her in the chest, killing her instantly. Rothermel's 75-year-old grandmother was critically injured. At this point they moved to the other side of the bridge, and began hurling rocks at cars moving in the opposite direction, causing one car to crash as it swerved to avoid the rocks. The three then dropped an 18-pound stone onto a BMW driven by Sandra Ottmann, 20, who was driving her grandparents home from a meal celebrating her grandfather's birthday. The rock hit Ottman in the head, killing her.

The 17- and 18-year-olds rock-throwers were convicted of murder and given terms of 8-and-a-half years each in juvenile facilities; the 14-year-old was given seven years.

The three young men, Jesse McGriff, Deo Bissessar and James Wise, were released early for good behavior and returned to the United States after serving half of their 8½-, eight- and seven-year sentences, respectively.

A similar rock throwing occurred near the same base in 2003; no one was injured. The children involved ranged in age from 5 to 9 years old.

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Wikipedia