Double murder of Andrea Scherpf and Bernd Göricke
The double murder of Andrea Scherpf and Bernd Göricke happened in early October 1983. The young German tourist couple was shot near Chetwynd in Canada . The case is unresolved.
Associated with this was a miscarriage of justice that brought the Canadian Andy Rose innocent to prison for almost ten years, and which was reported on, among other things, in the Canadian television series The Fifth Estate .
The 1983 murder
The German tourists Andrea Scherpf (born December 31, 1959) and Bernd Göricke (born June 29, 1956) hitchhiked west through Canada in the fall of 1983. It is likely that the couple met their killer at Chetwynd's on October 3, 1983 , who took them away in a car. The couple were killed in headshots 20 miles west of Chetwynd, near British Columbia Highway 97 and the Pine River .
The killer took possession of the victims and threw his blood-splattered jeans into a nearby trash can. Then he drove south in a 1960 Chevrolet pick-up and bought gasoline on October 4th and 5th with five Andrea Scherpf's traveler's checks in Prince George , Quesnel , McLeese Lake, Lac La Hache and 100 Mile House .
The investigation
On October 6, the bodies of Andrea Scherpf and Bernd Göricke were found. By means of forensic dentistry and the involvement of Interpol , the victims were identified on October 16, 1983.
On October 21, the National Police of Canada ( RCMP) arrested US worker Vance Hill on charges of two times having provided false information. He was released shortly afterwards and did not come back into the focus of the investigation until 1997.
900 leads were collected over the next six years, but the investigation was unsuccessful.
Then in August 1989 Madonna Mary Kelly gave testimony against her friend Andy Rose (* 1948). She was with a drug dealer to whom she told her story; because he was also an undercover agent , he passed the information on to the police.
Andy Rose convicted in 1991
Based almost entirely on Madonna Mary Kelly's testimony, who testified that drunk Andy Rose appeared in 1983 covered in blood near her trailer in Chetwynd and said he had killed two people, Rose was convicted of murder in 1991. After an appeal, Rose was convicted again in 1994.
In March 1996, a DNA analysis showed that there were no traces of Andy Rose's DNA on the bloody jeans from the crime scene.
The suspect Vance Hill
Vance Hill (1928–1985) was an American road construction worker. Since 1967 he lived in Western Canada with his wife and three children. He was a hunter and a chronic alcoholic. In April 1983, his separated wife and children moved back to California. Vance Hill, 55, stayed in Prince George, three hours from the later Chetwynd crime scene.
In November 1983, Vance Hill rushed back to his family in California. He confessed the murders to his ex-wife, Willadeen Hill. A short time later, he left his wife and left a suicide note because "he would not go to jail." A year and a half later, on July 28, 1985, Hill shot himself.
In 1997, Willadeen Hill told the story to her nephew, who informed the police. This led to the re-trial and the 2001 release of Andy Rose, who had been innocent in prison for nearly ten years.
In 1997, Willadeen Hill put on record what her ex-husband had told her in 1983 - 14 years earlier:
“The couple asked if he could take them with him, and he agreed. He started molesting the woman. When her boyfriend protested, he stopped the truck, they got out and started arguing. He reached into the pick-up truck, took the rifle and shot him. The woman screamed and screamed and did not want to shut up. He said he had to kill her too. "
Andy Rose's acquittal in 2001 - another unsolved case
After Rose was released on bail in late 1998, a false confession was extracted from him in 1999 using the Mr. Big investigative method.
In 2001, during the third trial against Rose, the DNA traces on the jeans from the crime scene were evaluated. There were traces of at least five people, including the victims. A third person's DNA was clear, but it didn't match Andy Rose or Vance Hill. Prosecutor Gil McKinnon acquitted Rose.
Because the DNA of both suspects was not found on the pants, the case has again been unresolved since 2001. On January 21, 2009, the Canadian journalist Linden MacIntyre reported in detail in an episode of The Fifth Estate about the case. In 2013, after 30 years, the population was again called upon to provide information about the victims' possessions that have disappeared to this day.
Web links
- Someone Got Away With Murder ( Someone came away with murder ), a result of the fifth estate of 21 January 2009 (English)
- Someone Got Away with Murder - Timeline ( Memento from July 23, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Chronicle of the events (English)
- Murder Report , The Vancouver Sun , 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b issuu.com: Chetwynd Echo: German couple's murder remains unsolved from June 14, 2013, page 3
- ↑ a b cbc.ca: Someone Got Away With Murder , broadcast on January 21, 2009
- ↑ a b c d The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook, p. 575 in the Google book search
- ^ The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook, p. 574 in the Google book search
- ↑ a b princegeorgecitizen.com Mystery solved after more than 40 years
- ↑ a b c fernwoodpublishing.ca: An Introduction to Mr. Big
- ↑ a b c d e f g Someone Got Away with Murder - Timeline ( Memento from October 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b energeticcity.ca: 30 year old murder near Chetwynd still unsolved
- ↑ ottawacitizen.com: Scherpf and Goericke
- ↑ a b c cbc.ca: Newfoundlander's ordeal with RCMP sting subject of CBC documentary
- ↑ Canadians convicted of murdering Germans | FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
- ↑ listverse.com: 10 Unsolved Cases Involving Murdered Couples
- ↑ cbc.ca: Someone Got Away With Murder , 21:38 ff