Casefile True Crime - Case 178: The Woman Without a Face

Episode Date: June 5, 2021

Between 1993 and 2009, DNA discovered at 40 crime scenes across Germany, Austria, and France were linked to an unknown woman of eastern European descent. Dubbed ‘The Woman Without a Face’, her crimes ranged from petty theft to murder. After her DNA was linked to the murder of Heilbronn police officer, Michele Kiesewetter, the suspect was renamed ‘The Phantom of Heilbronn’. --- Narration – Anonymous Host Research – Holly Boyd Writing – Jessica Forsayeth Creative direction – Milly Raso Production and music – Mike Migas Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-178-the-woman-without-a-face

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Airbnb is such a smart way to use what you already have to generate more income Whether you're saving for a wedding or a big trip somewhere or just trying to cover bills and possibly bump up your income Your home might be worth more than you think so find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents if you feel at any time you need support Please contact your local crisis center for suggested phone numbers for confidential support Please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website Don't walk down a lonely German street particularly at night If you do you might feel something heavy jump on your back weighing you down

You can't shake off the creature nor can you kill it? According to German folklore the Alphocker meaning leap upon is a mythological Shapeshifter that will hang on to you until you pass away from exhaustion or terror Variants to the legend say that the Alphocker kills its victims by tearing out their throats It can take the form of a goblin or a sad old lady and in some cases no shape at all The Alphocker can never be caught changing shape as it pleases and disappearing into the night It is said that church bells, sunlight, prayer and profuse swearing may help to ward off the evil creature Another version of the Alphocker lies in the legend of a beautiful young woman who prayed upon a

border guard returning home after a long day at work He spotted the woman and as he approached was attacked from behind by a force that he could not see nor fight off The guard struggled and screamed before the attack suddenly ceased The beautiful woman disappeared leaving the guard to wonder if he had even seen her at all Although the legend of the Alphocker was derived from roots buried deep in German mythology a real life shapeshifter struck throughout Europe in the early 90s So pervasive was this woman who became known as the woman without a face that she traveled through multiple countries and murdered recklessly without ever being seen

She vanished every time leaving few clues behind to mark her presence Leesalotta Schlanger was going about her morning as usual on May 23, 1993 The 62 year old retired church warden lived alone in the German town of Eder-Ulberstein 700 kilometers south west of Berlin Leesalotta made some lemon cakes and placed them in the oven to cook in preparation for any house guests that might visit On her kitchen table lay a bouquet of flowers tied neatly together with metal wire Three days later, Leesalotta's neighbor arrived at her home to chat over a cup of tea She knocked on the front door

There was no answer Finding away inside, the neighbor came across Leesalotta's body on the floor Flowers littered the kitchen table Around Leesalotta's neck was the metal wire that had been used to bind them She had been strangled with such force that the wire was embedded into her throat The brutality of the murder coupled with the strength needed to overpower the victim and inflict her injuries led police to assume that Leesalotta's killer was a man A thorough examination of the crime scene uncovered little in the way of evidence The wire was common, available for purchase from many hardware stores

No foreign fingerprints or footprints were left behind by the killer While left unharmed, Leesalotta's Yorkshire terrier didn't make a peep around the time of the attack, which occurred on the morning she was found or the day prior This led to speculation that Leesalotta knew her killer or otherwise welcomed them inside, unsuspecting of any danger Several items were taken into evidence including a brightly coloured floral teacup that was sitting out in Leesalotta's kitchen A neighbour reported who they thought resembled a salesman leaving Leesalotta's

house in the days before her body was found He was carrying a pilot's case and had a bodybuilder-like figure Detectives focused on this lead, but the man was never identified Eight years passed and Leesalotta Schlanger's murder remained unsolved On March 26, 2001, 61-year-old Yosef Valsumbach was alone at his home in Freiburg in Brysgau, 300km south of where Leesalotta Schlanger was murdered Yosef lived alongside a small shop where he dealt antiques Hearing a knock at the door, Yosef opened it and let the person on his doorstep inside

