Peggy Knobloch case

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On May 7, 2001, the then nine-year-old Peggy Knobloch (* April 6, 1992 in Bayreuth ; † probably on May 7, 2001 ) disappeared from Lichtenberg in Upper Franconia . Her remains were discovered fifteen years later, on July 2, 2016, in a forest in Thuringia , around twelve kilometers as the crow flies from Lichtenberg.

The mentally disabled Ulvi Kulaç (born December 13, 1977 in Naila ) was arrested after Peggy's disappearance and charged with murder . The sensational and controversial proceedings ended on April 30, 2004 at the Hof Regional Court with a guilty verdict and a life sentence. What was unusual was that the conviction was based solely on a confession by Kulaç, which Kulaç had revoked; there was no corpse or other evidence of the accused murder. On December 9, 2013, ordered District Court Bayreuth the retrial of; on May 14, 2014, Kulaç was acquitted.

The Peggy Knobloch case remains unsolved to this day, as no perpetrator has yet been identified.

Peggy Knobloch's disappearance and the investigation into Ulvi Kulaç

On May 7, 2001, nine-year-old Peggy Knobloch from Lichtenberg disappeared on her way home from school. She was last seen after 1 p.m. that day, just 50 meters from her parents' home. The mother worked shifts in an old people's home and was often not at home when the daughter came home from school. But Peggy had a key and often went to the apartment of a couple of befriended neighbors, and occasionally to a pub for lunch. The family home (the mother, a little sister, Peggy and the Turkish stepfather) was right on the market square. The investigations, which led as far as the Czech Republic and Turkey, her stepfather's home country, did not reveal anything about an act despite a reward of 55,000 DM. In the search for the third grader, the Peggy special commission processed 4800 tracks. Despite an intensive search, the girl could not be found. Ulvi Kulaç, who had been questioned by Peggy's mother on tips, was initially able to show an alibi that his mother had given him.

In February 2002, by order of the then Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein, a new seven-person investigation team headed by Wolfgang Geier was set up to reopen the case. In March 2002, Kulaç's clothing was examined without any findings. In October 2002, he was arrested and interrogated again. Kulaç admitted to having abused the girl on May 3, 2001 in his apartment. On May 7th, he watched it on the way home and wanted to apologize. However, Peggy ran away and threatened to betray him. He caught up with her on Lichtenberger Schlossplatz. After he knocked her down, she remained screaming at the foot of a staircase. He held her mouth and nose until she suffocated.

In phone calls with his father (which were bugged), Ulvi Kulaç incriminated him with the statement that he had helped him to remove the body. As a result, the father was temporarily arrested.

Kulaç later retracted the confession of murder and upheld the confessions relating to the abuse cases. The lawyer and parents were convinced that the confession could be explained by his exhaustion after hours of interrogation as well as by leading questions (see Reid's method ) and false promises to the police. The man confessed without a defense attorney being present; besides, there is no sound recording of it, it was based on the investigator's memory log. The reasoning behind the judgment states that Kulaç would not have been able to construct such a story, so that one could assume that he was describing his experiences.

Proceedings against Kulaç

Kulaç had suffered severe mental damage from meningitis. His level of development is equated with that of an 8 to 10 year old boy.

In the summer of 2000, he is said to have sexually abused a seven-year-old boy. His mother found out about it and reported him. It turned out that he had lured other boys to doctor games with biscuits . In September 2001 he was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Bayreuth .

Trial and sentencing

On September 30, 2003, the trial was opened before the Hof Regional Court, closed to the public. Due to an error in the occupation of lay judges, it was canceled and resumed on October 7th. On April 30, 2004, Kulaç was sentenced to life imprisonment. The main evidence was the accused's confession, which the court considered lawful and credible. An expert opinion by the psychiatrist Hans-Ludwig Kröber came to the conclusion that Kulaç's descriptions were very likely based on real experiences. Precisely because of his reduced intelligence (an IQ of 68 was determined for Kulaç ), he was unable to think up such a coherent and detailed sequence of events and to remember it for longer. There was also no discernible motive for false self-incriminating, and there was no evidence that the content of the confession was suggested to Kulaç. The defendant was found guilty of the homicide. The sexual abuse of children, however, remained unpunished, as Kulaç was attested to be incapable of guilt in this context.

