01x03 - Episode 3

[bunniefuu]

[Wolfgang] If a team of detectives

knows their trade,

and I use the word "trade"

very consciously,

they first see if the suspect,

Mr. Wichmann in this case,

has any kind of criminal record

and if there is

any information in his past

that might be of criminological interest.

And if they had done this,

they would've definitely seen

that from the age of 14,

he repeatedly committed crimes.

This can only lead us to one conclusion,

to take a closer look at him.

[Reinhard] We had a lot of questions

about Wichmann's background.

Things like,

"Who did he go to school with?"

"Which school was it?" and so on.

I thought it would all be in the files.

Because we thought

we could gather

a lot more information this way.

[Brockmann] Not only should we

interview people who knew Birgit Meier

but also people who knew Wichmann.

This way, we can create a timeline

and better understand them.

Why do people do what they do?

Why do they feel compelled

or what compels them

to take someone else's life?

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES

[eerie music playing]

[Brockmann]

Thanks to the Lüneburg city archive,

we had very good information

about how he grew up.

Namely, in temporary housing

without sewage or heating

and socially isolated in a small family.

YOUTH

Meaning he grew up

mainly relying on himself.

[man] Got him. Werner Wichmann,

born 7/8/1949, lives at 15 Streitmoor.

That's him, right?

- So, he moved there in 1949.

- Yes.

- With his family.

- Yes.

Then moved to 52 Ginsterweg in 1950.

And that's the so-called refugee center.

It's a settlement

for people with low income

who need help

and can't pay their rent anymore,

who weren't connected

to the sewage system.

You get an idea

of how bad it was back then.

[Reinhard] Kurt-Werner grew up

in a very problematic family

with a violent father

and a mother who was anything but caring.

Kurt-Werner

certainly didn't experience love.

[Brockmann] He was absent

from school a lot.

KURT WERNER MISSED 102 DAYS OF SCHOOL

Up to 102 days in one school year.

What's striking is

that he often had headaches, stomachaches,

so possible signs

of psychosomatic disorders

but injuries too.

The school records said

that his parents were

too unsophisticated to encourage him

and that the parents were a lost cause,

as they put it,

and that it made sense

to put him in a foster home

for him to receive more care.

But something he really enjoyed

as an eight, nine, ten-year-old

was walking in the forest.

The forest didn't expect anything of him.

It didn't scare him,

and he could pretend

that he was the king of this forest.

- [man 1] In front of the goal.

- [man 2] Well-played.

- [man 3] Yeah, good.

- [man 4] Come on, get it. Keep going!

- [man 5] Get the ball.

- [man 3] Come on, run!

- [indistinct chattering]

- [clapping]

[man 6] Yes, Kurt-Werner [hesitates]

always wanted to stand out.

From a modern perspective,

I'd say he really needed validation.

FORMER CLASSMATE OF WICHMANN

I'd almost call it

an attention-seeking complex.

He knew a lot about nature.

He knew where things were,

where the marshland was.

He knew where good hiding places were.

Everything that was

important to him as a child.

But, like I said,

he didn't have many friends.

His mother was always very happy

when he had friends over to play.

He always had

something secretive about him,

even as a child.

He'd have things buried

in different places,

and he'd always have

kind of strange ideas.

The thing that ended our friendship was

his cruelty toward animals.

He tortured them.

He'd stomp frogs to death.

Inflating frogs was

another one of his specialties,

which is plain horrible, of course.

And then, on top of that,

he suddenly vanished into thin air.

[Brockmann] His classmate,

Wilfried Wernicke, reported

that they often roamed through the forest

as young schoolboys

and that he would sh**t at birds

with his slingshot.

So he was already hunting at this age,

and what's notable

about what was reported to us

is that he would

bury these birds.

Why did he bury them?

That sort of thing

really grabs your attention.

POLICE PSYCHOLOGIS

Did the burying have something

to do with him, with his personality?

To do something forbidden

then undo it or, I mean, to hide it

instead of undoing it.

Of course, this fits with what we learned

from the search reports.

CAR FORD, RED, MODEL T 22,

LICENSE NUMBER LG-K 4

Why would he bury a car in his garden?

He didn't just bury it in his garden.

He built a rock garden on top of it.

And he was the only one

who knew something was hidden beneath it.

I think that's something

that distinguished him.

JANUARY 2, 1964

[glass squeaking]

This was our first apartment.

Our first one.

We didn't know back then they had a son

who had been in a foster home.

And this home specifically,

the behavioral one in Delmenhorst.

FORMER SUBTENANTS OF THE WICHMANNS

[Günther]

We'd basically only been living there

about six weeks when it happened.

The incident with Wichmann.

