Criminal case Maria Bögerl

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Storage location of the ransom next to the A7. On the day of the kidnapping, the spot was marked by a branch stuck in the ground with the German flag attached.

The criminal case Maria Bögerl is about the kidnapping and death of Maria Bögerl, which occurred in May 2010 in Heidenheim an der Brenz, Baden-Württemberg . The offenses have not yet been clarified.

Course of events

Maria Bögerl, the wife of the chairman of the board at Kreissparkasse Heidenheim , was kidnapped from her house in Schnaitheim on the morning of May 12, 2010 . In the course of the morning, the perpetrator called the victim's husband and demanded a total of 300,000 euros in ransom, which, according to the police , should be provided “in complicated denominations ”. The transfer of the money at an underpass ( ⊙ ) of the A 7 in the direction of Würzburg (the place was marked with a German flag) failed, however, because the money could not be obtained in time at the agreed time of deposit. Two days later, Ms. Bögerl's car was found in the courtyard of the Neresheim monastery . The police then started a large public manhunt. For example, the victim's family made an unsolved appeal to the kidnapper (s) on the television program Aktenzeichen XY… . The search for Ms. Bögerl finally ended on June 3, 2010, when a walker found her body in a wooded area ( ⊙ ).

About a year after the events surrounding the kidnapping, Maria Bögerl's husband, Thomas Bögerl, died by suicide . He and his wife were buried together in their home town of Herrieden in Middle Franconia. There were many rumors about Thomas Bögerl in the months after the crime. His son and his daughter's partner came under suspicion at times. The investigators assumed that they had phoned the kidnapper a few days before the crime. It later emerged that the suspicion was based on incorrectly stored time data in the Bögerl's telephone system. The responsible public prosecutor's office in Ellwangen made it clear that the extensive investigations had not revealed any indications that the perpetrator (s) came from within the family.

In addition, it became known that Bögerl had complained several times about the work of the investigators. The widower had demanded, among other things, in a letter to the police education about the press work of the investigators and the failed ransom drop and thus, among other things to the provincial government in Stuttgart, John Schmalzl , and then president of the German Savings Banks Association , Heinrich Haasis , agile.

Criticism of the investigative authorities

The police have come under massive criticism in the Bögerl case.

On the one hand, contradicting information about the ransom delivery shortly after the kidnapping and weeks after the body was found caused confusion. The ransom could only be deposited at the handover point 90 minutes after the requested time. According to the police, they were not able to provide the required amount and denomination within the tight time frame of three hours. The reason for this was possibly the lunch break at the Ulmer Bundesbank branch, where the money was supposed to be obtained.

In an interview in 2012, the children Carina and Christoph presented the course of events - including the history of their father's suicide - with previously unknown details and again expressed sharp criticism of the work of the police, including failures in securing evidence immediately after the crime . For example, traces in the garage in which Ms. Bögerl's car had been parked on the day of the incident were only secured months later.

It was also criticized that the body of Bögerl was possibly overlooked during search measures by the police in a forest.

In retrospect (also by the investigators themselves), the appearance of the husband and children in the program Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved shortly after the kidnapping, in which they appealed to the perpetrator, their wife and mother, who was still missing, was seen as problematic to be released (see below), as many viewers considered the grief of the Bögerls to be played, which fueled the spread of rumors that they were themselves involved in the case.

The police in Heidenheim were also exposed to criticism from Austrian investigators. It would have taken the Germans several weeks in the summer of 2011 to check the alibi of an Austrian who was suspected of being involved in a similar crime in Austria and a certain similarity to the phantom image. The German police could justify this with the fact that witnesses could not be reached because of the vacation time.

Special contribution for file number XY… unsolved

On September 5, 2012, a 26-minute special about the criminal case Maria Bögerl was broadcast in the program Aktenzeichen XY… unsolved . In it, the crime from the morning of the kidnapping to the discovery of Maria Bögerl's body was reconstructed based on current police findings. For the first time, the investigators disclosed details that had not previously been made public. This was the longest film case in the history of the show to date. Then a man came forward and fooled the investigators for months with false information, which meant a lot of work was in vain. It wasn't until April 2013 that the scam came out. The wrong tipster was sentenced to three years in prison by the district court of Heidenheim. That sentence was changed to two years probation on appeal.

Investigations

On January 20, 2014, it was announced that the police had planned a mass genetic test for a specific age target group for February 2014 . According to the public prosecutor's office, this should be done on a voluntary basis. The mass genetic test in search of the kidnappers and murderers of the banker's wife Maria Bögerl started on February 14th. All men between the ages of 21 and 68 from the community of Neresheim (Ostalbkreis) were asked to voluntarily submit saliva samples, as announced by the public prosecutor and the police. Of the 3,000 men who were written to, 1,300 initially submitted a sample, and another 500 after a renewed request. At the beginning of April 2014, the special commission was still missing over 500 samples. The SoKo flag was dissolved at the end of 2015.

In July 2016, two young men in Hagen were approached by an apparently drunk man. This made information about the criminal case Bögerl. The witnesses recorded parts of the conversation on their cell phones and called the police. The manhunt that was then initiated was without result after the stranger had already been able to leave. The evaluation of the voice recordings suggested a suspicion based on the content of the conversation, as the stranger apparently has knowledge of the perpetrator . In April 2017, the investigation team was able to arrest the suspect in Königsbronn , the public manhunt was carried out with the help of a voice recording and a phantom image. However, it turned out that his DNA does not match the genetic fingerprint of the perpetrator stored in the victim's car, and the suspect also admitted that he had wrongly accused himself of the crime.

