A 65-year-old German woman identified as a migration activist and family counsellor drove the getaway vehicle used by the suspect in the June 29 mass shooting at a youth welfare facility in Stade, Lower Saxony, which left six staff members dead.
The suspect, a 45-year-old German-born man of Turkish nationality from the Hanover area, opened fire during a custody-related appointment concerning his three-month-old daughter at the facility, which provides support for mothers and children.
Police stopped the getaway vehicle, a Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupé, shortly after the attack by shooting out its tires. The 45-year-old was arrested and remanded in custody on suspicion of six counts of murder.
The 65-year-old driver, Sylvia S. from Bremen, was initially detained and is reported to have been heavily involved in the custody dispute as the child’s godmother.
She is not currently in pre-trial detention.
According to news outlet NIUS and other reports, Sylvia S. works as a family and migration counsellor for a nationwide organisation within Germany’s vast migration sector.
The organisation advises on topics such as family reunification, right of residence or naturalisation and sees itself as an interest group for migrant families and against racism.
For the last two years, the organisation received almost €900,000 taxpayer money from the NGO federal programme “Live Democracy!”.
The German government promotes initiatives supposedly aimed at strengthening democratic participation, fostering civic values and preventing extremism via this programme.
A Berlin café and “intersectional” co-working space that explicitly bars white people from entry has received more than €662,000 in German taxpayer subsidies from the federal Demokratie leben! (Live Democracy!) programme, sparking outrage over state-funded racial exclusion in…
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 30, 2026
Days before the attack, she reportedly sent a roughly 20-page document to various media outlets outlining her perspective on the custody battle with the youth welfare authorities.
Sylvia S. reportedly is the godmother of the three-month-old infant at the centre of the custody dispute.
In early April, the baby was admitted first to Hannover Medical School and then to a children’s hospital with suspected shaken baby syndrome.
The 45-year-old father subsequently became the focus of investigators.
According to the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ), Sylvia S. criticised alleged contradictions, inconsistencies, and inadequate medical documentation in the case.
She claimed the infant’s injuries were not the result of shaking but of an unintentional collision in bed, when the father accidentally struck the child’s head with his own while half asleep. She described the incident as an accident.
Sylvia and the baby’s father went against the doctors’ and authorities’ accounts of the injuries.
The father is alleged to have attempted to prevent an emergency operation on the child, prompting police intervention. Doctors subsequently filed a complaint against him for aggressive behaviour. The youth welfare office then took the infant into temporary custody.
A family court later permitted the child to return to her mother, but only at the supervised facility in Stade, not in Hanover.
It was there the shooting happened.
All six victims, four women and two men, were employees.
Five died at the scene and one later in hospital. The mother and child present were unharmed.
In the immediate aftermath of the Stade shooting, police described the main suspect as a 45-year-old man born in Germany who lived in the Hanover area. They did not initially highlight his Turkish nationality or roots, with some early communications and media summaries framing further details on origin as not immediately relevant to the ongoing investigation or public safety appeal.
Later that evening and in subsequent press conferences, authorities confirmed he holds Turkish citizenship while being German-born.
Police chief Kathrin Schuol and others clarified the details as the probe advanced, linking the attack to a custody dispute rather than terrorism or broader motives.
The suspect had an appointment at the centre regarding access to or custody of his infant daughter.
Investigations also examine possible prior child mistreatment concerns, including the aforementioned allegations of shaken baby syndrome.
The incident has shocked Germany. Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens described it as an “isolated case” and a “cold-blooded act of violence.”