The defense went on appeal on the grounds that such a perfect crime could not have been committed by their client. In addition, there were witnesses who saw Peggy at 7:00 p.m., while the prosecution said the crime was committed around 1:30 p.m. On January 25, 2005 the Federal Court of Justice rejected the appeal, making the judgment final. Kulaç remained in a closed ward in the Bayreuth District Hospital .

Kulaç's parents, Peggy Knobloch's biological father as well as grandparents and parts of the population of Lichtenberg believed in his innocence and founded a citizens' initiative .

Retrial and acquittal

Since the Kulaç, who was considered to be mentally handicapped, had not been given a guardian at the time of the trial, a constitutional complaint was filed. Gudrun Rödel was court appointed as Kulaçs supervisor. According to his supervisor's research, Kulaç had a time window of just 20 minutes - too little to commit the act and cover the distance. The decisive factor is the length of a bus trip that a witness who saw Peggy from the bus took.

In July 2012, the lead witness, a fellow inmate at the district hospital who had worked with the police, sworn his testimony against Kulaç on an oath. He justified his cooperation with the investigative authority with promised easing of detention. The prosecutor then announced that they would review the case.

Kulaç's attorney filed for retrial in April 2013. The then head of the public prosecutor's office in Hof, Heinz-Bernd Wabnitz , explained that the resumption of a completed criminal case was "basically impossible". When asked about the contradictions in the proceedings at that time, he said that this was "of little relevance from a legal point of view".

On November 20, 2013, the Bayreuth public prosecutor's office recommended the retrial and referred to one point in the retrial application. On December 9, 2013, the Bayreuth Regional Court ordered the proceedings to be resumed. The court justified its decision, among other things, with the false testimony of a witness who has since died and the existence of a hypothesis of the course of events that the Hof district court was not aware of at the time of the judgment.

The retrial began on April 10, 2014. On May 14, 2014 the Bayreuth Regional Court overturned the earlier conviction of Kulaç. In addition, a new report should clarify whether he should be released from the psychiatric clinic. On January 9, 2015, the district court ordered the continued stay. In March 2015, the Bamberg Higher Regional Court revised this decision and ordered his release at the end of July 2015. He was placed in assisted living.

Further investigation

Investigations from 2013 to 2015

In 2007, the home of the convicted sex offender Robert E., who lived nearby, was examined. A children's undershirt was found, but Peggy's DNA traces could not be found on it. The man had an alibi for the time of the crime. New investigations by the public prosecutor's office led to the house being searched again from April 22, 2013, and the site being dug for remains. Robert E. was interviewed again. During the excavations - as in earlier road construction work in this area - bone fragments were found, which, however, did not come from Peggy.

Starting in September 2013, a man from Halle was investigated who had been sentenced to six years in prison for sexual abuse. He had often been seen visiting the family home of the murder victim and was unpleasant in dealing with Peggy. Through research by journalists Ina Jung and Christoph Lemmer, the investigators had come across the man again, who had initially been questioned, but against whom no further investigation had been carried out.

In December 2013 it became known that the public prosecutor's office was investigating the suspect's adoptive brother from Halle. Investigators were looking to see if he might have helped remove the body. His alibi later turned out to be false. On January 8, 2014, a grave was opened in the cemetery in Lichtenberg . The Bayreuth police and public prosecutor's office had considered that Peggy's body could have been hidden in the grave of a then 81-year-old, who was buried two days after Peggy's disappearance and whose pit had already been dug at that time. However, the grave did not contain any child bones.

In April 2015, divers searched the Pirk reservoir for Peggy's school bag, which is said to have been seen there shortly after she disappeared. The search did not reveal any new clues. The case was discussed on June 3, 2015 in the ZDF broadcast Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved .

Find of skeletal parts of Peggy in July 2016

On July 2, 2016, a mushroom picker discovered skeletal parts ( approximate location ) in a forest near Rodacherbrunn in Thuringia, about twelve kilometers as the crow flies or about 18 to 21 kilometers (depending on the route) from her apartment in her hometown of Lichtenberg, skeletal parts ( approximate location ) that were made using DNA Analysis when the remains of Peggy Knobloch were identified. The skeleton that was found was incomplete, and there were no clothes or any trace of the school bag. Therefore, at the end of September 2016, detectives examined the area around the site more closely. It is unclear how long the corpse lay where it was found and how long Peggy Knobloch lived; the bones found are those of a nine year old.