[Bärbel] Right before Christmas

[Günther] That's when we first met him.

We were on Christmas vacation,

and suddenly he was home

walking around in the yard.

He was only 14.

He was always playing around

with sanding tools and sharpening things.

He always kept his distance.

Uh, he had this strange look,

and he would watch us

whenever he could.

[Bärbel] And when he was inside,

and we left,

whether by foot or in the car

He'd always pull back

the curtain and watch us.

Around 6:00 a.m.,

I drove to the train station

to go to Hamburg,

and an hour later, it happened.

[chair creaking]

[huffs]

A strange feeling on my neck.

I open my eyes, and there he was,

kneeling on the bed

with his hands around my neck.

I managed to break free.

Maybe I screamed too. I don't remember.

Frank started to cry at this moment.

- [baby crying]

- [Günther] We had the crib in our room.

[Bärbel] We had the crib in our room.

[baby continues crying]

[Bärbel] Then he let go of me,

got off the bed,

went to the crib and bent over it.

- I got out of bed.

- I think he thought, "Oh man!"

Maybe he wanted to silence him.

I guess he hadn't expected me

to come after him so quickly

or to be in such good shape.

I said, "What do you want from me?

What did I do to you?"

[whispers wickedly] "Be quiet! Be quiet!"

And then he was gone.

[Günther] It's possible

that Frank saved his mother's life

Yes.

[Günther] by drawing attention

to himself.

He stopped strangling her.

He admitted nothing in court.

He basically didn't speak at all.

His father spoke.

He only said he wanted to steal money.

Yes.

- And they believed him.

- They believed it.

CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

AGAINST THE CONCERNED PARTY

ATTEMPTED GRAND THEFT AND COERCION

What's clear about this act is

that when he entered their house,

it didn't happen on the spur of the moment

because of an open door.

This was planned. He had a glass cutter

and cut a hole.

The act clearly shows that he had a plan

and wanted to carry it out.

He took a knife and knelt on the bed.

He needed the victim to be asleep

so he could get close

to see what it's like to strangle someone.

3 YEARS LATER

JULY 12, 1967

[Reinhard] "Three police officers

approached W's parents' home,"

"W" stands for Wichmann,

"who was due to be moved

to a juvenile detention center."

"Wichmann, who was standing

at the window with a low-caliber r*fle,

saw them and fled."

[r*fle c*ck]

- [man in distance] Stop! Stay still!

- [panting]

[Reinhard] "He threatened

the officers with the r*fle

[g*nsh*t echoes]

so they fired a warning shot

and told him to surrender."

"They then shot at him,

and one b*llet grazed Wichmann's leg."

[g*n fires]

"Still, he ultimately managed to flee."

"He was sentenced in Lüneburg

to one year in juvenile detention."

[engine revving]

3 YEARS LATER

NOVEMBER 21, 1970

[suspenseful music playing]

[car door shuts]

[Wolfgang] This all reached its peak

when he picked up a young hitchhiker

then r*ped and tried to k*ll her.

[suspenseful music continues]

[Brockmann] What's interesting

is that he let the victim go this time,

and then later,

after reading about it in the newspaper,

he went to the police

to try to correct the reports

and downplay what he had done.

17-YEAR-OLD HITCHHIKER

ATTACKED ON THE WAY HOME

And he was later sentenced,

and as far as I know

DISTRICT ATTORNEY ASKS FOR TWELVE YEARS

the district attorney

asked for a 12-year sentence.

At the time, he was 21 years old

BIRGIT MEIER'S BROTHER

but was sentenced as a juvenile

VICTIM FEARS FOR LIFE IN TRUNK OF CAR

to five-and-a-half years in prison.

FIVE YEARS IN PRISON

PUNISHMENT FOR A SERIOUS CRIME

r*pe, BODILY HARM

WITH DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY

I don't think he served

the whole sentence.

I imagine he served two-thirds

and then was released.

[Reinhard] Up to that point,

this all is somewhat normal.

There's this guy, Wichmann

FORMER HEAD OF SCID HAMBURG

who then, as you know,

was in contact with Birgit Meier

in whatever form it was.

Then you look into who he was.

What kind of criminal past

might he have had?

Then we discover the r*pe case from 1970

and learn something about his background.

Then you look in the files

and see almost 19 years of nothing.

You could take this to mean,

"Well, then nothing else happened."

"He was rehabilitated."

"He found his way in life."

Or you could also say,

"We've missed something."

We don't know

what happened in these years,

whether he really

did nothing for 19 years.

We'll know once we look into

who this person is.

The real trick now is gathering everything

about where Kurt-Werner Wichmann

was all these years

and then comparing it to the crimes,

capital offenses, and murders of women.

