Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: CEN
Fresh DNA evidence has linked a rapist who stabbed a woman more than 20 times to the Christmas-time rape and murder of a 15-year-old almost a decade earlier.
The convict, identified as Jurgen R., 56, is currently serving a life sentence after he was found guilty last year of the rape and attempted murder of Ursula B. in 1988.
The crime took place on the outskirts of Aschaffenburg, a city in the German state of Bavaria.
Pictures Credit: CEN
Ursula B. was kidnapped by Jurgen R. and taken to a forest where she was repeatedly raped over three hours and stabbed in her throat and chest with a screwdriver, only to be left to die in a ditch.
She managed to drag herself from the forest to a nearby road where she was discovered by a driver and rushed to hospital.
Ursula B. later recalled the episode in court: “I was torn up, everything he did hurt. I would say that I felt his penis everywhere, from the top, bottom, front and back.”
She added that she still recognises the German pervert 30 years later after seeing him in court.
She said: “I immediately noticed the smell [of him], alcohol, cigarettes, unwashed, unpleasant.”
Jurgen R. was arrested when his DNA was added to the national database after he abused his wife and investigators matched it to the Ursula B. case, according to reports.
Pictures Credit: CEN
As the case was similar to six other homicides in the Aschaffenburg area which were never solved, cold case investigators looked into whether Jurgen R. was linked to them as well.
Police chief Joerg Albert said: “There was always a displacement of victims from the first place of contact to the crime scene. They were raped. Often they were stabbed in the central upper body with a piercing tool.”
Albert explained that all victims were dumped in a forest with their bodies covered while the perpetrator also took home ‘trophies’ from his victims.
In October 2018, Albert and his colleagues began to digitise the old files of the unresolved cases.
According to local media, the cops have now managed to link Jurgen R. to the case of Christiane J., a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was raped and murdered in 1979 in a park in Aschaffenburg.
The schoolgirl was found just a few days before Christmas, with her body most likely thrown 15 metres down to the park from a cliff after she was killed.
According to reports, investigators have managed to make the connection when they found a DNA sample on one of the 162 pieces of evidence collected in 1979.
Jurgen R., who was 17 at the time of the murder, reportedly belonged to the young victim’s circle of friends.
Both the Aschaffenburg police and the suspect’s lawyer have refused to publicly comment on the latest developments.
For Christiane’s mother, it might mean that she can finally close a difficult chapter in her life.
Besides having to deal with the loss of her daughter, she also had to deal with the death of her husband in a labour accident at a railway yard a year after the murder.
The investigation is ongoing.