As he turned his back, Yosef was hit over the head multiple times with a heavy object Police later found Yosef Valsumbach's body on the floor of his home In addition to having his skull broken, Yosef had also been strangled with a piece of garden wire €125 had been stolen from him A foreign DNA profile was found on Yosef's body, presumed to have come from his killer The same profile was also uncovered in his kitchen on a glass and in Yosef's antique shop adjacent to his house Sampling found on the sign in the shop window indicated that the killer had been brazen enough

to turn it from open to closed after carrying out the murder The DNA profile was run through Germany's national DNA database As it was still in its infancy, the database did not locate a match However, the sample was uploaded in the hope of one day identifying Yosef's killer The sample itself was particularly intriguing While it was suspected that Yosef's killer was a male, the DNA proved otherwise It had come from a woman of Eastern European ancestry Although separated by almost a decade, the similarities between the murders of Lieselotte

Schlanger and Yosef Valsumbach were obvious Both were aged in their 60s, lived alone, and were strangled by wire Evidence taken from Lieselotte's house was re-examined following Yosef's murder A residual saliva sample from an unknown source was found on the floral teacup taken from her kitchen When compared to the sample on file from Yosef Valsumbach's murder, there was a match The same unknown woman of Eastern European ancestry was present at both crime scenes After following up nearly 3,000 leads, authorities were unable to identify the woman As with Lieselotte Schlanger's case, the investigation into the murder of Yosef Valsumbach went nowhere

Over the following months, the mysterious woman went on a crime spree throughout Germany In August 2001, police linked her DNA to several break-in-anners of garden sheds, 200 kilometers northeast of where Yosef was murdered A month later, a caravan was broken into a further 200 kilometers north The wanted woman's saliva was found on a half-eaten biscuit One month after the caravan break-in, a 7-year-old boy was walking near his home, 175 kilometers west, in the town of Gerlestone He stepped on a used syringe on a pathway, obtaining a needle-stick injury The boy was taken to hospital and tested for the transmissible diseases HIV and hepatitis Results came back negative

The syringe contained trace amounts of heroin and a minute sample of blood Test results revealed that the blood contained the same DNA profile as the woman who was suspected of murdering Lieselotte Schlanger and Yosef Valsumbach, as well as breaking into garden sheds and a caravan It seemed as though she was an intravenous drug user, with the need to fund her heroin addiction offering a possible motive for her crimes Without any further clues to hint at her identity, she was henceforth known as The Woman Without a Face Over one year passed, with no further crimes occurring that could be linked to the woman

without a face Then, in 2003, she re-emerged 220 kilometers east of where her used syringe was found in Gerlestone lies the bustling town of Dietzenbach On New Year's Day 2003, Dietzenbach police were called to a break-in at a downtown office building Nothing much was stolen aside from some loose change However, DNA recovered from the crime scene matched The Woman Without a Face She had returned after 15 months of inaction A high-profile prosecutor who liaised with the police spoke of the Dietzenbach break-in, telling reporters It was a professional job, she left no fingerprints, but she did leave a scraping of skin and that

was enough to pin the job on her A year later, in 2004, The Woman Without a Face's DNA was found yet again This time on a spring-loaded rifle used by a man to carry out a robbery in France It appeared that she was on the move across Europe But, by May 2005, she was back in Germany Earlier that month, a nomadic Romani man named Randolph attempted to shoot and kill his brother Police located the gun used by Randolph in the Rhine River which winds its way through the city of Worms DNA on a bullet was a match to The Woman Without a Face Worms was in close proximity to some of her previous crimes Randolph was arrested and charged with attempted murder

He testified that the gun had been given to him by his father years earlier He could not think of how any woman could be connected to the firearm and its bullets in any way Detectives believed Randolph and The Woman frequented the same Bohemian community even if they didn't know one another or interact directly This explained how and why she moved back and forth across Europe and had ties to everywhere she visited but never seemed to settle down in one spot for long A year later, 120km away in the German town of Zabrucken, an apartment was broken into Neighbours witnessed the offender enter the property and were able to provide a description

to Police It was a man with short brown hair, dark eyes, a large nose and a thin vertical line of facial hair that ran from his lower lip to his chin Police were stunned when DNA uncovered at the crime scene came back as a positive match to The Woman Without a Face This revelation provided a possible answer as to why they had been so unsuccessful in tracking her down Investigators now suspected that their target identified as a man or donned a male disguise A police spokesperson told the BBC We can't rule out that our suspect is a man now or that she looks like a man We just don't know