That's the key word,

"m*rder of hitchhikers."

Those were the criteria

they should have used,

especially if the crimes

were committed in a series.

It doesn't take long to stumble upon

the "disco murders" in Cuxhaven,

a series of murders

that took place between 1977 and 1986.

Each year, a young woman went missing.

When they searched his house in 1993,

they found street maps

THE DISCO-k*ller STRUCK NINE TIMES

including one with Cuxhaven on it.

MISSING MERTENS

MISSING SCHNEEFUß

In the files, it says it was "marked,"

whatever "marked" meant.

I don't know.

But there's clearly a connection

between Wichmann and Cuxhaven.

[ominous music playing]

[music fades]

[Brockmann] The interesting thing

about Wichmann's life is,

on one hand,

we have the cruelty toward animals

and even his violence toward people.

On the other hand,

the sadist in him stays hidden.

On one hand,

he's presented as a cemetery gardener,

but he often changed employers,

lied a lot,

and also faked facts, forged diplomas,

and created a résumé

that didn't reflect his actual life.

CERTIFICATE

GARDENER

[Wolfgang] It means he created

excellent diplomas for himself

for jobs he supposedly had, even in Spain.

BORN 7/8/1949 IN LÜNEBURG

1966-1969 GARDENING APPRENTICESHIP

He claimed he worked

at a company, getting glowing references.

ACCOUNTING: BOOKKEEPING - GOOD

BUSINESS AND LAW - GOOD

Later the company realized,

"Uh-oh, our employee is a m*rder suspect."

They took a closer look

and noticed it had all been faked.

Part of this facade

included his status symbols,

like having lots of cars

or a certain look with his leather coat.

He just wanted to be

unique and extravagant.

He wanted to flaunt a little.

And he also used his women

to maintain this facade.

His life with his wife gave him a facade.

It gave him normalcy that he could use

to not give his secret away

while still getting

to live his second life.

- [fire crackling]

- [eerie music playing]

[man] In general,

this kind of Dr. Jekyll

and Mr. Hyde character

is part of many of these personalities.

They often come across

as very friendly in public.

LAWYER

You're completely unaware

that there's a criminal hiding underneath.

People can definitely,

despite the improvements in our society,

shed this veneer and suddenly be

a totally different kind of person

PSYCHIATRIC ASSESSMENT 1992

ORIGINAL SKETCH WICHMANN

an evil one.

And I have had this experience repeatedly

and also repeatedly seen

how a person can shed this facade

and suddenly become a whole new person.

- [upbeat dance music playing]

- Please don't treat me like a stranger ♪

You know that I am no, no danger ♪

It hurts me so bad

It seems like a sin ♪

[Brockmann] He wasn't

the happily married kind of guy.

We know this from his wife,

who complained to her neighbor

that he had relationships

with other women.

This means he was pretending

to be in a relationship

because leading

a totally normal, conventional life meant

no one would ever believe him capable

of doing what he was actually doing.

This is also what we heard

when he was questioned

about the extent

of his relationship with Birgit Meier.

He said he had met her sporadically,

but they had no contact otherwise

because he was a happily married man.

When you only hear that, you think,

"Yes, of course,

if he's happily married,

why have a relationship with Birgit?"

But, since no one knows

what actually happened to Birgit

or why she went missing.

One theory is

[sighs deeply]

that there was a sexual element.

That's one of many theories.

We also knew

that Kurt-Werner Wichmann had ideas

about persuading women

he knew to play along

when he'd suggest things like,

"Hey, let's fake an abduction."

"We'll go on a vacation,

and they'll pay."

[Brockmann] Why did Birgit Meier

tell Mrs. Möwes,

on the day of her disappearance,

"I think I've inherited

my neighbor's housemate"?

That's why I still wonder

if they arranged to meet that evening.

Because Harald Meier also said,

and I think this statement is documented,

that she was dressed

particularly nice that evening

and that she had a new top that evening.

Harald Meier wasn't quite sure

if she got all dressed up for him,

but it didn't really make sense.

He even asked her,

to which she must've replied coyly,

"Are you expecting a visitor?"

Well, let's say she was coyly silent.

We know that Kurt-Werner,

despite various sources of income

like his job and sale of some of his land,

was always strapped for cash.

He needed money,

and this was actually a kidnapping.

[Brockmann] Maybe his plan was to use

Birgit Meier to blackmail Harald Meier

because he was a millionaire,

and Wichmann always wanted money.

Maybe he made her an offer,

and she said, "Are you out of your mind?"

"I'd never do that,

and my brother works for the police."

The other theory is

that he actually broke into her bedroom

to kidnap her

with the intent

of blackmailing her husband,

and that's when something went wrong.

