Case Ursula Herrmann: Convicted kidnapper should be released soon – Bavaria

The convicted kidnapper of ten-year-old Ursula Herrmann, who has been in prison for 15 years, is to be released soon. As the Lübeck Regional Court announced on Thursday after a hearing, the remainder of his life sentence is to be suspended on probation. The man will remain in prison until the decision is final, a court spokesman said.

According to his defense attorney, it will probably take about a week. The public prosecutor’s office has that long to lodge a complaint, lawyer Walter Rubach told the German Press Agency. Previously had the Picture-Newspaper reported on the date. But a complaint is unlikely, said Rubach. That is why his client will probably be able to leave prison on June 7th. According to the court, the probation period is five years, and he should have a probation officer.

The Ursula Herrmann case is one of the most spectacular crimes in the history of the Federal Republic. The girl was abducted from Ammersee in 1981 and buried in a box. The ten-year-old suffocated in it.

The alleged perpetrator was arrested in Schleswig-Holstein in May 2008 and taken into custody. The then 58-year-old man now lived in Kappeln an der Schlei. He used to live near the Herrmann family. In March 2010, the Augsburg Regional Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for extortionate kidnapping resulting in death. He served this because of his move to northern Germany in Lübeck. The man has maintained his innocence to this day.

According to the Criminal Code, life imprisonment can be suspended after 15 years if the perpetrator was not guilty of anything during the period of imprisonment. The Herrmann case was characterized from the outset by investigation mishaps by the police. The evidence that later led to the conviction is also regularly questioned. Even Ursula’s brother now doubts that the right perpetrator has been convicted.

On September 15, 1981, Ursula Herrmann was cycling through a forest near her home town of Eching am Ammersee when a perpetrator tore her off her bike. He locked the girl in a box, which he buried. The child died in it after a short time because the ventilation system was not working.

A ransom of two million Deutschmarks was demanded from the parents, even though Ursula was long dead. Weeks later, the buried box containing the body was discovered. But securing evidence at the scene of the crime turned into a fiasco, and the investigating senior public prosecutor later spoke of a “scene destruction squad”.

It ultimately took almost 27 years before the violent crime was considered solved. To this day, the traces in the case are checked again and again. Most recently, the University of Zurich prepared an expert opinion on the tape recorder that was seized from the convict and is said to have been used for the extortion calls. According to the expertise, the audio device should not be considered as a crime tool.

Defense attorney Walter Rubach has been collecting such information for many years in order to be able to initiate a retrial. The experienced Augsburg lawyer has repeatedly emphasized how difficult it is to bring a legally concluded case back to court in Germany.

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