Police have arrested the ex-boyfriend of the young mum whose corpse was found in a Nazi bunker near a concentration camp.
Police spokesperson Doerte Roehrs told local media outlet Bild that a 29-year-old suspect was arrested on Tuesday afternoon (27th July). He was not named because of local privacy laws.
The victim, Bianca Simon, 26, was found dead four days after CCTV footage recorded the last known images of her as she pushed her bike on 15th July.
Her lifeless body was found in the old Nazi communications bunker from World War II near the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from where the SS coordinated mass exterminations.
The bunker named ‘Karo Ass’ (Ace of Diamonds in English) is located in a forest near Oranienburg, a town in the north-eastern German state of Brandenburg, not far from the capital Berlin.
German newspaper Bild reports that the suspect is Bianca’s ex-boyfriend. Neighbours reportedly last saw the suspect and the victim together just two weeks ago.
As can be seen from these images, plainclothes police officers led the suspect from his home in handcuffs.
Police have not revealed why the man is a suspect. According to public prosecutor Torsten Sauermann, the man is known to the police, but not because of violent crimes.
He has reportedly not yet commented to cops on the murder.
The young woman worked as a geriatric nurse and can be seen in the CCTV image from the Oranienburg train station captured pushing a bicycle and sporting a top with the words “Hakuna matata” on it on Thursday 15th July.
According to investigators, she died shortly after these images were recorded.
An autopsy performed on her body has confirmed that she died violently, although the Neuruppin public prosecutor’s office does not believe that a sexual offence was committed.
Her bicycle, which has a child seat on it, was found near the Nazi era telecommunications bunker where she was found dead.
The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was used from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May 1945 and it mainly held political prisoners throughout the war, among whom Joseph Stalin’s eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili.
When the Nazis set up the camp, they also built an arms control department, a dog training school, storage and intelligence units, and an above-ground communications bunker, known as the Funkbunker Karo Ass (Ace of Diamonds).
Bianca’s corpse was found in the corridors of the communications bunker, that used to belong to the SS (Schutzstaffel), which was Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary organisation responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during WWII.
Bianca’s five-year-old son has since been taken into care by his grandmother.