And I also wonder,

in the case of blackmail gone wrong,

who knows what may have happened?

I wonder if he acted alone,

or did he need

someone he trusted to work with?

Because then the victim,

who needed to be kept hidden,

would also need to have been watched

and taken care of.

I have no idea.

[soft piano music playing on radio]

Langsam neigt sich der winter ♪

[electric razor buzzing]

Wie der Frühling erwacht mein Herz ♪

Nur der kleinste Blick

Von dir bringt mich ♪

[Wolfgang] At the time when he fled,

he had six cars.

Well, six were registered in his name.

Still to this day, we wonder

why he needed so many cars,

but we know he was very mobile

and that he traveled all over

Germany.

[Reinhard] We also noticed

he'd covered a crazy amount of kilometers.

Tens of thousands of kilometers, and we

[Wolfgang] At least 30,000 a year.

[Reinhard] And we couldn't explain

how he racked up so many kilometers,

considering he had multiple cars

at the same time in different places.

I found Claudia's profile very helpful,

which evaluated him,

based on his personality,

as someone who was on the road a lot,

looking, searching for women.

He was a sort of hunter of humans.

He was a man lying in wait,

watching, and he had

really dangerous nonsense in his head.

[Brockmann]

What he actually wanted to do is

to be alone and to be a hunter.

So the question is,

is he just driving around?

Or is he thinking,

"I'm constantly looking for prey"?

[Jens] "Tanned, buff,

and very attractive 30-year-old

AMATEUR CRIMINOLOGIS

seeks c*ck-hungry woman, up to 40,

for a sensual,

loving, and dirty relationship."

"Intimate affection as a couple

and GS fun, meaning group sex,

and nights

at the club should be included."

"Long-term relationship possible."

"Immediate response

to photo and phone number."

His haircut definitely stands out.

In the later pictures,

if you look carefully,

the body is almost identical,

so you can always tell

that they show the same person.

One more important thing is,

when his age was listed in any of the ads,

it always matched the current ad.

How did I even get

the idea to check personals ads

to look for Kurt-Werner Wichmann?

Of course,

I had certain information from the start,

like that he had had a lot

of romantic relationships,

and he possibly worked as a call boy.

So I thought to myself,

"I have to imagine the era."

It's 2020 now,

and so much is online these days.

YOUNG BIG-c*ck BI GUY,

LOVES a**l AND LEATHER

It's very different from 1989.

They didn't have Internet.

You couldn't look things up

on a smartphone.

They still had pay phones.

I thought it through and asked myself,

"Okay, how might he have been active?"

He needed to be easy to find

if he was a call boy.

[eerie music playing]

This ad is special

because it has a running text

that was basically in another magazine,

where he said he was 37

and looking for someone in Hamburg.

The key word is "forest."

It now comes into play.

MALE, 37, BI, SEEKS COUPLE

OR SINGLE PERSON. a**l, CINEMA, FOREST.

There's a second ad,

which has similar wording,

"Looking for two people

to have sex with in the woods,"

which, interestingly enough,

appeared just before the Göhrde murders.

BRUTAL MURDERS OF THE GÖHRDE k*ller

1,620 LEADS

BUT NONE LEAD TO THE GÖHRDE k*ller

THEIR k*ller STILL HASN'T BEEN FOUND

MYSTERY k*ller LEAVES BEHIND NO CLUES

JUST FEAR

[Jens] There's been a lot of speculation

about whether he may have driven

hundreds of thousands of kilometers

to various villages

where he committed murders.

I would argue

and think it's much more likely

that these long journeys were

the result of him pursuing sexual contacts

that he was looking for there.

Although, both are possible.

You have to consider

the personal ads may not have only served

to create sexual contacts

but also to establish sexual contacts

to later turn them into victims.

That's conceivable too.

Or maybe just to find victims.

[eerie music playing]

[Wolfgang] That was still a point

where we had already considered

whether there would be further crimes

in the area that could be related.

It was a process

that took a certain amount of our time.

It was clear to us that the point

of our activities was to gather

information and facts in order to convince

the Lüneburg district attorney's office

and the police,

who had no interest in conducting

further investigations at that point,

that a new investigation

was, in fact, necessary.

"Could we sit down together?"

I'm specifically talking to Lüneburg.

"Could we update each other?

Exchange information?"

"We're not the investigators,

but we've found new things."

"You're caught up in day-to-day business."

POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER m*rder*d?

"You're more than welcome

to check our information."

"But do something with it!"

So many objections!

Man, what's going on?

m*rder has no statute of limitations.

You can't stop looking.

[Brockmann] I find it difficult

when someone disappears, and bureaucracy

MISSING

CONCERN FOR POLICE CHIEF'S SISTER

leads to it being called "fate,"

and then it becomes a case,

then it becomes a number.

