Tanja Gräff dies

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The death of Tanja Gräff , initially as a missing person , preoccupied the German public for years. The German student Tanja Gräff (born December 23, 1985 in Trier ; † presumably June 7, 2007 there ) was missing for years after her surprising disappearance in the early morning of June 7, 2007 after a summer party at the Trier University of Applied Sciences . On May 11, 2015, her remains were found in Trier-Pallien, not far from the university campus below the “Red Rock”. The investigations did not reveal any evidence of a violent crime , so that an accident (cliff fall) was assumed. The investigation was closed in June 2017.

Reconstruction of the events on the night of their disappearance

On the late evening of June 6, 2007, the student teacher Tanja Gräff attended a student party at Trier University of Applied Sciences with fellow students who were friends . With an estimated 10,000 visitors, the friends gradually lost sight of each other. Around 3:30 a.m., Graeff was seen by a friend near the stage who asked her if she wanted to go home with him. An unknown, about 1.80 m tall man is said to have suddenly interfered with the request that the acquaintance should “leave Tanja alone”. Since, according to his friend, Gräff seemed to know the man, he left shortly afterwards without her.

At around 4 a.m. she was seen by several witnesses in the FH parking lot. They all reported unanimously that Tanja Gräff had arranged to meet a friend in the city center by telephone. Then she is said to have asked the group how one could still get to Nikolaus-Koch-Platz in downtown Trier at this time . These people didn't notice anything unusual about Tanja's behavior either, she is said to have been in a good mood. Witnesses remember that behind Tanja there were two young men, one of whom could be described in more detail.

At 4:13 a.m. Tanja Gräff phoned her friend in the city center for the last time from the FH premises. After this phone call, one can only speculate about Tanja Gräff's whereabouts, at least she never made it to Nikolaus-Koch-Platz.

Hints

An ear witness testified that in his apartment not far from the parking lot near the valley station of the disused Trier gondola lift at 4:30 a.m., a loud, panicked woman woke him up. However, the experts from the Trier Criminal Investigation Department stated in a phonetic report in 2015 that even a loud scream could not have been heard from the witness at the crash site of the red rock not far from the technical college. The witness, in turn, said in a documentary that he "very well" heard the screams during the experiment. (see below)

A group of other witnesses stated that between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on a footpath they saw a woman who looked like Tanja Graeff arguing with a man. During this time window, an event assistant who was busy dismantling the safety fences made a similar observation at another point on the site. He testified that he had seen a quarrel between a woman, who could also have been Tanja Gräff, and a dark-haired man. The man had therefore persuaded the woman, while she was said to have said that he should “not touch her”, that she “just wanted to go home”. A group of young people who were nearby then became aware of the dispute. Two men from the group went to the couple, whereupon the man is said to have left. About 10 minutes later, the event assistant wants to see the man have left the site through the co-driver's window at the wheel of a blue Peugeot 307 . According to the witness's testimony, the license plate consisted of black numbers on a yellow background.

Manhunt

After Tanja Gräff had disappeared for two days, the police initiated a large-scale manhunt. A voluntary stay away or even suicide was considered unlikely from the start, as Tanja Gräff was considered very reliable, lived in socially stable circumstances and also had specific plans for the future. As far as is known, Graff did not have anything with her except her white shoulder bag, her cell phone and some cash. The entire surrounding area as well as adjacent sections of the Moselle and several quarry ponds were intensively searched, but without finding any evidence of Tanja Gräff's whereabouts. Tanja's friends and parents turned to the media and appeared on various TV shows. More than 6,000 photos that were taken at the FH party were evaluated by the officers, but Tanja Gräff could not be clearly identified in any of the photos. The inspection of her laptop also revealed no evidence. Tanja's cell phone was last assigned to a radio cell on June 7, 2007 at 4:13 am when she was on the phone with her friend in the city center; since then it has probably been switched off and was found in May 2015 together with the remains of Gräff. The driver of the blue Peugeot was never located and a group of possible witnesses who had been observed by the construction fence worker at the time was never identified.

In the absence of any new leads, the FH Police Special Commission was disbanded in January 2009. From autumn 2010 to November 2011 a three-person investigative group dealt with the case again. The suspicion that the Belgian serial killer Ronald Janssen might have something to do with the Tanja Gräff case was not confirmed. A witness reported that on June 9, 2007 - two days after the disappearance - around midnight in Homburg he observed a man carrying a whimpering woman on his shoulders to a white Peugeot station wagon. However, there were no further indications here either. An idea of ​​the case in file number XY ... unsolved special Where is my child? on March 30, 2011 did not provide any new information. Due to the rather vague statements of the witnesses who were mostly drunk on the night of the crime, no wanted photo has been created so far.

