In November 2018 15-year-old Edgar H. (also known by the pseudonym "Hannes E.") was found guilty of Keira's murder and sentenced to nine years in youth detention.
[1] The 14-year-old lived with her mother Karin Gross in an apartment on Plauener Straße in the east Berlin suburb of Alt-Hohenschönhausen.
[3][4] She was a keen ice skater and regularly trained at the nearby Berliner TSC [de] indoor sports stadium.
[2] At around 5.30pm Karin arrived back at their apartment on Plauener Straße and found Keira sitting in-front of the couch, gagged by a bloodied scarf.
[4][12] "Hannes" went to Keira's home with a backpack containing an 11 cm kitchen knife, a change of clothes, rubber gloves, mask, plastic hair covers and shoes.
[2] He then returned home to Weißensee, placed the knife back in his parent's kitchen and put the backpack in his room before playing League of Legends.
[2] The trial of "Hannes" began on 25 September 2018 at the 13th Criminal Division of the Berlin Regional Court behind closed doors due to the defendant's age.
[21][22] "Hannes" had refused to be interviewed by forensic psychiatrists after being arrested so they had to observe his behaviour in court and determined that he was fully responsible for his actions.
[34] The day after the murder Berlin Police issued a press release about the killing but provided very few details for fear of jeopardising the criminal investigation.
[37][41] The far-right journalist David Berger published a post on his Philosophia perennis blog blaming the opening of the borders to refugees for a "knife epidemic" and that young people were being "slaughtered in a bestial manner.
[40] On 12 March 2018 the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) posted a graphic on Facebook with the title "KNIFE EPIDEMIC RAMPANT" which listed 11 crimes involving knives, including Keira's murder, and blaming them on Turks, Kurds, Chechens, Afghans, Eritreans, Gambians and Syrians.
[36] In accordance with German Press Council [de] guidelines, they didn't disclose the suspect's ethnic or religious background.
[39] After the arrest Gunnar Lindemann [de], an AfD member of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, tweeted asking why the police weren't providing further details such as the origin of the perpetrator.
[39] One of the main propagators of the misinformation was Lutz Bachmann, convicted criminal and founder of the far-right anti-Islamic Pegida group.
[2][40] On 12 March 2018 Bachmann posted a message online, falsely claiming he knew the identity of the murderer whom he labelled a "beast from the Caucasus", a "Chechen Muslim" and a "former refugee".
[2][45] The boy had no connection to the murder and, in an unusual move, Berlin Police were compelled to respond to Bachmann's post which they described as fake news.
[47][48][49] The boy who had been deliberately and falsely doxed by Bachmann deleted his Facebook account but months after the incident his personal information including his full name and photograph were still online.