Mischa Ebner

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Mischa Ebner (* 1975 ; † November 24, 2002 in Thun ) was a Swiss athlete (gun runner) and confessed murderer of a young woman.

biography

Mischa Ebner was found neglected with his brother Alex when he was four years old. The boys were severely impaired in their development due to the lack of care from their parents, Misha could not yet walk properly, his brother, two years older, could not speak a word. Both children had been mistreated. In 1979 both were given to an adoptive family. According to his adoptive mother, Mischa discovered that he could cope with his anger in endurance sports, such as cycling.

At the age of 23, Mischa Ebner unexpectedly won the Frauenfeld military competition , Switzerland's most famous gun race . On his victory run his brother accompanied him on his bike. Three days later, the brother died by suicide , which hit Mischa Ebner hard.

At that time, Mischa Ebner was working as a cook in various catering establishments, since 1999 in an old town restaurant in Bern. He found a friend and trained at the running club 95 Burgdorf . As a successful athlete and committed cook, he appeared fully integrated socially.

Deeds and education

On the night of the Swiss national holiday, August 1, 2002, two women were seriously injured with a knife in Bern - Bümpliz and Niederwangen within a few hours . One of the victims, a 20-year-old high school graduate, died from the injuries.

First there was a description of the perpetrator by one of the victims. The police were later presented with handwritten letters to the victims and the police, some with items belonging to one of the victims. Two of the letters contained traces of DNA, traces of saliva were found at some crime scenes. With the help of the media and the Austrian case analyst Thomas Müller called in , a search strategy was developed that aimed at the vanity of the perpetrator. The handwriting samples and a phantom picture, deliberately drawn unshaven by the police to provoke the perpetrator, were published and used as a further search. In fact, the perpetrator complained in letters to the police about the wanted report, stating that he had an “unclean complexion” and thus provided additional handwriting samples. In the course of the manhunt, a young woman reported to the police and said she had a "love letter" with the alleged perpetrator handwriting. On it was the name and address of Mischa Ebner; this led directly to the perpetrator.

Ebner confessed to the accused of murder and a total of 29 other crimes, including several robberies on young women, some of whom he had seriously injured by stabbing. Ebner also admitted several violent and property crimes. The police noticed an increasing intensification of the respective use of force.

A psychiatric report by Professor Rainer Luthe showed that the perpetrator could not easily be assigned to a certain psychiatric scheme. The perpetrator himself was interested in shedding light on the sources of the dark side of his personality.

suicide

The 27-year-old Ebner attempted suicide in the Bern remand prison. He was then checked every hour and placed in a shared cell. Nevertheless, three months after imprisonment, he managed to hang himself in the cell of the Thun regional prison.

Controversy over media coverage

After the Bernese cantonal and city police had named Mischa Ebner as a suspect on August 21, a heated controversy arose over the publication of the name and a photo. The police hoped that the publication of the name would provide further information from women with whom Ebner had been in contact. Some media did not publish the picture, others pixelated or with a bar over the eyes. The Associated Press agency eventually linked the suspect's sporting achievements. Many media followed with publications.

The first chamber of the Swiss Press Council dealt with the question of whether the naming of the suspect should be justified or not. Above all, the aspects of the required presumption of innocence , the protection of the suspect's relatives and the opportunities for rehabilitation should be taken into account. The press council came to the conclusion that in the Mischa Ebner case, too, the naming of the name in the sense of the presumption of innocence and the principle of anonymising the court reports was a mistake.

Movies

Stage play

Another artistic adaptation of the material is the stage play Mischa, the Fall , which premiered in Mersch and Ettelbrück ( Luxembourg ) in July 2008 . The work deals with the roles of perpetrators and victims, psychopathological behavior and the role of the mass media in the event of events that traumatize the public. It works with the artistic means of drama, dance, music, video and installation. (Choreography: Bernard Baumgarten, director: Claude Mangen, text: Toni Bernhart , stage: Do Demuth, video: Stoll & Wachall , music: Emre Sevindik).

documentary

literature

  • Simon Wälti: He didn't see himself as a murderer. In: Der Bund from July 31, 2017 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bern was in a state of emergency. Article in the Berner Zeitung on October 3, 2018
  2. ↑ Attribution and identifiable illustration (Mischa Ebner case) , statement by the Swiss Press Council of January 31, 2003.
personal data
SURNAME Ebner, Mischa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss gunmen and murderer
DATE OF BIRTH 1975
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 2002
Place of death Thun regional prison , Canton of Bern , Switzerland