It becomes case number "whatever."

Then it's a file number.

And when a person becomes a number,

it's pretty dehumanizing.

And I think this has to be fought against.

NOT A TRACE OF BIRGIT MEIER

It's my job to fight it.

It's no way to do things.

To clear this up, Lüneburg always told us,

"We'd like to,

but the DA's office has our hands tied

because you can't investigate the dead."

Of course,

the question for the DA's office was,

"How can that be?"

[Gerhard] It's true

that the dead can't be investigated

because you can't take

legal action against them.

You can't indict them.

But, of course, it's also used

to prevent

complete clarifications of past events.

And that is, of course, unacceptable.

The phrase,

"You can't investigate a dead person,"

is an excuse for laziness.

There was a second suspect,

my brother-in-law,

who they had their sights on,

and above all, there were things,

let's call it "solid evidence,"

that suggested possible accomplices.

The case still has to be solved

FORMER HEAD OF THE HAMBURG DA OFFICE

before it can be closed

with the classic line,

"The case is closed."

That would mean it's clear beyond doubt

that the deceased person

was the perpetrator,

beyond all doubt,

and that it's also certain

that the person acted alone.

No accomplices,

no one who ordered the job,

and no one who helped.

If the case

hasn't been solved beyond all doubt,

then the investigation has to go on.

His house was searched

on February 24, 1993, the day he fled.

[sighs]

We also know that, after he fled Adendorf

or, rather, Lüneburg,

he traveled north towards Wilhelmshaven,

where his relatives lived,

and based on what we know,

he stayed there for several days.

The strange thing is, if I may interrupt,

that we have Wilhelmshaven here.

- Yes.

- Cuxhaven over here.

- Right.

- The missing girl here.

From between '77 and '86.

It's just dawned on me

that, while he was on the run,

he was also

in a camper of an acquaintance.

- Exactly.

- Wasn't it somewhere on the Elbe?

Yes, that's right.

- So, you know?

- [Wolfgang] Yes.

[Reinhard] You see this arch?

It follows the coast.

I mean, purely in terms

of the places he went.

It's very likely

that he was familiar with this region

if he was living down in Lüneburg,

especially with his connection

to the North, in Cuxhaven.

[Reinhard] He contacted

a whole lot of women

[Wolfgang] That's right.

[Reinhard] through regular personal ads

and in sex magazines.

There must be more people

who remember him.

They must've met up with him.

It'd be interesting

to know where he slept,

where they met, where their dates were.

[woman] I was at odds

with my husband at the time.

We had moved.

He was out and about a lot

with other women.

I had the Hamburg Evening Paper

and saw this personal ad

ONE OF WICHMANN'S LOVERS

and I replied to it.

He wrote something about

"businessman, free time during the day."

I thought, "I just want to flirt."

"I'm married." And I thought,

"I just want to have a little fun."

I was already thinking,

"Well, he's a wonderful, interesting man."

"He's funny too."

"He was so nice to talk to,

and his voice, he had a lovely voice."

I always teased him

about his John Wayne eye.

ANJA, YOU ARE MY NUMBER 1

One of his eyes looked

a bit different, a bit mean.

Kind of like a "cool guy's eye."

The other eye looked more friendly.

[young woman speaking indistinctly]

[woman] We often drove into the woodland.

He found a chair,

and he threw it up into a tree

- because he was so happy to meet me.

- [shouts in German]

[young woman giggles]

[woman] For some reason,

I thought it was very sweet.

But there was also this one time

when he grabbed me by the neck.

We went for a walk,

then he grabbed me

and put his hands around my neck.

And I said,

"Hey, cut it out!" or something.

It was as if he wanted

to test it to see if it was okay.

I was at Werner's place once too,

and he wanted

to handcuff me to the radiator.

I ran around the table

and said, "No, not with me!"

I always treated it like a bit of a joke.

There were a few things

when I think back,

I think, "Man, I lucked out."

One day, he came wearing shorts

to where I lived at the time.

He was completely different

from how he normally was.

He was really angry

and insisted I had to come with him.

"We can team up. We can fake a kidnapping.

Then your husband will pay the ransom."

I said, "I won't do that to my kids."

We had a huge argument in the car,

then I drove home.

I would've had no problem going with him

if he had

But, well, not with the children.

It was borderline, you know? Truly crazy.

After that,

he didn't come back for a while.

He didn't want to have

anything more to do with me.

He was very cold toward me.

In any case,

I knew I'd never see him again.

[male voice]

"My dearest, I'm immensely sad

AUDIO BASED ON

KURT-WERNER WICHMANN'S SUICIDE NOTE

sad that I ruined our life together."