Later that year, The Woman's DNA was discovered yet again, this time in the Austrian village of Mauthausen Like previous robberies, this one targeted a store In this case, The Woman had accomplices A gang of robbers set off an explosive device under a manhole cover near a large shopping centre The blast caused the windows of an electronic store to shatter, allowing the group to enter the premises and steal mobile phones before fleeing Though DNA belonging to The Woman Without a Face was found at the crime scene, no other foreign samples were found One of the gang members was eventually arrested for the robbery,

but denied any knowledge of The Woman and wouldn't offer any further information that could lead to her identity She had somehow coerced or threatened her co-offenders to stay silent Michelle Kiesewetter grew up in the small German town of Uwe Weisbach, 350km southwest of Berlin Upon finishing school, Michelle joined the police force She started training at age 19 and once completed, joined the anti-terror unit of the German federal police By age 22, Michelle was stationed in Heilbronn, a historic city close to where The Woman Without a Face was known to strike In April 2007, Michelle Kiesewetter was a drug squad officer working undercover On the 25th, she was on duty, driving her green

and silver Series 5 BMW Her policing partner, Martin Arnold, was riding in the passenger seat Just before 2pm, the pair stopped for lunch They pulled into a Torezian visa in Heilbronn, an open space used for flea markets and festivals that served as a parking lot when not in use A short time later, witnesses heard multiple gunshots ring out from the parking lot First responders found Michelle lying on the ground outside her BMW She had been shot dead, execution style Martin had also been shot in the face with a bullet lodging behind his right eye He was lucky to survive After waking from a month-long coma, Martin revealed that he couldn't recall anything in the lead-up

to the attack A special task force titled Special Commission Parking Lot was established to investigate the shooting of the two police members Officers set up a drag net, registering any vehicles within a certain radius of the crime scene in the hope that it would reveal any leads While a forensics team went through Michelle's BMW Both Michelle and Martin's service weapons and handcuffs were missing, presumed stolen by their attacker The bullets fired upon the officers came from two different guns, indicating there were at least two offenders The trajectory of the discharged bullets revealed that the gunman had entered the BMW via the rear doors and shot the officer's point blank from the

back seat It happened so quickly that neither officer had time to draw their own weapons Working on the theory that the crime was an act of revenge on the state police investigated zeroed-in on groups that would harbour such resentment They made inquiries with the local homeless and drug-affected communities, but failed to uncover any leads or rule anything out The chief superintendent of Special Commission Parking Lot conceded It was brutal, apparently random, and with no apparent motive What are we dealing with here? And who is the accomplice?

Special Commission Parking Lot received its first major lead in June, two months after the shooting DNA samples taken from the center console and one of the rear arm rests of Michelle Kizaveta's BMW came back with a match The woman without a face had been implicated in yet another murder Following this revelation, police ramped up their search to find the killer, who had earned the new moniker based on her latest crime, the Phantom of Heilbronn A reward of 10,000 euros, which was later increased to 15,000, was offered for any information leading to the identification of the Phantom

The gang member who had worked with her previously to carry out a robbery of an electronic store in Mauthausen was interrogated yet again Even with a reward on offer, he remained tight-lipped Leads dried up, and of the 18 homicides investigated by the Heilbronn police in 2007 The murder of Michelle Kizaveta was the only one left unsolved The Phantom of Heilbronn, however, was just getting started DNA from the Phantom of Heilbronn, or the woman without a face, was found four months after the murder of Michelle Kizaveta

It was located in a shared garden south of Heilbronn, following a series of house break-ins in the area Nothing of major significance was stolen, only a few bottles of beer, some bell peppers, and a bunch of grapes Her DNA was found at other crime scenes, including the theft of a car and commuter, Her DNA was found at other crime scenes, including the theft of a car and commuter equipment from a school in the German town of Zarland,

as well as a stolen car from Linz in Austria Anyone else arrested in relation to these crimes refused to name the Phantom On January 30, 2008, three men from the country of Georgia traveled to the German town of Happenheim, 80km northwest of Heilbronn They had planned to buy used cars to transport home for resale Their dead bodies were later fished out of the Rhine River after traveling 25km downstream Two men were quickly apprehended for the murders,

one of whom was working as a police informant As reported in Crime Magazine, the informant had previously been given a station wagon by the local police, which he used to transport the bodies prior to dumping them in the river The station wagon was examined thoroughly The carpet within was stained with the blood of the victims When forensics took swabs of the carpet, they also uncovered the Phantom of Heilbronn's DNA

Her accomplices refused to give her up, instead implicating each other as being the killer The chief superintendent overseeing special commission parking lot told the Mirror Publication We are as baffled as everyone else about how her DNA came to be there, but it is one more piece in the mosaic All criminals, no matter how deadly or how clever, all slip up eventually We just hope we catch her before she kills again

