Veikko Bartel - Why Do Women Kill? - True Crime Live!!!

On Friday, 25 September 2026, at 8 p.m., Kulturhaus Torgau becomes the setting for an unusually intense true crime live evening. With Veikko Bartel and his show "Why Do Women Kill?", you get a gripping mix of talk, reading and personal testimony from a criminal defence lawyer who specialises in defending murderers.

The guiding question of the evening is "Why do people kill?". Bartel reads from his book "Why Do Women Kill?" and takes the audience into a world that normally stays hidden. These are not fictional crime stories but real encounters with perpetrators - conversations, glances, moments that leave a permanent mark. Bartel confronts his audience with the unsettling reality of his work: people who seem likeable, educated or even warm at first glance, yet have committed unimaginable crimes.

What drives a mother to kill her own newborn? How do you sit with a cultured man and talk about music and literature, knowing he brutally murdered two women? And could you defend someone like that? These are the questions Veikko Bartel addresses - directly, unflinchingly and without softening the edges. The focus is less on legal technicalities or verdicts, and more on the how and the ever-present why behind the acts.

The press has described Bartel's work as "repulsive and fascinating at once - ice-cold and strangely heartwarming". His stories get under your skin, push emotional limits and leave you thinking long after the evening ends. They also offer a rare look inside the day-to-day reality of criminal defence work, showing that every case holds more than it first appears.

This true crime reading at Kulturhaus Torgau is aimed at fans of the genre, anyone with an interest in psychology, and those drawn to the darker corners of human nature.