Kurt-Werner Wichmann

Kurt-Werner Wichmann (born July 8, 1949 in Adendorf ; † April 25, 1993 in Heimsheim ) was a German serial killer who u. a. was responsible for the two double murders in the Göhrde . Police are investigating links to over 230 crimes, including murder and rape.

description

According to the memories of acquaintances, Wichmann was handsome, blond, and of an honest, well-groomed appearance. One witness described him as a quiet guy with cold, ice-cold eyes that assessed everything . Others described him as a loner , arrogant and in need of approval. He suffered from severe scrutiny, which is why he buried his victims' items on his property and carefully kept newspaper articles and television reports about his crimes. It was noticeable that he always wore gloves and sunglasses. In one of his cars they found a Bundeswehr sleeping bag for spending the night outdoors, binoculars and maps. In addition, he was often in the forest. He lived in his own home on a dead end street on the outskirts of Lüneburg, right by the forest. He grew up in this house too. He had a German shepherd and had right-wing political views (he occasionally hoisted the German war flag on his property ). Over the years he had made several modifications, including secret hiding spots. A door led nowhere: one looked through it from above into the garage and behind it a gallows rope was attached. At the time of Birgit Meier's murder, he was married; his widow , 13 years his senior, died in 2006. He was often in need of money, over-indebted at the time of his death and advertised as a callboy in porn magazines.

Offenses

Juvenile offenses

Wichmann came into youth arrest for the first time at the age of 14 after threatening a subtenant in his parents' house with a knife and trying to strangle her. Wichmann did not live at home back then, but grew up in a welfare home (Wichernstift). But he didn't want to stay there any longer and broke into his parents' home to raise money. The father was violent and allegedly mistreated his sons. At 16 Wichmann raided a cyclist and harassed her sexually, giving him six months youth custody brought on probation. In 1967 he threatened police officers with a small-caliber weapon and was sentenced to one year of youth imprisonment. In 1968 the 38-year-old Ilse Gerkens was hit in the back with four shots from a small-bore rifle and killed while cycling in a forest near Lüneburg. Witnesses saw a youth who fit Wichmann's description flee. The police opened a file on him in connection with this. He was found with small bore rifles and newspaper clippings about the murder, which was never officially cleared up. In 1970 he was sentenced to five and a half years youth imprisonment for raping a hitchhiker, whom he also tried to strangle. The hitchhiker was able to persuade him to let her go. When he read about the case in the newspaper soon afterwards, Wichmann felt himself misrepresented and went to the police himself to correct this, which led to his arrest.

The case of Birgit Meier

Birgit Meier, a photographer from Lüneburg, disappeared in the summer of 1989. A few weeks later, connections between her and the Lüneburg cemetery gardener Wichmann became apparent. At first, the husband was suspected of suicide or suspected, but later the investigation focused on Wichmann, whom the disappeared had previously met at a party, according to the ex-husband. He had also previously done gardening work for Birgit Meier's neighbors. He was questioned, but his alleged alibi, confirmed by his wife, was not scrutinized. He kept silent about the fact that he was on sick leave at the time of the disappearance of the then 41-year-old Birgit Meier, and the police did not ask for more details.

Only with the appointment of a new public prosecutor in Lüneburg did further investigations begin. In 1993, the gardener was charged with suspected murder in the Birgit Meier case and the police carried out a house search . The investigators found two small- bore rifles, a converted sharp alarm gun revolver, stun gun , silencer , handcuffs , tranquilizers and sleeping pills , torture tools in a secret room closed with a soundproof door, which only he and his brother were allowed to enter. A new, bright red Ford sports coupe was buried in the garden, and there was what appeared to be blood on the back seat. The body tracking dogs struck several times, but no bodies were found.

Kurt-Werner Wichmann had fled before the search. He was arrested near Heilbronn when he was involved in a traffic accident and weapons were found in his vehicle. His brother, ten years his junior, who had a close relationship with him and who was dominated by Wichmann, was also in the vehicle. Ten days after his arrest, the 43-year-old Wichmann hanged himself in custody in the Heimsheim correctional facility . He had made suicide attempts before. He left strange suicide notes in which, among other things, he asked his brother to clean the gutter. After his death, the series of murders ended in the forests around Lüneburg. The further investigations against him were discontinued because no investigation is carried out against the dead. His vehicle and the items found on him were disposed of by the police.

Birgit Meier's remains were discovered and recovered on September 29, 2017 in the house that Wichmann had previously lived in. The so-called “core team” set up by Birgit Meier's brother Wolfgang Sielaff noticed the unusual nature of the pit in Wichmann's garage intended for repairing cars: it was too low to stand, too deep to lie down. Without a search warrant and only thanks to the permission of the new owners of the house, the group hoped to find traces of Meier's body. The dead man's husband, Harald Meier, hired a bricklayer to pry open the concrete floor. However, initially no traces were found, which is why the search should be canceled. However, when the bricklayer went down the stairs into the pit one more time, his foot accidentally hit a spot on the concrete floor, which then collapsed. Another forensic doctor digging a metatarsal bone was found by Meier, which was concreted in upside down, which ultimately led to the discovery of Meier's body.