On January 27, 2015, a retired detective from the Trier police headquarters and a former member of the Soko investigating the case made serious allegations against the police and public prosecutor's office. There are still numerous unresolved issues. Traces and approaches, both with a view to the gondola lift and Tanja Gräff's extended circle of friends, have only been insufficiently identified. Important investigations were delayed and blocked by those responsible for at least four years.

A reward of 30,000 euros was offered for clues that lead to the clarification of the case.

Finding the remains and further policing

The Trier University of Applied Sciences is located above this almost 50 meter high red sandstone cliff. The location is about 400 meters to the right of the photo in the difficult to access area at the foot of the rock face. The cable car no longer exists today.

Gräff's remains, her student ID, clothing, jewelry and a cell phone were found during clearing work on a difficult-to-access site at the foot of the 50-meter-high rock face in Trier-Pallien . On May 12, 2015, the police and the public prosecutor officially confirmed in a press conference that the body was the missing Graef; the identification was initially based on the dentition , later it was confirmed by a DNA examination. World icon

After the discovery, there was public criticism of the police's search at the time, but the police spokesman and the Trier public prosecutor's office referred to the area overgrown with blackthorn and blackberries, which until recently was completely overgrown with trees and scrub and therefore absolutely inaccessible even to search dogs . In addition, the use of thermal imaging cameras was not possible due to a roof nearby that was very hot from the summer heat. In addition, after a fall of about 30 meters, the student got stuck in a fork of a branch at a height of 20 meters above the ground and her corpse only fell to the ground due to the progressive decay, so that it is questionable whether sniffer dogs searching below her ever found.

In June 2015, tests were carried out at the site to clarify whether a scream heard on the night in question could have originated there; a fall from a rock was also simulated with the help of dummies in order to obtain comparative data.

The results of the investigations were announced on July 9, 2015 at a press conference. Accordingly, all injuries that were found on the skeleton stem from the fall; No traces of previous violence were found. The fall attempts also made it possible to determine the likely point of the fall. Its nature makes it unlikely that Tanja Gräff was pushed or thrown, as a second person would probably have also fallen. The injuries also make it appear more likely that Tanja Gräff slipped on the sloping terrain and was not thrown down dead or unconscious. However, the participation of other people cannot be ruled out. It turned out that the student must have suffered fatal injuries after about five meters of free fall when hitting a ledge and that she must have been dead when she hit the fork.

The examination of the wristwatch and the other objects found on the corpse did not provide any new results. The investigation of the badly damaged cell phone turned out to be very difficult; data could only be backed up in November 2015.

On July 23, 2015 Tanja Gräff was buried in the grave of her father, who died in 2013.

In a documentary film broadcast on October 15, 2015, Tanja Gräff's mother and her lawyer criticized the investigative authorities again; in their view, there were not only failures in the investigation itself but also considerable deficits in communication with relatives. In addition, reference was made to the testimony of witnesses (who did not appear in the film themselves) who provided information other than the police and the public prosecutor's office. The ear witness told the documentary filmmakers:

"In the experiment, I probably very heard screams and a cry came the close in my memory a lot. I am amazed that the police say the screams could not be heard. I don't feel taken seriously at all. "

- Repeated testimony of the ear witness : Documentation murder without perpetrator? - The mysterious death of Tanja Gräff

However, it is not clear from the context of the film which screams the ear witness heard during the experiment, whether they were actually made from the crash site or others made from other locations for comparison purposes.

In May 2016 it became known that a few hours before Tanja Gräff a young man, who had also attended the summer festival, had crashed about a kilometer away from the later site. He was seriously injured in the fall and was in a coma for a long time. His relatives had reported to the police at the time; However, due to the time lag of more than three hours between the young man's accident and Tanja Gräff's last phone call, this ruled out a connection.

On June 28, 2017, the Trier public prosecutor closed the investigation; the investigations had not produced any reliable evidence of third-party negligence, and there were no further investigative approaches. The family's lawyer criticized the attitude, but refrained from filing a formal complaint.

