The mother of Peggy Knobloch from Upper Franconia, who disappeared for many years and was finally found dead, is continuing to fight for compensation in court. The woman has appealed against the dismissal of her claim by the Hof Regional Court, a court spokeswoman announced in Hof on Wednesday. The Bamberg Higher Regional Court must now deal with the claim.
The then nine-year-old girl disappeared without a trace in May 2001 on her way home from school in Lichtenberg in Upper Franconia (Hof district). It was not until 2016 that Peggy’s body was discovered in a forest in Thuringia on the border with Bavaria. To this day, no perpetrator has been convicted.
In a civil case, the mother of the dead Peggy is demanding 75,000 euros in damages from a former suspect. She justifies this by saying that because of him she was uncertain about the whereabouts of her child for 15 years and suffered psychological damage as a result. She wants 5,000 euros for each year of uncertainty.
In 2018, the defendant man had stated during questioning under pressure from police officers that he had taken Peggy’s body to a forest in May 2001, but later retracted this statement. In the compensation proceedings, he also pointed out that his statements were false and had only been made under pressure. A civil chamber at the Hof Regional Court therefore dismissed the woman’s lawsuit as unfounded at the end of May.