Couple accused of killing Ukrainian refugee to kidnap her newborn

27-year-old Ukrainian Marharyta Razaz was brutally murdered by the Russian woman and a German man near Hockenheim and her daughter Miia, who is only 5-week-old baby was kidnapped after the murder

A German couple has been charged with the murder of a 27-year-old Ukrainian refugee and her 51-year-old mother, as well as the kidnapping of the refugee's newborn daughter, prosecutors announced on Tuesday.

The couple, a 44-year-old woman and her 43-year-old husband, allegedly committed the crimes in March, driven by a "long-unfulfilled wish to have a daughter," according to Mannheim prosecutors. The pair reportedly planned to pass off the infant as their own.

The German woman allegedly joined a Telegram group supporting Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion, where she connected with the Ukrainian woman, who was seeking translation help ahead of her child's birth.

51-year-old Marina Stetsenko, inset, the grandmother of a newborn girl was also murdered

Prosecutors say the couple drugged the victims during a meal, then murdered them in separate locations—disposing of the mother's body in a lake and setting fire to the daughter's body near the Rhine River in Hockenheim. They then took the newborn home.

Authorities arrested the couple on March 13, 2024, and the baby, unharmed, was placed in the care of a welfare office. The couple faces charges of double murder and the abduction of a minor and is being held pending trial.