STA, 13 March 2019 - The story of a young woman who cut off her hand with a circular saw to get insurance money has shocked Slovenia, as reported here, and shed a different light on a shooting that happened four years ago. Police now suspect that the 29-year-old who allegedly persuaded the woman to cut off her hand did not shoot his girlfriend by accident four years ago.
After it transpired that the 21-year-old and her boyfriend had intended to trick several insurance companies into paying for the injury the woman inflicted on herself, the 29-year-old has found himself in the spotlight.
The media have reported that the young woman had been allegedly persuaded into the bloody act by her boyfriend and his parents. Reportedly, she has been living with them since she was 18.
Police also said that the 29-year-old man already had a criminal record and that he had been involved in what was considered an accidental shooting four years ago in which his girlfriend at the time was killed.
According to the Celje police department, the investigation of the shooting in which the 24-year-old girl from Žalec died had never been closed.
Her boyfriend had initially been investigated for negligence, as the death was considered an accident, but now new circumstances emerged, suggesting her death might have been premeditated, police say.
The 29-year-old, who was 25 at the time of the shooting, was never charged with the death that he allegedly caused while cleaning his gun.
Now he is in custody together with the 21-year-old suspect of the insurance fraud. The pair, who have been in custody since 7 March, face a prison sentence of one to eight years for fraud.
If the police had not interfered, the 21-year-old would have received EUR 383,400 in damages for the arm injury and potentially several thousand euros per month in annuities until her death.
Investigators assume that the suspects were hoping for her to be declared 100% disabled to collect significantly more insurance money, but doctors managed to sew the hand back on after police brought it to the hospital.
For losing her hand, the woman would get EUR 1.2m in damages and several hundred thousand more over her lifetime in annuities.
