October 24, 2023 • 60 mins
On September 15, 1981, Ursula Herrmann, a 10-year-old girl, rode her bike home after visiting with a cousin. She would never make it. This event marked the beginning of one of Germany’s most debated and infamous criminal cases in modern history.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:37):
Welcome to crime Pedia. I amone of your wonderful hosts. My name
is Morgan. I hope you're havinga great day with me. As always,
is my favorite true crime friend.She is my true crime bff.
She is my partner in crime.It's lovely Cherry. Hello, Cherry,
how are you? I'm good.She's also the leader of a very very
(00:58):
well known gang in America. Butto find out more, you'll need to
listen to our crime Media extra episodewhen I inadvertently outed myself as the gang
of as the leader of a veryvery prominent gang. It's all completely untrue.
It was just me and my bigmouth. Yeah, we learned a
lot about you, did you did? About how you wanted to start a
(01:23):
cult with a bunch of NaNs andgranddads. Yep, we've discovered that I
need a buffer button so that youcan cut me off before I open my
stupid mouth and brand our podcast issomething absolutely terrible. Oh yeah, no,
no, no, oh, well, well I'm glad it's your episode
this week, so you can makeall the mistakes. Is it on me
(01:46):
for a change, Yeah, No, usually it is. It's usually me
that that's making all the mistakes.Having edit on my my stuff out,
No, what have you got forus this week? Then I'm excited about
this one. We've Last week wasa stressful weekman, But I must say
thank you to the people that havemessaged us this week. I honestly wasn't
(02:07):
expecting the communication that we actually gotfrom this episode. The feedback has been
was really humbling, actually, andit was actually exactly what we wanted to
do as the host for that episode. It's the fact that if we reached
one person that listened to our episodeand went, wait, hang on a
(02:28):
minute, that sounds like so andso, I wonder if that's what she's
going through, or oh my god, that's me, this isn't normal,
then that was exactly what it wasintended for. And I am absolutely gobsmacked
to find out that actually more thanone person messaged me to say, oh
my goodness, thank you for thatepisode. I can't believe that I've just
(02:49):
realized how bad the relationship so andso is in is and you've completely opened
my eyes to it. And thatis just I'm so pleased, because if
we can save one person from goingthrough what Sally went through, then that
is just fantastic. No. Absolutely, yeah, so that was a very
(03:10):
emotional. That was very emotional,and actually we I think our last two
cases have been really frustrating and emotionaland yeah, so yeah, what a
way to come back after our littlebreak. Thanks very much for you.
Yeah, thank you for your honestfeedback on that. I really appreciate it.
Yeah. So, unfortunately we haveanother frustrating one today. This is
(03:31):
a an older case and we areactually going back across the pond for me,
So we're going back to Germany.So this is uh, this is
our third case. Third yeah,third case in Germany. And this is
actually a very well known case overthere. I've only recently learned about it.
(03:53):
But this is the the kidnapping ofUrsula Herman. On September fifteenth,
nineteen eighty one, Ursula Herman,a ten year old girl, wrote her
by Colm after visiting with a cousin, she would never make it. This
(04:15):
event marked the beginning of one ofGermany's most debated in infamous criminal cases in
modern history. This is Crimpedia andthis is the girl in the box,
(04:45):
all right, cherry. Tuesday,September fifteenth, nineteen eighty one was the
first day of the new school yearfor ten year old Ursula Herman. After
school, Ursula would return to herhome and aching AMRCI once again. I
want to apologize to all of ourGerman listeners if I completely butchered some of
these names. I am now aGerman speaker. I'm try my best.
(05:06):
So this is Eching is located inthe alpine foothills of southern Germany. Now,
after practicing piano with her oldest brother, Michael, Ursula would head off
on her bike to her late afternoongymnastics lessons in a Seawendorf, cycling through
the forest along the lakeside path.So this is about two miles for or
(05:27):
just about two miles from from thevillage that she lived in, so not
terribly far, no fa no,so you you know you want to be
and especially here this is really isjust it's extremely a rural So it's you
want to be too concerned about,you know, having your daughter, you
know, biking two miles to thenext village over. So it wasn't a
(05:47):
big deal. Now. When thegym class was over, she went over
to her cousin's house in Seawendorf,where she ate dinner. At seven pm,
Ursula's mother would phone the aunt tosay that her daughter was needed to
come home. Now. The bikeride from from her cousin's home back to
her her home should have only takenabout ten minutes, so really close to
(06:12):
being home. Now half an hourlater, Ursula still still had not arrived
home. Her mother would call backover to the aunt's house again, learning
that Ursula had left her cousin's placeabout twenty minutes prior. This, of
course, would create the sense ofworry to her mother. Obviously, right,
she should have been home at leastfifteen minutes ago. Now, as
(06:35):
soon as she found out that shehad left twenty five minutes ago, she
had been home. Ursula's father andher uncle would go out into the forest
to start looking for her. Andso they were both coming from from two
different ways, so they should shouldhave obviously met right in the middle,
and their hope was they would haverun into her somewhere along the path.
