A New Jersey man charged with fatally stabbing his wife claims he was sleepwalking at the time.
According to The Daily News, Dieter Zimmermann, 76, is charged with murder in the death of his wife, Jacqueline Zimmermann, in 2021. Zimmerman has waived a jury trial, so his fate will be determined solely by a judge.
According to the outlet, the judge will hear a defense based on the theory that Zimmerman was sleepwalking when he repeatedly stabbed his wife with a “butcher-style knife.”
“We have raised a psychiatric defense that he had a mental disease, a defect, at the time of the homicide, with a parasomnia twist,” defense attorney Brian Neary told NJ.com on Wednesday.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “Parasomnia disorders involve some type of abnormal behavior during sleep, such as walking or talking.”
Symptoms may include “complex motor behaviors like walking, running, talking, or eating.” The most common parasomnias, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, include nightmares and night terrors. People can appear awake, but they are only partially awake.
“It is a very unusual defense,” Neary explained. He also told the website that Zimmermann had other psychological issues, but did not elaborate.
According to the New York Daily News, Zimmermann admitted to police that the kitchen knives were in his wife’s nightstand drawer.
“He does not walk out the back door,” Neary said of his fate if the defense succeeds. “He would go to a psychiatric hospital in the state of New Jersey and be held there until such a time as he was neither a danger to himself or to the community.”
On the night of her death, Jacqueline Zimmermann called a third party and told them her husband was attempting to kill her. The call ended abruptly, and the individual called the police. Neary stated that Dieter also called the police.
“Oh good, I was just on the phone with you.” “My wife attacked me,” Zimmermann told arriving officers, according to court documents.
