Munich Chief Inspector Roland Baader made a dramatic appeal to television viewers on Wednesday evening. “In fact, we may have the last chance today to clarify this Sonja Engelbrecht case.” A quarter of an hour was previously in the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY” the disappearance without a trace and – as we now know – the murder of the then 19-year-old schoolgirl on the night of April 11, 1995 were reconstructed on film.
The phones never stopped ringing after that. The former State Criminal Police Office officer Alfred Hettmer reported about 50 tips at the end of the program – it was the case in the “Cold Case” special edition of the series that moved the viewers the most. “Completely overloaded” is the number 089/29100 of the Munich criminal police, said Hettmer. Homicide 5 not only sent the chief investigator in the Engelbrecht case to the studio that evening, but also manned a kind of stable guard on the telephone in the headquarters.
Investigators found this blanket at the site where the remains were found.
(Photo: Police)
It is currently unclear whether the decisive clue was already there. The callers had a particularly large number of ideas for the striking blue and black synthetic fiber blanket with a plant pattern, the remains of which the investigators had found at the site where the remains were found near Grösdorf in the Altmühltal. According to ZDF information, the callers pointed to possible manufacturers and distribution channels of such ceilings. Detective Chief Inspector Baader asked on the show that anyone who owns such a blanket should make it available to the police for comparison purposes.
He also confirmed what could previously only be assumed: “Yes, we have DNA evidence.” This makes his request to inform the criminal police even if there is a “vague suspicion” against a person particularly explosive. The network of the criminal police around Sonja Engelbrecht’s murderer is tightening.
In the forest near Kipfenberg, the police found foil and adhesive strips with paint residue.
(Photo: Police)
In the days before Sonja’s disappearance, the “Bauma” construction machinery trade fair was taking place in Munich. At that time still on the Theresienwiese. This could be an important lead, because where the bones were found in a crevice in the rock, plastic sheets, garbage bags and adhesive strips were found with paint still attached. The parallels to the case of a Freiburg student, which was presented in the XY program in January, are striking. She too was kidnapped, abused and killed and the body dumped in the forest. The perpetrator was specifically preparing for the crime, it was said at the time. An industrial fair also took place in Freiburg in the days before the crime in January 1997.
Because of the very “special”, remote location where Sonja Engelbrecht’s skeletal remains were found, Baader and the other investigators are also convinced that the perpetrator knew the forests around Kipfenberg very well. Baader’s hint that the perpetrator “probably went to the location afterwards” caused people to sit up and take notice. So there seems to be some evidence that the killer returned to where the body was hidden. The Munich police did not reveal what evidence these are on Thursday.
According to ZDF, callers drew the police’s attention to possible suspects on Wednesday evening: “Specific names were also mentioned.”
Sonja Engelbrecht was kidnapped and murdered during Holy Week in 1995.
(Photo: private/police)
Sonja Engelbrecht was in the early morning of April 11, 1995 disappeared without a trace. A friend with whom she had been out and about that night and with whom she had visited the “Zum Vollmond” pub on Schleißheimer Strasse, among other things, stated that she last saw her at 2.25 a.m. in a telephone booth on Stiglmaierplatz. From there she wanted to call her sister or her parents to be picked up. However, that call never came. Since then, there has been no trace of the 19-year-old – until a forest worker discovered a human thigh bone in a forest near Kipfenberg in the summer of 2020. The discovery site is more than 100 kilometers from Munich and several kilometers from the Autobahn exit Denkendorf on the A9.
The investigators can only guess what happened between Sonja’s disappearance in Munich and the dumping of the body in the Altmühltal. They found Sonja’s jewelery in the crevice, but no remains of clothing. It is therefore considered likely that the student has become the victim of a sex crime.