He is said to have killed two elderly women and is also responsible for the robbery of an 83-year-old man in the area. Now a suspect has been arrested in Schwäbisch Hall. But were there other victims?
The specially convened “SOKO Höhe” is now examining the connection between the suspect and the death of an 86-year-old in mid-December, as reported by the “Haller Tagblatt”.
The police initially assumed that the woman’s death, very close to one of the crime scenes, was an accident. But she died from a fatal head injury. She also lacked money from her wallet, confirmed senior public prosecutor Harald Lustig to SWR.
However, one continues to assume a death through no fault of one’s own. According to the “Haller Tagblatt”, the body had been released for cremation after the investigation, so important traces were lost.
In an interview with FOCUS online, a relative also spoke of possible connections between the suspect and the death of his grandmother in December 2022. The family is aware that the 83-year-old from Michelbach was visited by a man shortly before her death.
He rang the bell, pretended to be a police officer and accused the woman of outstanding debts. “He wanted to look around the apartment to see if anything could be attached so that she could pay off her debts,” says the grandson.
Two days later, his parents found the elderly woman dead in the apartment. The cause of death is not yet known.
“Because it is an assumption that it could be him, the police cannot give us any information about it,” says the grandson about a possible connection with the other cases.
A police spokesman was unable to provide any further information based on the reports. The family member has not yet been available for questions. The suspect arrested in the current case is a 31-year-old Serb.
He is in custody, police said on Wednesday. The man is strongly suspected of having killed an 89-year-old in Michelbach an der Bilz last week and a 77-year-old in Schwäbisch Hall, 12 kilometers away, last December.
The women’s bodies were found in their home. A murder weapon had been secured in the vicinity of the crime scene in Michelbach. What this is about was not initially disclosed.
It is still unclear whether the alleged perpetrator is also responsible for other crimes. The death of a 94-year-old senior whose body was found in Schwäbisch Hall in October 2020, very close to the apartment of the dead 77-year-old, has also not been clarified so far. Here, too, the police are assuming a homicide.
In the case of the deaths in Schwäbisch Hall, the public prosecutor’s office assumes murder out of greed. There, the suspect is said to have stolen a low to mid-three-digit amount of money.
In the case of those killed in Michelbach, the investigators spoke of manslaughter. “Numerous pieces of the puzzle have led to the identification of the perpetrator,” said police chief Reiner Müller. So DNA traces were found.
In addition, a phantom image of the alleged perpetrator, which was made after the robbery in Ilshofen, contributed to the success of the search. The suspect threatened his victim with a gun in mid-January.
The 31-year-old has not yet provided any information on the allegations, said senior public prosecutor Harald Lustig. According to his own statements, the accused traveled to Germany with his wife and two children at the beginning of December. He does not have a registration address in Germany.
According to a “Bild” report, the suspect was arrested during a police operation on January 31 at around 4 p.m. The place of arrest was only 150 meters from the first two crime scenes in Schwäbisch Hall.
According to the “Stuttgarter Zeitung”, a block of flats in Schwäbisch Hall’s Tullauerhöhe district was searched on Tuesday. There are also two of the three crime scenes. Around a dozen civil servants had therefore shielded the building from passers-by and, among other things, secured traces in a garbage container.
The “Stuttgarter Zeitung” also quotes witnesses who said they had seen a man in handcuffs. Later, a woman and a child were also taken out of the house. The apartment and the basement compartment were sealed shortly afterwards.
After the discovery of a body last Wednesday, fears of a serial killer went around in the village. The acts of violence had unsettled the elderly in the Schwäbisch Hall region in particular. It was the second body found in a short period of time and the third since 2020.
October 14, 2020: The brewery heiress Elfriede Huchler is found dead in her apartment. In the meantime, the police were looking for a woman with “striking red lipstick” who could be a suspect. A “Volker” was also sought who had contact with the dead person.
December 23, 2022: A 77-year-old woman is found dead in her apartment in an apartment building. She was the victim of a homicide. According to the “Bild” newspaper, the apartment of the dead is “less than 200 meters” from the October 14 crime scene. The police found the “Sokohöhe”.
January 25, 2023: In the early evening, a woman found her 89-year-old neighbor dead in her apartment. The scene of the crime is again only about a kilometer from the homes of the previous victims, reports the ” Südwestpresse “.
The “Soko Höhe” took over the case with 75 officials. The investigators found parallels in the three cases and became suspicious because the three victims were older women from the same region and had been killed on Wednesdays. Until Tuesday, they still called the investigation and the review “routine” and “automatism”.
“Such an accumulation of homicides is not common in this rural area,” the “Bild” newspaper quoted chief public prosecutor Harald merry. “It is striking that the victims are always older women. That is a connection that definitely exists.”
The brother of the 89-year-old who was killed was recently targeted by the investigators, reports the “Bild” newspaper. “They asked me if I had had arguments with my sister. They should rather ask themselves whether it wasn’t the same perpetrator in all three cases,” the brother demands. “I believe the killer is spying on his disabled victims at supermarkets.”
Fear has been spreading in the small town of Schwäbisch Hall since the discovery. “Here you know each other and say ‘Grüß Gott’,” says the neighbor who found the body on Wednesday. The police recommend being “a little more careful” and increasing their presence on the streets.
They are currently “increasingly carrying out patrol checks to increase the feeling of security among the citizens there,” said city spokeswoman Pia Reiser of the “Südwestpresse”.