Investigations were initiated by the Koblenz public prosecutor's office in July 2017 against the retired detective, who had expressed himself critical of the work of his former colleagues in the Tanja Gräff case in a letter to the editor and who had appeared together with the relatives of Tanja Gräff and her lawyer. The question was whether he might have passed on official secrets to the press. This procedure was discontinued in 2020 against payment of 3000 euros.

reception

Planned theater production

In May 2016, the Trier Theater announced that it would perform a play in 2017 that, based on the Tanja Gräff case, would deal with the question of how to deal with such a case in the media and society. However, the piece was taken off the schedule again. The reason for this was the lack of consent of the victim's mother for such a play, which those in charge of the theater saw as a prerequisite for a production. Criticism ignited the communication of the theater. Although the mother had not given her consent and had not responded to an email informing her of the plans, the theater announced the production for 2017 at a press conference and stated that the mother was involved. On May 31, 2016, the head of the acting division was dismissed. Reasons for this were not given, but the Trier head of cultural affairs had announced consequences in terms of personnel law in the course of the cancellation of the play.

novel

In autumn 2017 a novel was published based on the Tanja Gräff case. However, the narrative goes beyond pure facts and all names have been changed.

documentation

  • Murder without a perpetrator? - The mysterious death of Tanja Gräff , WDR 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Those responsible block important investigations" - Tanja Gräff case: Mother expresses allegations against investigators. In: General-Anzeiger Bonn. May 18, 2015, accessed August 2, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Looking for Tanja Gräff: The parents don't give up. Trierischer Volksfreund , March 31, 2011, accessed on April 12, 2012 .
  3. ^ Case Tanja Gräff: The investigators have now found out. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b Murder without a perpetrator? - The mysterious death of Tanja Gräff. Westdeutscher Rundfunk Cologne , October 15, 2015, accessed on July 21, 2016 (the ear witness replied in the video from minute 37:20).
  5. ↑ A bad suspicion. Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 19, 2007, accessed on April 12, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Where is Tanja Gräff? Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 21, 2007, accessed on April 12, 2012 .
  7. ↑ The trace in the case of the missing Tanja Gräff leads to Homburg. Saarbrücker Zeitung , June 5, 2010, archived from the original on April 15, 2016 ; Retrieved April 12, 2012 .
  8. ↑ Despite the use of drones: Tanja Gräff's fate remains unclear. Rhein-Zeitung , March 29, 2011, accessed on April 12, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Little hope of traces in the Tanja Gräff case. Der Westen (portal of the WAZ Group), November 10, 2011, accessed on April 12, 2012 .
  10. ↑ To the article “Tanja Gräff's mother raises serious allegations against the Trier police” (TV from December 8th). Volksfreund (section: letters to the editor), January 27, 2015, accessed on January 29, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Human remains found . Joint press release by the Trier public prosecutor and the Trier Police Headquarters, May 11, 2015.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.polizei.rlp.de
  12. ↑ Friend of Tanja Gräff: "Now it's easy to say that you should have found her". In: Focus Online. May 12, 2015, accessed May 16, 2015 .
  13. ^ Case of Tanja Gräff: Dozens of new clues and 900 old traces. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  14. ↑ Missing student Tanja Gräff: Chronology of a disappearance. Archived from the original on May 15, 2015 ; accessed on September 27, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Investigators recreate Tanja Gräff's fall on the steep slope in Trier - Elaborate reconstruction with dummies on red rocks - Forensic doctors on site too. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Tanja Gräff - no evidence of violent death. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Accident or homicide ?: Soko decrypts Tanja Gräff's cell phone. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  18. ↑ Trier student Tanja Gräff buried. In: Focus Online. July 23, 2015, accessed July 23, 2015 .
  19. ↑ The Tanja Gräff case. In: Spiegel Online. June 28, 2017, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  20. ↑ On the same night as Tanja Gräff, a young man fell from the red rock in Trier. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  21. ↑ Investigations into the death of Tanja Gräff stopped. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 28, 2017.
  22. ↑ https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rp/trier/todesfall-tanja-graeff-jetzt-wird-gegen-einen-ex-kommissar-ermittelt/-/id=1672/did=19934654/nid=1672 /ymyody/index.html
  23. ^ Case Tanja Gräff: Further investigation against ex-police officer. Trierischer Volksfreund, September 8, 2017, accessed October 5, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Proceedings due to the disclosure of official secrets in the Tanja Gräff case discontinued In: SWR. May 7, 2020, accessed June 15, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Scandal about the play about Tanja Gräff - Trier artistic director removes controversial performance from the program. In: Volksfreund.de. May 17, 2016, accessed May 18, 2016 .
  26. ^ Trier: Artistic director dismisses acting director. In: swr.de. Retrieved June 1, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Acting director of the Trier theater has been dismissed (update). In: volksfreund.de. Retrieved June 1, 2016 .
  28. ↑ The death of Tanja Gräff as a detective novel. In: SWR. October 12, 2017, archived from the original on October 13, 2017 ; accessed on June 15, 2020 .
  29. ↑ Murder without a perpetrator? - The mysterious death of Tanja Gräff. October 15, 2015, archived from the original on July 21, 2016 ; accessed on March 5, 2018 .