"But, be honest,

isn't what I'm planning better for you

than me going to jail for years?"

[Brockmann] You can always read

suicide notes in different ways.

SUICIDE NOTE

LAST WILL

Does the person want

to put their affairs in order?

Or for clarity?

Do you see regret?

Guilt? Shame?

We saw none of that.

We saw no regret, no guilt, no shame.

That's why I think

these farewell letters were meant to

maintain the facade.

[male voice] "I hope and expect peace

from those I leave behind."

"Better yet, help each other

as much as you can,

and, dear Ali, always remember,

he's my brother.

I've caused him great pain too."

"I worry tremendously

when I think about our house,

our property

and everything connected to it."

"Please join forces together

to keep our house, our home."

"I assume the DA's office

will open this letter."

"So there are a few things

I won't mention."

[chuckles softly]

Of course, I then realized

that no one had looked into this letter.

Well, at least,

no one wrote about it in the files.

I assume they discussed it,

but there was nothing in the files

about how it was to be interpreted.

Criminologically, it's all

extremely significant and interesting.

There is so much evidence

that gives us a perfect picture

of his crime against my sister.

Even though he doesn't mention

that he k*lled anyone,

he does express this directly

when he tells his wife,

"What I'm doing now,

that is, checking out of life

is to spare me from years in jail."

He wouldn't have gone to jail for years

for having ammunition

and g*n parts in his trunk.

He'd go to jail for something much worse,

for m*rder.

Basically, Wichmann took his life

because he thought

the police would do their job right.

Had he known

how they were actually doing the job,

he wouldn't have had to k*ll himself.

He could've lived on for years.

DIED SUDDENLY AND UNEXPECTEDLY

ON APRIL 25, 1993

MY DEAR HUSBAND, A GOOD BROTHER

AND SON-IN-LAW - KURT-WERNER WICHMANN

"Keep my house and family together."

He absolutely wanted the family

to hold onto ownership of it

because, as long as

it stayed in the family,

the property wouldn't be renovated,

and no one would find anything.

I always described it as a desperate plea

to keep the house and property intact.

In other words, "Never sell it.

It has to stay in the family's ownership."

How could Wichmann be so dumb

to leave everything on his property?

If anyone found it, it would be obvious

that he was the perpetrator.

It's because he was a control freak

and had to have control of everything.

He had to have control of the house.

He had to have control of the car.

He had to have control over

his brother and over his wife.

[dogs barking in distance]

[Brockmann] His brother was

nine years younger than him.

They had a special relationship,

and it was characterized by affection,

from his younger brother

toward him at least.

And I think his brother

had been let in on his secret world,

and he had thereby

incriminated his brother

and possibly exploited

his brother in this way.

[Wolfgang] We considered

whether I should approach his brother

under the guise of, "Do me a favor."

"I assume you know

where I should look for my sister."

But in the end, he won't tell us anything.

He won't speak to us anymore.

But what was fairly clear to us

from the suicide note

and other events was that, ultimately,

there was a lot of evidence suggesting

Birgit Meier

was to be found on the grounds

or in the house at 15 Streitmoor.

[Wolfgang] In 2012, since the police

and the DA's office stopped investigating,

it was my turn again.

That's why

I kept wondering

if there was a way to maybe buy the house.

Since my brother-in-law

was wealthier than me,

and I wasn't in a position to do so,

I said, "Look,

buy the house. Buy the property."

Wolfgang said, "This is somehow"

BIRGIT MEIER'S HUSBAND

"This house is significant somehow."

I said to him, "Wolfgang, you know what?

This has all been such a strain on me

that buying it now

and doing anything else with it"

"No, we're not doing that."

[keyboard clacking]

I FIND THIS

COMPLETELY UNDOABLE AND MACABRE.

IT'D KEEP THE AWFUL MEMORIES ALIVE

DON'T OVERLOOK THE FAC

THAT THESE AWFUL EVENTS AFFECTED ME TOO

[Wolfgang] I can totally understand

his reaction,

but if we're going to find her anywhere,

we would find her

on Wichmann's property or house.

Even so, I felt the urge to get

a sense of the property and the house,

knowing that, in the meantime,

the property was now

under the ownership of Mr. Rudloff,

the subsequent husband

of Wichmann's widow.

Mrs. Wichmann had died in 2006,

and so I already knew

Mr. Rudloff was living alone

in the house on the property.

So I just called him.

Mr. Rudloff was very, very cooperative.

We searched everywhere,

the basement, the ground floor.

We also wanted to see

the secret room, of course.

All we knew about it from the files

was how much they had found there.

[Reinhard] We went into the house

and entered the

Let's stick with "secret room."