It was only after the suspect was at large that it became known that he (contrary to what was initially reported) had been arrested shortly before the public search in the television program Aktenzeichen xy ... unsolved . The police justified the fact that the search was broadcast in spite of the fact that they were not sure that the wanted person had been arrested and that the questioning could only take place during the television broadcast.

At the end of January 2020, the police searched a residential and commercial building in the Stimpfach district of Weipertshofen as well as a building in the Bavarian district of Donau-Ries , evidence was seized and DNA samples were taken from suspects. The suspicion was directed against three people, including a couple, whose company car was said to have been seen near the crime scene in 2010. However, the suspicion against the people was not confirmed after evaluating the samples.

After the SoKo flag was canceled, an officer from the Ulm Police Headquarters is responsible for the case.

Media reception

In the episode The Holdt case of the crime series Tatort , which aired for the first time on November 5, 2017 , the criminal case Maria Bögerl was used as the template for the script.

Literature / web links

Commons : Kriminalfall Maria Bögerl  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
  • Philip Eppelsheim and Rüdiger Soldt: The Bögerl case: kidnapped and murdered. The police have not found the perpetrator for two years. In return, peculiarities and allegations accumulate , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, June 17, 2012, page 14 ( online )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b file number XY ... unsolved, broadcast on September 5, 2012.
  2. ↑ The handover of the ransom failed due to bureaucracy
  3. ^ The case of Maria Bögerl: Family begs kidnappers via "Aktenzeichen XY" to stern.de, May 19, 2010.
  4. ↑ Maria Boegerl's husband found hanged focus.de, July 11, 2011.
  5. ^ Moving memorial service for Thomas Bögerl BZ Online July 18, 2011, accessed on July 17, 2016.
  6. ↑ Children throw police failure in front of Spiegel Online February 15, 2012, seen on April 23, 2012.
  7. ↑ a b Investigators in the Bögerl case come under pressure Spiegel Online, July 17, 2011.
  8. ↑ a b Riddle about the Bögerl murder case - No trace of kidnappers schwäbische.de, July 21, 2010.
  9. ↑ SoKo “flag” continues to chase mysterious perpetrators aktenzeichenxy.zdf.de, September 5, 2012.
  10. ↑ No ransom - because of lunch break . sueddeutsche.de, August 2, 2010.
  11. ↑ From the end of a family zeitenspiegel.de (Interview with Christopher and Carina Bögerl, published in Stern 08/2012)
  12. ^ Philip Eppelsheim , Rüdiger Soldt : Bögerl murder case: oddities and allegations . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 17, 2012, accessed on September 19, 2016
  13. ↑ Bögerl murder case: Police hope after TV call for witnesses, Abendblatt.de, September 6, 2012.
  14. ↑ Maria Bögerl murder case: Fraudsters led Soko astray , stern.de , November 6, 2013
  15. ↑ case Bögerl: Investigators fooled: Bad informant does not have in custody , Augsburger Allgemeine, Oct. 30, 2014
  16. ↑ Maria Bögerl murder case: Police plan mass genetic test. In: Spiegel Online. January 20, 2014, accessed January 24, 2014 .
  17. ^ Mass genetic test on February 14th. (No longer available online.) In: Südwestpresse. Archived from the original on February 26, 2014 ; Retrieved February 7, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.swp.de
  18. ↑ http://www.swr.de/landesschau-aktuell/bw/massen-gentest-der-letzt-strohhalm-im-fall-boegerl/-/id=1622/did=12870944/nid=1622/vv=teaser -12 / 5zdw8 / index.html
  19. ^ Mathias Becker: Die denierer von Neresheim , stern.de from February 17, 2014, accessed on April 28, 2014.
  20. ^ Bögerl murder case: 800 saliva samples are still missing , Augsburger Allgemeine from March 20, 2014, accessed on April 28, 2014.
  21. ↑ "So far, we haven't had any hits" , Stuttgarter Nachrichten of April 11, 2014, accessed on April 28, 2014.
  22. ^ "Soko" flag "before the dissolution" , Südwest-Presse of November 11, 2015, accessed on July 14, 2016.
  23. ↑ Arrest in the case of Maria Bögerl. Spiegel Online, April 6, 2017, accessed April 6, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Killed banker's wife: Suspect denies murder of Maria Bögerl. In: Spiegel Online . April 6, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Negative DNA test: detainee released in the Bögerl murder case. In: Spiegel Online . April 6, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  26. ↑ http://www.schwaebische.de/region_artikel,-TV-Fahndung-wirft-Fracht-auf-_arid,10648802.html
  27. ↑ Karin Fuchs: Search in Schwäbisch Hall: Is there a new lead in the murder of Maria Bögerl? . In: Heidenheimer Zeitung , January 28, 2020, accessed on February 7, 2020.
  28. ↑ a b Rüdiger Bäßler: Ten years after the fact - the Bögerl case: Another reach into the void? . In: StN.de , January 29, 2020, accessed on February 7, 2020.