In October 2016 it became known that traces of the right- wing terrorist Uwe Böhnhardt's DNA had been found at the site of the skeleton, which, according to the Bayreuth public prosecutor , turned out to be a delusion in March 2017 . She was said to have come to the Peggy's body while the police were securing evidence . The transmission route remains unclear after contamination by forensic devices was ruled out in July 2018.

Investigations against a suspect at the end of 2018

On September 12, 2018, two properties of a man named Manuel S., who was friends with Ulvi Kulaç and who is said to have been mentioned to the police several times, were searched. The police had tracked the suspect through the analysis of microparticles that were found on the remains and coincided with activities he had indicated at the time of the crime, although his previous alibi had been questioned. In an interrogation , the suspect stated that on 7 May 2001 he had received the lifeless Peggy from a man he knew by name. The suspect claims to have tried to resuscitate the child before he took the body to where it was found. He claims to have destroyed the girl's jacket and satchel a few days later.

On December 11, 2018, Manuel S. was finally arrested by the police himself and brought before the judge on the same day . S. is said to have spoken of the removal of the corpse as early as 2001 in a drunk state and was also one of the so-called “relevant people” for the police. The police did not provide any information about the person he accused. The Bayreuth District Court overturned the warrant and the man was released.

reception

Based on the case, the novel Totsein is not statute-barred by Friedrich Ani and the television thriller The invisible girl by Dominik Graf , which was shown for the first time on Arte in March 2012 . In 2018, ZDF shot a six-part television game about the unsolved murder case. Christoph Lemmer and Ralf Zinnow produced a podcast for the radio station Antenne Bayern with the title Secret Files Peggy , which deals intensively with the case in 15 episodes. It was awarded a prize at the German Radio Prize 2019 in the Best Podcast category on the grounds that it was “sovereignly researched, well told, dialogical and serialized”.