It actually had a normal door,

but it was also noise-insulated

and also had a chain with a padlock.

That was an unusual sight.

[Wolfgang] Of course, I expected

to open the door and find an empty room.

I was totally astonished

that there were many items in there,

which made me realize immediately

there may be a connection to Wichmann.

So I asked, "Mr. Rudloff,

did all of this belong to Wichmann?"

"Yes, of course."

"I didn't clear it out back then."

"We never used the room anyway,

and I just used it as a storage room."

ATTIC

"We took out some stuff,

but everything you see here

DRAFT CARD

the bookshelves,

the books, the video cassettes,

and the photo albums and so on,

the technical devices, all Wichmann's."

INSURANCE CARD "NECKERMANN"

ON THE D&W CATALOG

And I must admit, uh,

we were very, very surprised.

The walls weren't straight.

They came down to the floor at an angle.

You know? Like this.

You could sort of

By breaking down the paneling,

you could sort of enter

the empty space behind it.

And that's where we discovered,

if I remember correctly,

it was around here,

the listening device

which went down to the basement

into the tenants' basement apartment,

into their bedroom.

It was still fully operational,

and you can imagine

that, when people lived there,

he was up there

listening in on the people down there.

He clearly took

great pleasure in doing so.

Otherwise, there'd be

no listening device there,

even if he just had audio, no video.

[Reinhard] I still remember

that it led outside from this room.

I'd imagined

it would go more toward the garage,

which is where the rope led down to.

It was right across from here,

and when you opened it,

there was no floor,

and you fell into the garage.

[eerie music playing]

[Wolfgang] The question was,

what does this all mean?

One theory is, if the police

rang the doorbell downstairs,

he could use the rope

to make his way down there,

reach the garage, then get out.

That's the first theory.

The second theory discussed

was that it was a noose

so he could hang himself if he wanted to.

But the decisive discovery

among the things seen at first glance

was the videotapes.

My estimate is

that there were about 70 or 80 tapes.

There were actually

only three categories of videotapes.

The first one was

all these n*zi-related videos,

marches during the Third Reich

and reports about the army on tape.

The others were pornographic films,

then there were some recordings.

We looked at the backs and the boxes

then realized,

"Wait, some of these are written in code.

What could they mean?"

They had combinations of letters,

and so we took those first.

And astonishingly, they were videotapes

CRIME SHOW - COMPLETE BROADCAS

BIRGIT MEIER / GÖHRDE-MURDERS

of crime shows covering

the Göhrde murders and my sister's case.

[anchorman] For evidence

that might help solve the suspected crime

[Wolfgang] The obvious question was,

"How did we just find these?

Were they not kept in a safe place?"

In other words,

"Did they overlook these back in 1993?"

"Or what's going on here?"

The most interesting part was

that after the crime show ended,

there was a video afterwards

with viewers' reactions.

This segment was recorded as well.

And that was a clear sign

that he was extremely interested

in these m*rder cases.

I think there was another videotape

with a report from this show

about the two female hitchhikers

m*rder*d in Ludwigshafen.

This was at a time

when Wichmann

was probably staying in the area.

[phone line clicking]

[phone line crackling]

- [phone line clicking]

- [handset clicks]

[device beeps]

[Wolfgang] He had a small computer

at the time, probably a Commodore,

which was one of the first computers.

And even in the '80s,

starting around the mid-'80s,

you could use a so-called BTX system

which was the predecessor

of a computer program

that you could pay to use

to access

certain publicly available information.

BTX SCREEN TEX

[computerized music playing]

BTX is

an abbreviation for "Bildschirmtext"

and is a communications service

of the postal service.

Using an enhanced remote control,

you can retrieve all BTX has to offer.

But by using an alphanumeric keyboard,

you have many more options.

You could see that he had researched

the Köpping family's house with his PC.

Köpping, Göhrde murders.

It's quite incredible that in this room

Immediately after the m*rder,

in this room.

We found evidence of

There's the videotape

about the Göhrde murders,

and suddenly we discovered

Wichmann had looked up the Köpping family.

It was clear [chuckles]

that this wouldn't be

our last time in this room.

[Reinhard] There's more information

to be had. This is a chance.

That's a great source of motivation.

It riles you up

when everything you present

"Hey, could you please take a look?

We found something else."

When they dismiss you,

it really makes you mad.

As retired detectives, there was

a whole bunch of motivating factors.

POLICE

[Reinhard] Shortly thereafter, we heard

there was

a new chief of police in Lüneburg,

Kruse, a colleague who used to work

at the Department of the Interior

and who had talked to Wolfgang Sielaff

about Göhrde and his sister's fate.

He had been very open.

We thought, "This is great."

"We'd like to talk to him now."

