Shortly after a call, the international police agency Interpol received a number of tips about a dead boy discovered in the Danube in Bavaria. “We received 33 tips from the public,” said Interpol’s DNA database manager, François-Xavier Laurent, in Lyon on Tuesday. These tips were sent directly to Interpol and the German police via the Interpol website. Now start the evaluation to select promising clues.
German investigators have not been able to report a breakthrough more than a year after the body was found. A canoeist discovered the body on May 19, 2022 near Großmehring east of Ingolstadt. The boy, whose exact cause of death remains unclear, was wrapped in plastic and buried in the river with a cobblestone. It is suspected that he was killed. As the Interpol investigators said on Tuesday, if there are indications of specific children by name, they are now being checked to see whether they are still alive or whether they resemble the dead person. This work will take weeks if not months. “The security we have now is that this boy is probably not German.” He’s either from a neighboring country or one that’s further away, Laurent said.
According to Interpol, investigators assume that the boy was between five and six years old at the time of his death, about 1.10 meters tall and around 15 kilograms. He therefore had brown hair and blood group 0. Together with the international appeal at the end of August, Interpol also sent a reconstruction of the boy’s face, which was created in autumn 2022. As the head of operational support and analysis at Interpol, Cyril Gout, said, there are a lot of tips in a few days.