CHILDHOOD FRIEND: "HIS MOTHER MEANT EVERYTHING TO HIM"
Blick.ch
https://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/a...ine-mutter-bedeutete-ihm-alles-id7065978.html
On Sunday evening, they returned to the Kinderheim in Basel. There they spent the week while their mothers were working. Alberto. P. * (51) was the best friend of chainsaw attacker Franz W. ** (51). The friends grew up like brothers. In nearly every picture in the photo albums of Franz W., Alberto appears too.
As adults the two lost sight of each other - until Monday when Franz W. wounded two employees of CSS insurance in Schaffhausen with a chainsaw. "I have often asked myself what became of Franz , how he was doing," Alberto P., a heating engineer, says "I did not recognize him in the photos. But when I saw the the pictures from his youth in BLICK, I knew it was him. I was shocked ito the core!"
Recently, Franz W. lived in a forest near Uhwiesen ZH, slept in his VW Caddy. His childhood friend cannot explain the downfall from the smart, good-looking adolescent to the bewildered chainsaw man.
He tells: "We had a beautiful childhood and youth. Even if money was scarce. Franz was an only child and often at our home. His mother worked as a cleaner. He spent the holidays with us in Sicily and we celebrated Christmas together."
The two families live on the same street in Basel, in their free time the boys play football and wander around the houses. "The father of Franz was absent. I only know that he is Greek. I think a father figure was missing in his life. Perhaps a man's hand would have done him good," Alberto P. says.
Later, Franz often travels to his father's home country. An old passport reveals that he traveled to Athens several times in the 1990s. He is interested in Greek literature and goes diving on the island of Hydra. But the skilled carpenter does not seem to find his way in life anymore. He constantly changes his place of residence. Becomes dependent on the welfare state, unemployment benefit and IV.
From the age of 7 to 16 Franz W. lived together with Alberto in the children's home. "For us It was more of a boarding home during the week, as we spent the weekends at home," says Antonio P., who has fond memories of those times. "The house was run by nuns. We were about 120 children and had a lot of fun. We also liked the young, handsome volunteers who came to help the sisters."
Franz W. had been inconspicuous in school, neither particularly good nor particularly bad, according to his boarding school friend. Today, the home no longer exists. As the nuns grew older, there were no successors.
Franz W. had a close relationship with his mother. "His mother meant everything to him," says the childhood friend. "She later met a new partner. Franz, however, did not get on with his stepfather and left home at the age of 19."
On Tuesday evening Franz W. was arrested in Thalwil ZH. Alberto P. is relieved. "I hope he will get help now. He was never a bad person."
BBM
Sweet pictures of the two friends at the link.
