Life imprisonment for 81-year-old: murder of US tourist Amy Lopez in Koblenz in 1994 resolved
Koblenz Regional Court condemned an 81-year-old man to life imprisonment for the murder of American Amy Lopez. The cold case was solved through new DNA analysis.
Life imprisonment after murder of US tourist in Koblenz over 30 years ago
Koblenz Regional Court has sentenced an 81-year-old man to life imprisonment for the murder of 24-year-old American Amy Lopez in Koblenz in September 1994. The court also determined that the offence showed particular seriousness. According to DER SPIEGEL (Justice & Crime), the judgement was based on a court statement.
The sentence thus followed the joint applications of the public prosecutor, auxiliary prosecutors, and defence counsel. The defendant had admitted to the act in principle at the start of the trial.
The chamber found it proven that the man had bound Lopez, sexually abused her, and killed her with nine knife wounds. He was said to have previously lured her into a remote ruin room of Fortress Ehrenbreitstein. Playing children later discovered the body. According to the judgement, Lopez was a random victim who had been "in the wrong place at the wrong time". The defendant had set out on the day of the crime "deliberately hunting for a woman".
The public prosecutor accused the man of acting "to satisfy his sexual drive in a treacherous manner and otherwise for base motives". He had wanted to act out his "depraved sexual fantasies" "at any cost", according to the prosecution's closing argument.
The case remained unsolved for decades. The breakthrough came from re-examination of old DNA traces using modern analysis methods, which could be matched to the 81-year-old. At the end of February 2026, he was arrested in a care home in the Koblenz area and has been in pre-trial detention since. According to his lawyer, the man had voluntarily provided the DNA sample "because he wanted clarity at last". It had "extremely burdened" him, which is why he wanted to face his responsibility.