On October 22, 2008, 45-year-old Diana Pavlenko was completing chores in her home in Weinsberg, six kilometers east of Heilbronn After cleaning some dishes, the psychiatric nursing assistant locked up and left her house Four days later, Diana's body was found near the hospital where she worked The Phantom of Heilbronn's DNA was found in Diana's car Co-workers described Diana Pavlenko as someone who was friendly and nice, but also extremely reserved Nobody knew much about her private life,

even though Diana had worked on the same ward for 20 years A neighbour spoke of seeing Diana only when she went on to the balcony to hang out washing Otherwise, she remained indoors, usually with the blinds drawn Diana's murder offered investigators a rare opportunity to narrow in on a suspect They theorised that the Phantom might have been a current or former patient at the hospital where Diana worked The psychiatric ward treated 8,000 patients a year between the ages of 18 and 62 Police interviewed some persons of interest at the facility, but privacy laws prevented them from accessing patient files that might have contained more valuable clues

The ward's chief physician was fairly dismissive that a female patient was responsible for the murder of his colleague Quote The connection between the DNA trace and us is a mystery to me I can't explain it all to myself When Diana Pavlenko disappeared, she was off duty for a week During this period, no patient went into hiding At Diana's funeral, a witness noticed a peculiar and somewhat unnerving presence He described, quote, neglected figures at the service

Unshavened and unkempt men donning parkers that no one knew personally He said they were the type of people that he didn't want to meet in the dark Despite the possible psychiatric ward lead, Diana Pavlenko's murder investigation reached the same conclusion as the others and was soon relegated to the cold case files It seemed as though authorities were always one step behind the phantom, but were unable to catch a break By the end of 2008, the phantom of Heilbronn had been on the run for over 15 years Her DNA was linked to nearly 40 major and minor crimes, ranging from small cases to minor crimes ranging from small burglaries to murder, including that of police officer Michelle Kiesewetter

The phantom's crime spree spread across central Europe, with Germany her most popular location to strike But she had also been linked to over a dozen crimes in Austria, another one of her frequent destinations Officials were left scratching their heads While they had uncovered some leads in her transient lifestyle, drug use and possible psychiatric treatment, there was only one certainty The head of the Upper Austria State Criminal Police claimed The only hypothesis we're going to use is that it has to be a woman Several men had now been arrested in relation to crimes involving the phantom But their involvement was the tip of an iceberg

My new strands of male DNA had been uncovered at multiple crime scenes Suggesting the phantom had accomplices from Albania, Croatia, France, Iraq, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia The same male DNA was never found twice The phantom had a different accomplice for each crime she carried out In an article about the violent fugitive, the Sydney Morning Herald noted The phantom of Hyalbron picks up and discards helpers with the same casual abandon with which she kills Highly regarded Viennese psychiatrist Dr. Kurt Kletzer had profiled many disturbing and dangerous individuals in his time He was quoted in the mirror as saying

The phantom is able to project an aura of normalcy while being anything but She is compelled to murder to feed her drug habit, thus reducing the victim to the status of a woman These psychopathic traits would have been formed at a very early age I would venture that the police are looking for someone from a damaged home life, perhaps a foster child or orphan A child who was abused or whose carers were addicts What doesn't fit at all is the murder of the policewoman and the attempted killing of her partner Unless they thought that they would have drugs, the act may be seen as the ultimate lashing out at authority By early 2009, 800 suspect women had been DNA tested, but all were ruled out as being the phantom

The cost of the investigation had reached over 12 million euros The reward for information leading to the identification of the elusive figure was now at 300,000 euros She had become, as the international media dubbed her, Germany's most wanted criminal In March 2009, a badly burnt male corpse was discovered in France along the French-German border Disfigured beyond recognition, French authorities thought that the body belonged to an asylum seeker who had been missing for seven years They attempted to identify the man by matching his fingerprints to those on his asylum application paperwork But his fingers were so burnt that his prints could not be obtained Alternatively, authorities swabbed his asylum seeker paperwork, hoping that minute traces of DNA from his fingertips would still be present on the paper

