Cops in the Netherlands have arrested the German man who went on the run just before he was due to start his life term for fatally strangling and sexually abusing a teenage schoolgirl in 1993.

The Regional Court in the city of Dortmund in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia sentenced Ralf Hoerstemeier, 57, to life imprisonment in January this year (2021).

Protesting his innocence, he appealed the verdict, and was summoned to court on Monday, 20th December, to hear the outcome of his appeal.

His life sentence was reconfirmed, and he was sent away with an ankle tag to await his prison summons, as his custody time limit had expired in July last year.

However, he removed the device and left it along with his mobile phone in an industrial park at around 8.10pm the following day.

The police searched all addresses linked to the guilty man before determining that he and his fiancee, 54-year-old Doro L., had gone on the run. They then alerted the public.

Dutch police officers stormed an apartment in the city of Enschede in the Dutch province of Overijssel and arrested the fugitive and his partner in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

The woman, whose full surname was not reported due to strict local privacy laws, was not arrested, though she is under investigation for aiding and abetting.

Muenster police chief Falk Schnabel was quoted as saying in German daily Bild: “Yes, we are relieved. I am very pleased that we succeeded in this successful search very quickly.

“I have to praise my colleagues, who really worked flat out to ensure that we were able to find him.”

Prosecutor Henner Kruse added: “The Muenster police had also searched his garden shed and found evidence of his whereabouts in the Netherlands.

“And then a vehicle registered to his fiancee was also found. It was very close to the apartment, where he was ultimately arrested.”

Hoerstemeier had already spent two years in preventive custody for the murder of 16-year-old Nicole Schalla.

The schoolgirl was on her way home from her boyfriend’s house when Hoerstemeier, who hails from the city of Muenster, followed her as she got off the bus.

He grabbed her from behind, and a struggle ensued that lasted five to eight minutes before she passed out from being strangled.

He then undressed her, tearing off her underwear, before sexually abusing her.

The incident took place 30 metres (98 feet) from the bus stop and only a few hundred metres from her parents’ house in Dortmund on 14th October 1993.

Later advances in technology would match DNA found at the crime scene to Hoerstemeier.