(07:00):
Unfortunately, they did not find her. They called out her name, they
they searched everywhere, they searched aroundthe pass, and there was no absolutely
no sign sign of her. Nowwithin an hour more locals, along with
police and firefighters, joined in onthe search. They combed the areas with
(07:20):
flashlights, using them to comb overthe lake as well as to search through
the dense forest. It was verydifficult because there was a lot of heavy
undergrowth, which which made it actuallysearching off the path really difficult for them.
So this is, like I said, this is a very heavily forested
(07:43):
area, and it's it's honestly alot of a lot of the places along
the path, it would have beenhighly unlikely that she would have been she
would have been, you know,would have went off the path herself.
Yeah, but they still they stillwere looking looking for her off you know,
off off chance that she, youknow, had made a stop somewhere
(08:05):
and got hurt. Well, yeah, because kids, the kids aren't the
I mean, she might have madea stop off because she needs the toilet,
and so obviously you're in a forestarea. She might have had an
accident or was close to have anaccident and just nipped off to go to
the toilet and something happened, youknow. So I suppose from that point
of view, you would wouldn't youwould frantically just look everywhere you could.
Yeah, no, absolutely, Imean, so yeah, you're gonna look
(08:26):
everwhere, You're gonna look in thewater. You're gonna look off the path,
you know. Yeah, you don'tknow what could have happened. Now,
at around midnight that evening, therewas there was some rain, so
it had been raining on and offthe whole day. Around midnight, one
of the search dogs ended up directingits handler off the path, which would
(08:48):
lead them to Ursula's abandoned red bicycle. Oh no, However, there was
no other trace of her anywhere nearby, so they were able to find her
bike, but there was no therewas nothing else around that would indicate what
happened to her or where she went. Yeah. Now, the following day,
obviously, the search efforts would becomemore amplified. Numerous officers dressed in
(09:15):
rain gear would comb through the thickwoods adjacent to landheim Schendorf, which is
a prestigious private school that was establishedin nineteen oh five and was actually very
popular amongst Bavarian influential figures. Sothis whole area is actually there's a lot
of wealthy families that lived within thisarea and a lot of the kids in
(09:37):
the area were sent off to thisprivate school. At the same time,
there were helicopters circling while a policeboat in divers did explore the lake's edges.
Local radio stations began broadcasting the newsof the missing girl. At the
time, she was described as beingfour foot seven four foot seven inches tall.
(10:01):
She is real tiny, with shortblonde hair. At the time,
she was wearing dark green trousers agreat card again in reddish brown brown sandals.
Two days after her disappearance, therewas a very strange phone call that
that that came into the herman's home. When the line was picked up,
(10:26):
Ursula's parents were met with silence,followed by a jingle that they recognized from
the Barren three radio's traffic updates.So it was silence, and then all
of a sudden, this jingle right, so really strange. Now the mysterious
and call would repeat over and over. So there was so this So it
(10:52):
was so the call would come in, you'd hear the same jingle, and
then the call would hang up.This would happen at least three more times
over the next several hours. Thelocal police, which were now at this
point operating from the hermit's home,became documenting all of these calls because you'd
wonder, wouldn't you is it hertrying to call and she can't say anything.
(11:15):
Or is this somebody being torturous andjust trying to talk to you?
You know, Is she okay?If somebody got her? Are they just
doing this just to hurt you.It's as horrible, I mean, with
that coming in multiple times, you'dhave to figure that it was it had
some sort of involvement with her disappearance. It's just it's just so strange for
(11:35):
it not to write. It's weird. I don't know, so very weird
now the follow By midday the followingday, an envelope labeled urgent and addressed
to Ursules's father was handed over toU was handed or by the postman.
The envelope contained a ransom message craftedfrom clipping of newspapers. It read,
(11:58):
in fragment into German, we haveyour daughter, pay two million Deutsche marks
if you wish to see her alive. So at the time, two million
Deutsche marks would have been equivalent toabout four hundred and fifty thousand pounds,
so a substantial amount of money,you know, especially in nineteen eighty one,
that's a lot of money. Now. The kidnappers mistakenly anticipated the letter
(12:24):
to have reached a day earlier,and in the letter it actually mentioned their
intent to use the jingle as anidentifier during the calls, So the calls
that started the day before were anindication like, hey, this is us.