They were in luck, the paper contained to DNA, allowing for a comparison to the burnt remains The results were startling, the only DNA extracted from the paperwork was female It was a match to the phantom of Heilbronn Given that the asylum seeker who made the application was definitely male This revelation forced investigators all over Europe to rethink the phantom of Heilbronn case Until this point, they had failed to realize that the answer had been staring them in the face the entire time Hey friends, Kaelin here from Teach Me How To Adults and we talk a lot on our show about how to live your best life While also balancing being a financially responsible human

So if you've been dreaming of that epic vacation or you want to explore a new city while still keeping your bills at bay Listen up because we've teamed up with airbnb to share some ways on how you can easily become an airbnb host So when we took the big leap into adulthood and bought our first home We purposely looked for a place that we could airbnb whenever we're on vacation Or just if we want to try working out of a different city because we both work from home and we love traveling And it's honestly the perfect way to have the freedom and flexibility to travel or just go wherever you want While giving you that second stream of income and covering your cost while you're away And you don't need a mansion or an entire floor of your home

It could honestly be as simple as just renting out a spare room or just occasionally doing it if you are traveling for a little bit You could honestly be sitting on an airbnb and not even know it So whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun Your home or spare room might be worth more than you think find out how much at airbnb.ca forward slash host In frickenhausen germany 90 kilometers south of heilbronn is the production plant for griner bio one The bioscience company specializes in the development and production of high quality laboratory products During the period that the phantom of heilbronn was wreaking havoc Griner bio one was busy manufacturing cotton swabs for use in laboratories all over europe

They were also used by certain police departments to collect a dna at crime scenes A 71 year old woman worked in the griner bio one production plant in germany A long-term employee her job was in the factory packaging the cotton swabs Of eastern european descent This woman was the phantom of heilbronn However, she was completely innocent of any crime Unbeknownst to her and everyone else She had been contaminating the swabs with her own dna

This discovery was made in 2009 when investigators realized that the phantom of heilbronn's dna Only showed up at crime scenes where the griner bio one cotton swabs were used Crime labs who had used swabs from other sources never had a case attributed to the phantom An investigator explained the contamination to the built newspaper The things were double packaged. We thought they were the Mercedes of cotton swabs The swabs were marketed as being sterile and they were They had been processed to remove all germs fungi and viruses But the process did not destroy dna

They simply weren't designed for collecting genetic material Hence forensic technicians across three nations had for years found the same dna at scores of crime scenes Because they had brought it there on the sterile swabs they carried Griner bio one international expanded on this They announced that the swabs which were sterilized with ionizing radiation and were sterile for medical purposes Were never certified for use in dna analysis As any existing contamination could not be removed by sterilization The revelation that the phantom of heilbronn was no more than an unsuspecting elderly factory worker

Proved a huge embarrassment for investigators A member of the berlin association of lawyers told the times that DNA analysis is a perfect tool for identifying traces What we need to avoid is the assumption that the producer of the trace is automatically the culprit DNA evidence on a crime scene says nothing about how it got there There is good reason for not permitting convictions on the basis of dna circumstantial evidence alone Upon learning that the phantom of heilbronn didn't exist Dozens of crimes across europe needed to be reexamined

While detectives had been chasing a literal ghost the real perpetrators were getting away with murder In 1963 the american comedy film the pink panther was released It follows the story of a bumbling inspector named Jacques Clousseau As he hunts down a jewel thief known as the phantom before he can get his hands on a priceless diamond called the pink panther The film was an international success and inspired a spin-off cartoon series of the same name Two years after the phantom of heilbronn had been identified The police were still no closer to solving the many murders falsely attributed to her

Including that of police officer Michelle Kiesewetter In early november 2011 a number of german media outlets received a dvd They placed the disc into a player and a recognizable cartoon character popped up on screen The pink panther As reported in The Guardian the dvd started with the pink panther strolling through an unknown city With the show's iconic music score playing in the background The pink panther then bombs a grocery store Suddenly real news footage taken in 2001 of a shop being bombed in cologne germany flashed on screen

The disturbing video continued with the pink panther watching television as horrific images of real murder victims And the associated crime scenes were shown one after the other Just before the conclusion of the dvd the pink panther could be seen reclining in a chair As he watched the media footage from the funeral of police officer Michelle Kiesewetter Then the image of a firearm appeared on screen It was Michelle's service weapon stolen from her by her killer immediately after her murder The dvd ended with an exasperated pink panther pointing to a sign on the screen that featured the words National Socialist Underground