[Wolfgang] In the end, he signaled that he

would have my sister's case reopened.

It wasn't

about a perpetrator-oriented approach

to get Wichmann.

It was about Birgit Meier's case.

Richard Kaufmann's cold-case team,

Iterum, was deployed.

Iterum.

It's a Latin word.

It more or less means "once again"

or "a second time" or "another time."

Of course, I was interested in,

if we have another chance to investigate,

which will probably be our last,

then the investigation

is to be carried out

by people who were unbiased.

Please choose detectives who had

nothing to do with the case previously.

And please don't pick any from precincts

that were involved in the case,

and please choose people

who are committed.

He thought,

"Yes, you can count on that happening."

[crowd chattering indistinctly]

[Wolfgang] There was a kind of uncertainty

about what kind of guy he was.

What has he done so far?

What is his background?

I already knew from the very beginning

he had lots of experience

with homicides, which is important

because we assumed

that my sister was no longer alive

and was the victim of a crime.

Since it's been 25 years, more or less

CHIEF SUPERINTENDEN

"TEAM ITERUM" LÜNEBURG POLICE

since he started

following his sister's case

and also actively working on it,

um, he was obviously skeptical at first.

"Great, two more new people."

The important thing is

to look at things once more,

with a fresh pair of eyes.

He said, "Let's start

by looking at the physical evidence."

"Because in order

to solve such an old case,

then we'll need the help

of any evidence that we might still have."

[Richard] The difficult thing

about this case was

that after evaluating the files,

we realized a lot of the things

that we wanted were missing

that should've been in a m*rder file.

Parts of files were missing,

missing exhibits justified by the fact

that Birgit Meier's case

hadn't been opened as a capital crime,

homicide case, or a violent crime,

but instead as a missing persons case.

[inhales] It had also been treated

as such for a very long time.

Their literal answer to my question,

"Where are the files and the exhibits?"

was, "They no longer exist."

So I asked, "Were they destroyed?"

"Yes."

[groans]

To be blunt,

this really sucked.

You can't say,

"The dead can't be investigated,"

when you have all this evidence.

The stuff they found there,

as one could clearly assume,

wasn't there because he was a collector.

No, he'd used it for his crimes.

You don't get rid of things like that.

You keep them.

No statute of limitations on m*rder.

We tried to find

the missing items and exhibits.

Might there be exhibits

lying somewhere in other files?

We went to all our colleagues

and all the DAs

who were involved over the years.

Most of them were retired.

We asked if they knew anything

beyond what was in the files.

"Do you still have any documents?"

"Do you happen to have

any notes that might help us?"

We had a haystack now

and were looking for a needle.

Except that 80% of the haystack

had already been removed,

so we had to try to find

the needle in that part of the haystack.

We tried to find all the details

that were missing from the files.

We discovered things,

found the tiniest details about

where something might be, and searched.

"Does this still exist?"

At some point

while searching the files, we came across

a list of items seized in 1993.

It contained a huge number of items

A GREEN sh**ting AND FISHING VES

CONTAINING:

including a sh**ting vest,

the kind hunters have.

1. TWO KEYS

2. TWO PACKS OF a*mo

They found handcuffs,

steel handcuffs in there.

CONFISCATION OF THE FOLLOWING ITEMS

2 PAIRS OF HANDCUFFS (IN A BAG)

Many of the items were examined,

many were not.

But, regarding these handcuffs,

I noticed one page

out of all the thousands in the files.

The handcuffs were sent

to the medical school

in Hannover to be examined

A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS WITH TRACES OF BLOOD

because a tiny speck

that might have been blood could be seen.

It was mentioned

in this examination report.

I tried to find the results in the files,

but they weren't there.

[birds cawing]

[Richard] So I asked Dr. Rothämel,

and he said he had

a vague memory of them and would check.

Then he called back and said

he still had the steel handcuffs

in the evidence room in the basement.

It was 22 years later.

Finding the handcuffs

was a huge breakthrough

because we could assume

that this speck of blood

And we assumed

from the start that it was blood

and that it could've been

a victim's blood.

This was extremely exciting.

"What's this here now?"

The situation was

that Wichmann was the only one

who had a key

to this secret room in his house.

He was the only one

who had used the sh**ting vest.

And given that the handcuffs

were in the upper-left breast pocket,

then we can be very certain

that they belonged to him.

[Wolfgang] It was a huge surprise,

and it brought with it

great expectations and the hope

that the speck

on the handcuffs could be identified.

We were still wondering,

"Is that my sister's blood?"

Do they even have anything to do with her?

It could just be that it's human blood

but from a totally different person.

[suspenseful music playing]

[music intensifies, stops]

[eerie music playing]