Murder in Hamburg 43 years ago: police lost murder weapon – defendant before regional court
A 61-year-old stands trial for the murder of a trans person in Hamburg-Hammerbrook. Police investigative failings could complicate the trial.
Cold case from Hammerbrook: police lost murder weapon after securing it
According to ndr.de, the alleged murder weapon – a Smith & Wesson – was in the hands of Hamburg police shortly after the 1983 murder. But it disappeared. When exactly and where it went remains unclear to this day.
The now 61-year-old had at that time shot the weapon at the shop window of a store, whereupon police arrested him and seized the weapon. However, a decisive comparison between the weapon and the projectile found next to the body of a 41-year-old trans person in Hammerbrook never took place. The woman had been discovered dead in her caravan.
A weapons expert testified on Wednesday before Hamburg regional court that the weapon and projectile matched. However, since the Smith & Wesson is not a rare model, it cannot be established with complete certainty that it was the same weapon used to shoot the trans person.
The defendant is said to have got into the woman's car in 1983 at the age of nearly 19 years near the Reeperbahn and driven with her to her caravan in Hammerbrook. There he is alleged to have shot her three times and stolen 200 D-marks. At the time, police secured DNA traces at the crime scene. Only decades later did new analysis techniques enable the evaluation of these traces – and led to the man now facing charges.
In November, the 61-year-old was arrested in Finkenwerder. At the start of the trial, he denied the act.
The investigative errors of the police at the time – failure to compare weapons, disappearance of the murder weapon – are likely to further burden the evidence in the ongoing proceedings before Hamburg regional court.
Source: Google News DE — Crime (de)