literature

  • Ina Jung, Christoph Lemmer: The Peggy case. The story of a scandal. Updated and revised paperback edition. Knaur, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-426-78911-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Conny Neumann: Case of Peggy K. Traces of Death , Spiegel Online, July 4, 2016
  2. No longer a suspect in the Peggy case . Sueddeutsche.de , February 18, 2015, accessed on June 3, 2015.
  3. Mother gives son alibi . ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Der neue Tag , January 15, 2004.
  4. Holger Sabinsky-Wolf: Disappeared for 13 years: The Peggy case is being reopened . In: Augsburger Allgemeine , April 10, 2014, accessed October 15, 2016.
  5. ↑ Confessed to the father's murder . Oberpfalznetz.de, February 11, 2004.
  6. The Peggy case . ( Memento from June 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Telepolis , May 25, 2013 (interview with Christoph Lemmer).
  7. Disappeared girl: When in doubt against Ulvi . In: Spiegel Online , April 2, 2012, accessed November 17, 2014.
  8. ↑ Legal glitch: Peggy trial has burst . In: Welt Online , October 29, 2003.
  9. Life imprisonment: the court finds Ulvi K. guilty . FAZ.net , April 30, 2004, accessed on March 28, 2015.
  10. Many doubts about an unequivocal judgment . FAZ.net, March 17, 2013.
  11. ^ The verdict for the murder of Peggy is final . Federal Court of Justice, Press Release No. 37/2005, February 28, 2005, accessed on March 28, 2015.
  12. After eleven years - witness revokes the murder of Peggy . In: Welt Online , July 19, 2012, accessed April 23, 2013.
  13. ^ Public prosecutor's office is reopening the Peggy case . In: Welt Online , July 19, 2012.
  14. Peggy case: Will there be a new trial? Augsburger Allgemeine, December 4, 2013.
  15. Ina Jung, Christoph Lemmer: The Peggy case - The resumption . Knaur E-Book, March 14, 2014 (Google Books).
  16. ^ Prosecutor considering retrial in Peggy case . In: Welt Online , November 20, 2013, accessed December 9, 2013.
  17. ^ The Peggy case is reopened . Süddeutsche.de, December 9, 2013, accessed December 9, 2013.
  18. Gisela Friedrichsen : The start of the trial in the Peggy Knobloch case: A handshake for Ulvi K. In: Spiegel Online , April 10, 2014.
  19. Previous judgment overturned: Ulvi K. acquitted in the Peggy murder case. In: Spiegel Online , May 14, 2014.
  20. Peggy case: the court acquits Ulvi K. In: RP-Online , May 14, 2014, accessed May 14, 2014.
  21. Bayreuth: Ulvi K. remains in psychiatry. In: tvo , January 21, 2015, accessed on March 23, 2015.
  22. Ulvi Kulac will be released at the end of July ( memento from January 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: BR.de , March 20, 2015, accessed on March 23, 2015.
  23. Hof: Ulvi Kulac's lawyer is seeking a second retrial. In: tvo , November 9, 2015, accessed on September 13, 2018.
  24. a b Police are looking for the body of a girl under cobblestones. In: Die Welt , April 22, 2013, accessed on April 23, 2013.
  25. Julia Jüttner, Conny Neumann: New investigations in the Peggy case: Murder without a corpse. In: Spiegel Online , April 22, 2013, accessed April 23, 2013.
  26. Peggy case: bones are not from missing girl. ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. In: Zeit Online , May 21, 2013, accessed May 28, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  27. Conny Neumann: Investigations in the Peggy Knobloch case: The trail leads to Halle. In: Spiegel Online , September 3, 2013, accessed on September 3, 2013.
  28. New suspect in the Peggy case. In: RP Online , December 14, 2013, accessed December 14, 2013.
  29. Peggy case: What was in the old grave? Augsburger Allgemeine, January 8, 2014.
  30. Peggy case - police divers search the dam . In: Die Welt , April 29, 2015, accessed on May 18, 2015.
  31. Peggy case in "Aktenzeichen XY": Police are hoping for witnesses. In: Merkur.de , April 21, 2015, accessed on May 18, 2015.
  32. Investigations in the Peggy case are progressing (File: Relevant Locations). ( Memento from April 1, 2019 in the Internet Archive ).
  33. Certainty: Body parts are from Peggy. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk , July 5, 2016.
  34. Investigator: Peggy's skeleton is incomplete. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 12, 2016.
  35. Police are investigating again where Peggy was found. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 26, 2016 ( DPA report).
  36. a b Jana Stegemann, Felix Hütten: Peggy case and NSU series of murders: A dead girl, the DNA trace of a terrorist - and many questions. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 14, 2016.
  37. Olaf Przybilla : Peggy case: Suspicious find was part of Böhnhardt's headphones. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 8, 2017; Kai Mudra: Böhnhardt trace in the Peggy case: expert opinion exonerates Thuringian LKA crime scene group. In: Thüringer Allgemeine , July 20, 2018.
  38. a b 17 years after the crime: arrest in the Peggy murder case . In: Tagesspiegel .de, December 11, 2018, accessed on December 11, 2018.
  39. Police pursue a new lead in the Peggy case. Sueddeutsche.de, September 13, 2018, accessed on September 13, 2018.
  40. Otto Lapp: New murder suspect in the Peggy case. Frankenpost, September 12, 2018, accessed on September 13, 2018.
  41. Police Headquarters Upper Franconia : Investigations in the Peggy case are progressing . In: Polizei Bayern Online, September 21, 2018, accessed on September 21, 2018.
  42. Public Prosecutor's Office: Arrest in the Peggy Murder Case . In: Spiegel Online , December 11, 2018, accessed on December 11, 2018.
  43. Mysterious Disappearance: Arrested in the Peggy Murder Case . In: T-online.de , December 11, 2018, accessed on December 11, 2018.
  44. Suspect in the Peggy case released again. In: Zeit Online, December 24, 2018.
  45. Christian Buß : Home of the Sick. In: Spiegel Online , March 29, 2012.
  46. ^ Peter Hagen: Kriminalfall Peggy: Shooting of documentary multi-part in the Thuringian-Franconian region. In: Ostthüringer Zeitung , May 1, 2018.
  47. German Radio Prize 2019: Radio making 1200 meters underground . In: FAZ.net , September 25, 2019, accessed on September 26, 2019.