Case Rebecca Reusch - the great reconstruction
For a month and a half Rebecca has disappeared from Neukölln. The homicide squad suspects her brother-in-law of killing her.
Berlin. The "outskirts Neuland I" is a contemplative residential area in the south of Neukölln, less than five minutes drive from the Gropiusstadt. Detached houses with small gardens, in the bushes vernal birdsong. Otherwise it is quiet. The streets in the neighborhood are named after craft trades. There is a carpentry and a Dachdeckerweg, a locksmith and a Rohrlegerweg.
And there is the mason way. Here is a small house with gray-beige clinker bricks. So this is the house where the only 15 year old Rebecca Reusch probably spent the last hours of her life. And here lives Florian R., the girl's brother-in-law and the man whose face was seen on a mug shot and whom investigators suspect until today to have killed Rebecca - without them being able to prove this accusation.
Case Rebecca Reusch: There are indications, but no evidence
If the homicide investigators had three wishes, one might think that in the morning hours of the 18th of February, the day the pupil disappeared, there would have been more activity in the settlement.
For who knows, maybe someone would have noticed something. Maybe a witness would have heard the gasp of a man. A man who apparently carries a heavy load. And maybe this witness would have seen the man carry an object over his shoulder on the paved path from the brick-building entrance to the garden gate. A shapeless sack-like something, he might have described in the interrogation, wrapped in a fleece blanket. And on request, the witness might have said that this something could have been a lifeless body.
Maybe the witness would also have seen the man hoist the baggy something in the trunk of a car, yes, he would have recognized the raspberry-colored Renault Twingo in a photo, the car whose license plate just hours after Rebecca's disappearance from an electronic detection system the A12 was registered in the direction of Frankfurt (Oder). Then the juxtaposition. And the sentence: "The second from the left! This is the man who balanced the bag in the fleece blanket in the trunk. "Yes, that's exactly how the witness would have described his impressions from the mason way. Because that's how it must have been. Something like that anyway. At least the investigators believe that.
No witnesses in the case of Rebecca Reusch
Maybe it was like that. Or maybe very different. Because the witness does not exist. Only fiber traces of a fleece blanket and Rebecca's hair in the trunk of the Twingo. Only evaluations of cell phone data, which indicate that Rebecca was at the suspected time of the crime alone with her brother-in-law and that she has never left the house on Maurerweg alive. There are, therefore, the evidence on which the investigators could build their hypotheses and assumptions and the prosecutor could apply for a warrant.
What is not there is evidence. And that's why the Berlin district court has lifted the arrest warrant against Florian R. That's why he is free again. And Rebecca is far from it
Memories of Georgine Krüger awake
When people disappear, the cases land on the desk of Dirk Mittelstädt fairly quickly. The head of the commission is the head of the missing person office at the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) at the Keithstraße in Tiergarten. In the monumental and listed building also sits the LKA Department 1, responsible for "offenses on humans". So it says in official German.
The house is as closed as the homicide itself. Who wants to enter, must ring. Behind the entrance gate an imposing hall, left and right stairs lead to the upper floors. Who has an appointment, will be picked up. Guests are not allowed to move freely here. And if they did, they would lose themselves in the hallways.
Mittelstädt, dark hair, smoker's voice, firm handshake, has his office on the third floor. With his team, he has worked on some of the most famous cases of missing persons, including cases of young girls.
Sandra Wißmann, then twelve years old , disappeared in November 2000.
Georgine Krüger, then 14, disappeared in September 2006 .
And now Rebecca Reusch. Disappeared on February 18 this year. 15 years old, 1.70 to 1.80 meters tall, brown, shoulder-length hair. So it is in the missing person report.
Murder investigators meet every morning and evening
Mittelstädt can not comment on the details of the case Rebecca - and at the meeting with the Berliner Morgenpost is quickly clear that he will not do that either. That is understandable. Details could reveal offender knowledge and torpedo the investigation. Those who listen to Mittelstädt feel that the Rebecca case was not unusual at least in the beginning. The girl did not show up at school. Reports like these reach the officials practically every day. In the case of Rebecca, the next steps followed quickly. The day after her disappearance, the case landed at the missing person's office. Only two days later, the police went public. On February 22, the homicide commission took over.
Since then, the murder investigators meet every morning and every night to discuss their actions. A spartan meeting room with a long table in the middle and a whiteboard on the wall. This is what they look like, the rooms in which the threads converge during a murder investigation. Here, the investigators exchange knowledge, develop hypotheses and reject them again - and seek ways to condense the chain of evidence so that an urgent suspicion can be justified. Six to eight investigators and a boss work in a homicide. In the meantime, two homicide teams are working together at Rebecca. When Thomas Scherhant describes the work in the meeting room and on the whiteboard, he talks about gathering "spider-web-like facts". Like Mittelstädt, the first Kriminalhauptkommissar is one of the most experienced investigators of the Berlin police. He's been there since the beginning of the 80's, meanwhile he heads the unit for the "cold cases" - the unresolved cases. In Berlin, that's about 270. Scherhant regularly pulls out such cases and taps them again. Maybe there are new facts? Often the forensic technology is technically advanced, or a supposedly secure alibi turns out to be wrong. As a murder investigator one must always question themselves. "The ambition is there to solve all cases," says Scherhant. Maybe there are new facts? Often the forensic technology is technically advanced, or a supposedly secure alibi turns out to be wrong. As a murder investigator one must always question themselves. "The ambition is there to solve all cases," says Scherhant. Maybe there are new facts? Often the forensic technology is technically advanced, or a supposedly secure alibi turns out to be wrong. As a murder investigator one must always question themselves. "The ambition is there to solve all cases," says Scherhant.
Rebecca Reusch: Ermittler verdächtigen Schwager - doch es fehlen Beweise
There is also a lot written about the family and the media,their own search ,BIL and the tips recieved so far..