Ulva Bernhardt and Ulva Mundtlos grew up in the city of Jena 300 kilometers northeast of Heilbronn As reported in The Guardian, Jena had long been a heartland for those with radical far-right views The youth club where Bernhardt and Mundtlos met as teenagers served as a location where young people could find others with extremist right-wing views When Beato Shaper became a member of the same club, she and Ulva Mundtlos quickly fell in love She and Ulva Mundtlos quickly fell in love On her 19th birthday, Shaper met Ulva Bernhardt and developed strong romantic feelings for him also initiating a love triangle between the group Together the trio founded the neo-nazi terrorist group the National Socialist Underground or NSU

They spent the 90s getting into fights with left-wing groups on the streets Both Bernhardt and Mundtlos shaved their heads and dressed in a tire befitting of the neo-nazi scene at the time As reported in The Guardian, they visited the book-involved concentration camp memorial dressed in homemade SS uniforms And invented a board game in which the winner was the person who had sent the most Jewish people to concentration camps Bernhardt, Mundtlos and Shaper all came from well-respected families Their parents treated their children's interest in neo-naziism as a passing phase But it was far from a hobby It consumed every aspect of the three team's lives

They even worked in a store that sold Nazi paraphernalia under the counter The NSU were just getting started In April 1996, Bernhardt hung a doll torso with the word Jew and a star of David off a motorway bridge Connected to the doll were wires leading to a cardboard box that read, beware of the bomb Although a hoax, Bernhardt's fingerprint was found on the phony bomb device, enabling police to make a quick arrest Bernhardt already had a long rap sheet, including offences for endangerment of road traffic, resistance to a law enforcement officer, extortion dangerous bodily harm, sedition and violation of gun laws Yet he was acquitted for the bomb hoax incident

While it could be proven he handled the box, there was nothing to prove he had knowledge of the hoax He was still put away Serving just over two years in juvenile detention for possessing three right-wing extremist CDs he intended to sell This coupled with his criminal history was enough to get him off the streets temporarily Two years later in January 1998 police in Jena received a tip-off and searched Bernhardt's garage Inside they found 1.4 kilograms of TNT enough to cause a major explosion However, by this time, the three members of the NSU Bernhardt, his friend Muntlos, as well as their girlfriend, Chaeper, were already on the run

They hid out in an apartment 85 kilometers away and used fake IDs and aliases to avoid recognition While German officials were hunting the phantom of Heilbronn, Bernhardt and Muntlos went on a murderous rampage unrelated to any of the phantom's crimes Harboring an intense hatred for Turkish immigrants, the two men targeted the Turkish population with Chaeper assisting in the planning of the attacks On September 9, 1998, the Turkish authorities began their search for murder On September 9, 2000, they shot and killed a florist as he sat in his work van in Nuremberg Police fabricated a motive for the crime involving the Turkish criminal underworld

Despite the victim's wife denying this theory, police were staunch in their opinion When three more Turkish nationals were found shot dead soon after, the police were certain it was all gang-related Meanwhile, the NSU continued their string of attacks They sent a bomb disguised as a Christmas present to a grocery store owned by a Turkish family When the store owner opened the gift, the bomb detonated Nobody was killed in the blast, but the store owner's daughter was seriously injured Following this, the NSU went underground for three years They resurfaced in February 2004 to kill the manager of a kebab restaurant

Four months later, they placed the nail bomb on a busy shopping street in Koypstraza, Cologne, an area with a higher Turkish population The blast injured 22 people Over the following two years, three more Turkish men were murdered Police were well aware of the pattern, but were adamant it was an internal conflict Another shooting in June 2006 was believed to be related, but as the victim was of Greek-German heritage, investigators could not be certain All of the shootings committed by the NSU were the same in that they were all done in an execution style manner

The victims were shot in the face while looking directly at their killer The firearm used was a CZ-83 semi-automatic pistol Police efforts to narrow in on the offenders were hampered by their ongoing assumption that they were members of the Turkish criminal underworld They maintained this belief, despite evidence of the contrary Two of the murders took place near police stations, something the underworld would avoid at all costs Witnesses reported two men of German or Eastern European appearance fleeing the scenes of the shootings on pushbikes Furthermore, the murders took place when the victims were breaking their regular routine,

implying they were opportunistic, not premeditated Although a right-wing terrorist group was briefly suspected by the police, it wasn't until the pink panther DVD emerged when the perpetrators were formally identified as the National Socialist Underground On November 4, 2011, Uwe Bernhardt and Uwe Muntlose donned guerrilla masks and attempted a robbery in the Eastern German city of Eisenach Robberies were the pair's means of funding the NSU Their efforts failed and the pair were forced to flee on their bicycles They took shelter in a caravan Bernhardt had rented, where they'd wait until the heat died down

