The search for a serial killer who terrorized a region of northern Germany for decades is nearing a critical juncture, as investigators believe they are closing in on a potential accomplice to a man who is suspected of murdering at least five people. The crimes, which have haunted the nation for over three decades, include the infamous “Görde murders” of four people in a forest near Lüneburg in 1989 and the slaying of a woman whose body was found entombed in concrete under a garage.
For 36 years, the identity of the killer who stalked the Görde forest remained a chilling mystery. Then, in 2017, a DNA breakthrough linked the murders to a man who had been dead for decades: Kurt-Werner Wichmann. Wichmann, a violent career criminal with a long history of sexual offenses, had committed suicide in prison in 1993 while awaiting trial on weapons charges, just as investigators were beginning to suspect him in the disappearance of a woman.
The anniversary of the macabre discovery that started it all is a stark reminder of the terror that gripped the region. It was 36 years ago that blueberry pickers stumbled upon the first bodies in the Görde, a sprawling woodland near Lüneburg. The pickers were drawn by a foul odor, leading them into the undergrowth to find the remains of a couple, Ursula and Peter Reinold.
The Hamburg residents had been missing for seven weeks.
Within days, the nightmare deepened. As a hundred police officers methodically combed the forest for clues, they discovered another pair of corpses just 800 meters away. The victims were Ingrid Warmbier and Bernt Michael Köpping, a young couple who had been meeting for a secret rendezvous.
The double murders, occurring within a fortnight of each other, sent a wave of panic through the peaceful rural communities. Residents were terrified to walk in the woods, and parents refused to let their children play outside.
The police investigation was a massive undertaking, but it was fraught with frustration. Leads went cold. The investigation became a national news story, with appeals for information on the popular television program “Aktenzeichen XY” failing to generate a breakthrough.
The case was eventually shelved, a dark stain on the record of local law enforcement.
The key to unlocking the Görde murders would come from an unrelated case. In the same year as the forest killings, a 41-year-old photographer and mother named Birgit Meier vanished from her home in the nearby town of Brietlingen. For a year, there was no trace.
Her disappearance, like the Görde murders, was featured on “Aktenzeichen XY,” but it was initially treated as a lower priority. The immense resources dedicated to the high-profile forest murders meant that Birgit’s case was handled almost as an afterthought.
The first investigator to look into Birgit’s disappearance, Manfred Hamel, quickly turned his attention to the woman’s husband, a wealthy businessman. But the husband was eventually cleared. Hamel then began looking into other known criminals in the area, and his focus fell on a man named Kurt-Werner Wichmann.
Wichmann was the gardener for a neighbor, and he had shown an interest in Birgit, but she had repeatedly rebuffed his advances.
Wichmann had a long rap sheet that screamed danger. As a 14-year-old, he had attacked a tenant in his parents’ home. By 16, he was sexually assaulting a female cyclist.
At 18, he shot at police officers with a small-caliber rifle. But his most chilling youthful offense came when he picked up a female hitchhiker, raped her, and beat her until she was unconscious. Believing her to be dead, he placed her in his trunk with a spade, intent on burying her.
When he opened the trunk, she revived and escaped, leading to his arrest and conviction. Experts now believe that attempted murder was a precursor to his future crimes.
Despite Hamel’s strong suspicions, he could not get a warrant to search Wichmann’s home. The public prosecutor deemed the evidence insufficient. A year later, a new prosecutor agreed with Hamel and signed a search warrant.
The police raided the house, but Wichmann was not there. Someone called him and asked him to come home for the search. Instead of returning, he fled.
The search of Wichmann’s property was a stunning success. Officers found a buried car on his land. A cadaver dog alerted at the trunk, but no remains were found.
They also discovered a secret room, soundproofed, where Wichmann kept a collection of newspaper clippings about unsolved murders, including the Görde case.
For two months, Wichmann was a fugitive. He finally resurfaced in April 1993 after a car accident near Heilbronn. During a routine traffic stop, police found weapons in his car, and he was taken into custody on weapons charges.
While in the prison in Heimsheim, Wichmann wrote letters to his wife and brother, instructing them to destroy a Madonna figure in his house and clean the gutters. He seemed to believe authorities were closing in on him for the Görde murders and Birgit’s disappearance. He hanged himself in his cell with his belt, just days before the police were to question him about the murders.
