Death of an 18 year old
Former US soldier transferred: investigators in Bavaria clarify murder after 45 years
For decades, investigators had been groping in the dark in the case, but now forensic advances have provided the solution
© Matthias Merz / DPA
Even after decades, perpetrators should not feel safe: investigators have now cleared up a murder from 1978 near Schweinfurt. At that time, an 18-year-old was killed. The perpetrator was a US soldier.
A suspect who is said to have murdered a young woman in Bavaria more than 45 years ago has been arrested in the USA. DNA traces on the murder victim’s clothing led the investigators to a 69-year-old who was stationed as a US soldier in Schweinfurt, Bavaria at the time of the crime in April 1978, as the Lower Franconia police and the Schweinfurt public prosecutor announced on Friday.
The man was arrested on June 21 in Gering, Nebraska, on the basis of an international arrest warrant and is now awaiting extradition to Germany, where he faces criminal proceedings on suspicion of murder, the statement said.
Perpetrator probably had a relationship with the victim
“The investigators are assuming that the arrested person had a relationship with the 18-year-old at the time of the crime,” the statement said. “At the scene of the crime, which is also where the body was found, the then 24-year-old is said to be six years his junior woman who inflicted fatal stab wounds and left her there.” It was a road between the towns of Kolitzheim and Unterspiesheim.
For decades, investigators had been groping in the dark about the murdered 18-year-old. The case was considered a “cold case”, i.e. an unresolved and possibly unsolvable case.
The “constantly developing forensic technology” has now made it possible for the experts at the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office to “detect the suspect’s DNA on the victim’s clothing relevant to the crime”.
First in 1996 in the focus of the investigators
The current suspect first came to the attention of investigators in 1996, police and prosecutors said. During the interrogations, however, he vehemently denied having committed the crime. “Since the other measures and trace comparisons did not lead to the suspicion being substantiated, the accused remained at large.”
The investigations against him were initially stopped in 2001 – before they were resumed. “As is usual in other unsolved murder cases, the file in this case was never completely closed and was repeatedly checked for new investigation approaches,” said the police and public prosecutor.