The two men were completely unaware that they had been covertly tailed from the scene of the botched robbery to their current whereabouts Upon realizing they were surrounded, Bernhardt and Muntlose made a pact After setting the caravan on fire, Muntlose shot Bernhardt fatally in the head before turning the gun on himself In the remains of the caravan, police uncovered a number of guns including the firearm issued to police officer Michelle Kiesewetter A check of the caravan's registration revealed that it was one of the vehicles identified in the police dragnet shortly after Michelle's murder Beata Chaeper learned of the suicide of both her lovers later that day

At 3.05pm, she emptied a 10-litre canister of gasoline throughout the apartment the trio used as a hideout Chaeper then made a hasty exit with her two pet cats in cages She also had with her 15 copies of the Pink Panther DVD the group had edited together As she walked away, the apartment wall exploded and flames engulfed the building Chaeper approached a woman walking by and placed the cages containing her cats at her feet She asked the stranger to look after her animals for a minute Chaeper then ran away Inside the wreckage of the apartment, investigators found several newspaper articles about murders committed on Turkish immigrants

several thousand euros in cash and checks, a CZ pistol, and a pair of handcuffs The handcuffs had belonged to officer Michelle Kiesewetter German authorities were confident that Uwe Bernhardt and Uwe Mutlos were responsible for Michelle Kiesewetter's murder Testing of the CZ pistol revealed it was the murder weapon used in the other nine murders attributed to the NSU Meanwhile, Beata Chaeper was on the run, traversing Germany via the railway system Sometime during her travels, she posted the copies of the Pink Panther DVD to various media outlets The DVD and the confessions from the NSU soon made national headlines November 8, 2011 marked four days after the deaths of Uwe Bernhardt and Uwe Mutlos

Local police in Jena, where the NSU was founded, received a call When a police officer answered, she was greeted on the line by a female voice Beata Chaeper here, I am the one you're here for The local police department was not aware that Beata Chaeper was wanted for the NSU crimes and the officer terminated the call However, Chaeper soon turned herself in to authorities Beata Chaeper was charged with all the crimes attributed to the NSU This included the shooting murders of the nine Turkish men

The two bombings, the attempted murder of Officer Martin Arnold and the murder of his policing partner, Officer Michelle Kizaveta Four men were also charged as accomplices and ordered to stand trial with Chaeper on the grounds of procuring weapons for the NSU and for being accessories to the bombings Of the four men, only one, a former neo-Nazi, showed genuine remorse for his role in the murders The failure of the German police to acknowledge that the spree killings of Turkish nationals could be anything but an internal conflict within the community's criminal underbelly prompted outrage from the public

German police were even accused of turning a blind eye to right-wing extremists This level of ignorance enabled the NSU to function unabated for 13 years In response to the criticism, the president of the Federal Intelligence Agency as well as several other high-ranking security officials resigned from their positions The informal title of the investigation into the crimes, the Kabab murders, was also criticized for being deeply offensive to the Turkish community Only two of the victims worked at Kabab shops

and even so, the racial and comical undertones of the name were obvious It did little to depict the seriousness of the crimes and the grief of those impacted causing an overall dismissiveness of the growing threat by the mainstream media and those of other creeds The trial against Biyata Chaper and her four accomplices began in 2013 overseen by a panel of judges only Neo-Nazis packed the courtroom and loitered outside

with publication The New Republic commenting that it gave the trial a menacing presence Chaper barely spoke, leaving her attorney to communicate on her behalf through lengthy pre-written statements Those called to give evidence on behalf of the defense attempted to slow proceedings as much as possible Victims families who had hoped for some answers as to why their loved ones had been targeted were left largely in the dark In closing arguments, Biyata Chaper's legal team argued that she had once been a Nazi but had changed her ways shortly after the NSU began their attacks

Therefore, she was no longer a part of the National Socialist Underground when Uwe Bernhardt and Uwe Muntlose began their crime spree against the Turkish community Rather, she was just their roommate As German law required at least three consenting people to form a group The defense argued that their client could not be held responsible for the actions of two people if she didn't associate with them as a group The prosecution argued that Chaper knew exactly what she was doing and was always an active member of the NSU, stating