With his death, the legal case collapsed. All evidence gathered against Wichmann was ordered to be destroyed by prosecutors, as a dead person cannot be charged. The records were closed.
But the case was far from over. Birgit’s brother was Wolfgang Sielaff, the former head of the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office. He refused to accept that his sister’s story was over.
When he retired years later, he launched his own private investigation into the disappearance of his sister. He spent years sifting through files and re-interviewing witnesses.
In 2017, 28 years after Birgit vanished, investigators on Sielaff’s behalf returned to Wichmann’s old property and began to examine a work pit in the garage. The pit was completely out of place for car maintenance. They drilled into the concrete floor.
They found Birgit’s skeletal remains, buried under a heavy layer of concrete. An autopsy confirmed she had been killed by a single gunshot to the head. For Jasmin, Birgit’s daughter, the discovery was a devastating, final blow.
“I think you can never get over it,” she said.
The discovery of Birgit’s body was a catalyst. It reignited the investigation into the Görde murders. Cold-case detectives in Lüneburg had already begun re-examining the evidence, taking advantage of advances in forensic science.
They sent items from the victims’ cars for new DNA testing. The results were explosive: a DNA sample from one of the Görde victim’s cars matched Kurt-Werner Wichmann.
The profile created by an operational case analyst at the state crime lab matched Wichmann perfectly. “It was a strong focus on power, dominance, control, but also humiliation and degradation,” the analysts said. “We saw a certain sadistic component in both of these acts.
From our point of view, it was clear that we were dealing with a serial offender.”
Wichmann’s DNA was in the car because he had driven it. After killing the two couples in the forest, police believe Wichmann moved their vehicles, parking them at train stations miles from the murder scenes. The husband and wife’s car was found 50 kilometers away; the other couple’s cars were found 17 kilometers away.
With Wichmann identified as the primary suspect, investigators searched his property for a third time. They dug up the entire grounds, using heavy machinery and hand tools. They found hundreds of items, including women’s shoes, handbags, and personal effects.
They also discovered a second secret compartment, but the relics they unearthed were haunting. “We had to assume that there could be more bodies buried there due to the large number of homicide cases from all over the country,” an investigator said.
To date, no other bodies have been found. However, the massive trove of artifacts discovered on the property has only deepened the mystery. Among the 500 items excavated are knives, a pistol, a saber, and clothing.
None of them have been linked to a missing person. Yet detectives are convinced more crimes are hidden in that soil. “What normal person buries women’s shoes in his garden?”
asked Jürgen Schubert, the former lead investigator for the Görde case. “There is a reason to believe these shoes are connected to the killing or disappearance of women.”
The search for an accomplice is now the primary focus of the Cold Case team in Lüneburg. The way the bodies were moved and the sheer volume of evidence led investigators to believe Wichmann could not have acted alone. There were also witness reports of two men in the area at the time of the murders.
“From my point of view, there must have been an accomplice based on the sequence of events, but also based on witness statements,” Schubert said. “I am still convinced that if Kurt-Werner Wichmann was the perpetrator, he could not have acted alone.”
Police have named a specific person of interest. This person is alive, but has refused to speak to police. They are searching for enough evidence to bring charges.
The work is painstaking. The evidence is being sent to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Freiburg, where scientists are analyzing hairs and fibers with advanced DNA techniques that were not available in 1989.
The goal, they say, is simple. “The target is to identify a perpetrator, to convict him, so that the public prosecutor’s office can file an indictment and a court can reach a verdict.”
Birgit Meier’s daughter, Jasmin, now 58, lives with the trauma every day. She writes poems to her mother. She urges anyone with knowledge of the case, including a possible accomplice, to come forward.
“Don’t forget that there are people out there who might be breaking from it, who can’t take it anymore, because they also have the right to know what happened to the deceased.”
For now, the Görde forest near Lüneburg has reclaimed its peace. The blueberry bushes grow thick. But the ghosts of the four people shot and killed there in the summer of 1989 have not found rest.
And the investigators tasked with their case are more determined than ever to deliver justice, even if it means chasing a dead man’s ghost and a living suspect who has evaded them for decades. The final chapter in the story of Kurt-Werner Wichmann, a man who may have killed far more than the five he is linked to now, has yet to be written.