On January 19, 2018, it became known that, according to the autopsy report from the Hannover Medical School, the victim Birgit Meier had been shot. The Lüneburg police chief Robert Kruse announced that the perpetrator is believed to be a serial killer who may have struck beyond Germany. He announced a thorough review of old cases for which Wichmann could be the perpetrator. Analysts from the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office then filtered out 24 unresolved offenses, mainly homicides and missing persons. In February 2018, the case was again presented on television in the program Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved , as the investigators assume an accomplice, helper or at least confidante .

The slow police investigation only became successful when the retired police officer Wolfgang Sielaff, the brother of the killed Birgit Meier, began private research in 2002 and found the body of his murdered sister in 2017. In the same year, the police set up a new team of six investigators to investigate Wichmann's connections to 24 other murder victims.

Goehrde murders

→ Main article : Göhrde murders

In December 2017, 28 years after the murders of 1989, the Lower Saxony police announced that they considered the former cemetery gardener Wichmann to be an urgent suspect for the Göhrde murders and that an investigation team had been set up. A DNA trace found in one of the victims' stolen vehicles could be assigned to Wichmann. According to the police, this is a new trace and not the hair that has been examined over the years. The police believe that there is an accomplice who may have committed other crimes. The main clue for a second person involved in the case is derived from the fact that Wichmann had driven into the Göhrde in his own motor vehicle, but returned in the vehicle of the murdered person. It is unclear who brought Wichmann's own car back. According to Sielaff's findings, there were 21 so far unexplained murder cases in Lüneburg and the surrounding area, which could possibly be assigned to Wichmann based on the perpetrator profile and respective whereabouts.

According to the assessment of the police, who created a movement profile of Wichmann, murder cases in other areas can also be attributed to him. After his first release from prison in 1975, Wichmann stayed in Karlsruhe for three years , where he lived with an elderly woman whom he had met through a personal ad while in prison. During this time, several unsolved murders of hitchhikers occurred in the Karlsruhe area . Wichmann was very mobile and owned five cars.

In May 2019, the investigation was resumed because a possible confidante refused to give any statement to the police. The police are asking the population for information and have activated a website for this purpose.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Göhrde-Morde: Police put evidence on the net at ndr.de from May 7, 2019
2. ^ ^{A b} Anne Kunze, Felix Rohrbeck: Serial murder: Why did Birgit Meier die? In: The time . No. 42 , October 6, 2016 ( Zeit Online [accessed December 28, 2017]).
3. ^ ^{A b c d e} Anne Kunze, Felix Rohrbeck: Serial murders: Murderous darling . In: The time . No. 43 , October 13, 2016 ( Zeit Online [accessed March 31, 2018]).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Ice-cold trace: The Göhrde murders and Birgit Meier | True Crime | NDR documentary. Accessed October 4, 2019 (German). 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Matthias Rebaschus: Kurt-Werner Wichmann: Was he a serial killer? In: The time . No. 1 , December 28, 2017 ( Zeit Online [accessed December 28, 2017]).
6. ↑ Thomas Hirschbiegel: A visit to the horror house This is how serial killer Kurt W. lived , Berliner Kurier, May 30, 2016
7. ^ Ziegler, Jean-Pierre: The corpse in the house of the cemetery gardener Spiegel Online on September 29, 2018
8. ↑ Thomas Hirschbiegel: After 23 Years. The Worst Serial Killer of the Post-War Era? in Mopo on May 27, 2016
9. ↑ Anne Kunze, Felix Rohrbeck, Auf der Lichtung, Zeit Online, November 3, 2016
10. ↑ Thomas Hirschbiegel: The farewell letters of the serial killer. Shave me before you burn me in Mopo on May 30th 2016
11. ↑ Ice-cold trace: The Göhrde murders and Birgit Meier | True Crime | NDR documentary. Retrieved on October 3, 2019 (German). 
12. ↑ Ice-cold trace: The Göhrde murders and Birgit Meier | True Crime | NDR documentary. Retrieved on October 3, 2019 (German). 
13. ↑ Expert opinion of the MHH: Birgit M. was shot dead on ndr.de on January 19, 2018
14. ↑ Focus Online according to DPA press release, January 19, 2018
15. ↑ Police are still looking for people who know about the Göhrde murders at ndr.de on March 2, 2018
16. ↑ Göhrde murders are about to be investigated . In: Landeszeitung für die Lüneburg Heath online . December 27, 2017 ( landeszeitung.de [accessed December 27, 2017]).
17. ^ "Göhrde murders": perpetrators identified, questions remain. NDR, accessed December 28, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Certainty: dead Birgit M. identified. ndr.de, July 24, 2017, accessed December 29, 2017 . 
19. ↑ Investigation group Göhrde: Publication of evidence - who can provide information? , Police Directorate Lüneburg