The motive of all these crimes was a far right ideology The fever dream of a country free of foreigners and the intention to shake this free, friendly country in which we live to its core in order to prepare the ground for a disgusting Nazi regime The trial lasted 437 days and involved 73 separate lawyers and hundreds of witnesses All defendants were found guilty Sentences for Chaper's four accomplices ranged from two and a half to 10 years prison Chaper received a life sentence with particular gravity

This means she can apply for parole after serving 15 years jail time but will be unlikely to receive it Although it couldn't be proven that Chaper had been at any of the crime scenes the judges concluded that she was aware of and contributed to the killings that were designed to spread fear and insecurity among immigrant communities Not everyone was convinced that the deaths of Uwe Bernhardt and Uwe Muntlose and the imprisonment of Biata Chaper marked the end of the National Socialist Underground The NSU Watch, an alliance of anti-fascists and anti-racists

dedicated to tracking the NSU movement and imparting knowledge about neo-Nazis, commented The court is desperately maintaining that the NSU is a thing of the past that right-wing terrorism no longer exists The results of the main hearings, the inquiry committees and our own research show that the NSU is a network, it still exists and it was not a group of three loners We will persist until the families, the public and we all know the identities of all the NSU supporters

and until they've been held accountable We want justice Lawyers for Biata Chaper lodged an appeal which has yet to commence The reason why the NSU targeted police officers Michelle Kizaveta and Martin Arnold remains a mystery The notion that they were targeted for their service weapons or seized drugs although readily accepted in the beginning lost traction over time One other theory has since emerged that helps shed a light on why the offenders stepped out of their typical racially motivated MO and targeted two police officers

Michelle Kizaveta had a cousin named Anya who was also a police officer As reported on the world socialist website in 2014 Anya told a parliamentary committee that her daughter who was Michelle's cousin might have had ties with a neo-nazi group named Blad and Dona Anya also admitted having links to the far right scene in the past including supporters of the NSU She stated that her father who was a police officer and her husband a security officer also had ties to neo-nazi groups The inquiry concluded that perhaps Michelle Kizaveta knew too much about the workings of the NSU

It was also established that at least two of the 10 authorities including the lead investigator assigned to the Michelle Kizaveta case had once belonged to the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan This prompted speculation that the police were intentionally turning a blind eye to the attacks carried out by the NSU In 2016 an international standard was finalised to minimise the risk of human DNA contamination

in products used by authorities to collect forensic material This came about largely due to the errors caused by the phantom of Heilbronn case Known as ISO 18385 the guidelines provided advice to manufacturers, police forces and laboratories worldwide on steps that can be taken to avoid similar incidents from happening in the future Many of the murders attributed to the phantom remain unsolved In July 2016 a man gathering mushrooms in the woodlands near Rota-Herbrun, central Germany found skeletal remains that had been partially uncovered by wild animals They belonged to a nine-year-old girl named Peggy Kanoblock

who went missing 15 years prior while walking home from school DNA samples from a small piece of cloth found at the scene matched those of deceased National Socialist Underground member Ulva Bernhard The finding shocked investigators News publication DW reported that the finding might open a new chapter on the NSU's shocking murder spree The discovery led to the implementation of a special police force tasked with going back through unsolved homicide cases involving children to see if any others could be attributed to Ulva Bernhard and the NSU

A year later investigators concluded that Bernhard had nothing to do with Peggy's death His DNA had been transferred accidentally onto the cloth uncovered at her burial site This occurred via equipment that had previously been used to examine evidence from the burnt out caravan that contained Bernhard's remains This marked yet another DNA contamination blunder despite the lessons learnt in the phantom of Heilbronn incident Arief Sardurch was a survivor of the 2004 nail bomb blast carried out by the National Socialist Underground He is still coming to terms with the attack that seriously wounded his daughter but has since revealed that what he faced in the aftermath was worse than the actual

explosion In an interview with DW, Arief stated I said that I think neo-Nazis were behind the attack The officer then just held his finger to his lips and he didn't seem to want to hear anything more about it Fear became my constant companion I could not even talk to my wife about it until five years later Arief speaks at events about the consequences of racism and xenophobia He continues to spread awareness about the far right terrorist extremists who he believes are still operating today At one conference, a member of the crowd asked

Arief how his family were coping With tears in his eyes, he said I won't stay silent, that I have learnt As long as you say nothing, nothing changes