Yeah. Now they would warned thehermans inform us whether your pay or
(12:50):
not, and if they involved thepolice or they failed to pay, it
would result in the death of theirdaughter. Imagine that that must be horrific
to know that someone's got your childand that they're threatening to too harm to
her if you don't pay them.I mean, that's that's terrible. That's
(13:11):
a horrible thing to have to dealwith as a parent, Very very horrible
thing to deal with. I couldimagine it. I would never want to
manage. Imagine. No, that'shorrible. Now. That afternoon, when
the phone rang and the jingle sounded, Ursula's mother immediately committed to paying the
ransom. So as soon as shepicked up, she said, you know
(13:33):
what, we'll pay. We'll pay. We'll do whatever you need. Of
course, now you do whatever youdo, whatever you could, wouldn't you,
oh, absolutely absolutely. Seeking assurance, she pleaded for confirmation of her
daughter's well being. She did thisby asking asking whoever was on the other
line. What the names? Whatname she gave her two stuffed animals?
(13:56):
Good idea. Now try and makesure she's that it's actually her and she's
there at yeah, good height exactly. Now met with silence, desperation would
take over and she began yelling,talk to me, say something something from
Ursula. So at this point theydon't even have confirmation that Ursula is even
alive. Yeah, they didn't evenknow that the people that actually have her.
(14:20):
Later that evening, another letter fromthe captors was sent, which would
arrive on Monday, September twenty first. The note contained oddly detailed directives about
the ransom payment. They demanded thatthe funds that they demanded the funds and
used one hundred dollars Deutsche mark notesneatly packed in a suitcase. The drop
off location remained unspecified, with thestipulation that Ursula's father should be the one
(14:45):
to deliver it. Now he was. He was to drive alone in a
yellow Fiat six hundred, maintaining aspeed no greater of ninety kilometers per hour,
which is fifty five miles per hour. That's very strange. Oh yeah,
why would they say that? Like, what does that? What does
that matter? What speed he's going? That's weird. I don't know,
(15:07):
Like, what does it matter?I have no idea why. Yeah,
I don't know why it would matter. Like even if it's like, okay,
well, we want to make sure, you know, we want to
make sure that he gets there atthe right time, and so if he's
going fifty five miles an hour andwe're fifty five miles away, it's going
to take it. I don't know. It's really weird that that they have
those specifics. Why would they specificallyask for that? That's weird. Mm
(15:31):
hm, No, it's very strange. Now, unlike many an eching in
the parents of students at the ShorendorfBoarding School, the Herman family, they
were not affluent at all. Theirlakeside home was only possible because of land
or Soul's great grandfather had acquired yearsprior. Now. Luckily, a kind
(15:52):
hearted neighbor contributed a portion of thisransom ransom that was requested, while the
government committed to fund the remaining balance. So they weren't a wealthy family.
So this amount of money that they'reasking for, it wasn't like that the
people knew, like Okay, they'regoing to have money and we'll be able
to get it from them. Theyactually had, They had to get money
(16:14):
from other sources in order to evenHow heartbreaking must that be to have your
daughter being held captive by somebody andknowing that you don't have the funds to
pay to get her back, thatmust be just must be horrific. It's
bad enough if you had the funds, but if you don't have the funds,
that must leave you feeling pretty desperate. That's horrible, so horrible.
(16:40):
So it's weird because you would thinkthat this is a small community. You
would think that you know who hadmoney, who didn't have money, So
it's almost like whoever took her hasgot no concept of the value of money.
So it sounds like it sounds tome like people that don't really understand
because when children children thinks that money'sendless, don't they have no concept of
(17:02):
money and how much people have got. They know the difference between somebody who's
got a very poor life and somebodywho's got a more affluent life. But
middle of the road life and veryaffluent life is very it's saying, isn't
it like the dad drives a nicecar. They don't know that dad's got
that on finance and things like that. You know. It's so that sounds
very and it sounds very kiddish tome for some reason. I don't know.
(17:25):
I'll see what you think as yougo on. Yeah, no,
I mean I agree, but Ithink it's you know, it's also the
same where it's like, whoever isdoing this, they don't They don't know
that. The Hermans, they don'thave this money, so it's like,
why would you, so I don't. I feel like it's not even like
it's like not a target. Itdoesn't sound like a targeted attack or targeted
(17:47):
kidnapping. No, it's strange tome. Yeah, that is very strange.
Now, the Hermans at this pointthey were anticipating further directives in regards
to how to get the money tothem and how to get Ursula back.
However, after this it pretty muchwent silent. There were no letters nor
(18:10):
calls that are being received. Ohno. And the police were also having
issues, so they were trying tograpple all this with really having no absolutely
no leads, so there were likeno good leads into kind of like pointing
them where they should go which theyshould look now. After two weeks,
(18:32):
they decided to go ahead and searchthe forest again. Okay. Over one
hundred officers, which were supplemented byten tracking dogs, were mobilized. The
forest reign was methodically divided into sectionsand then subdivided into precise grids. Painstakingly,
each segment was searched officers using metalrods to sift through the forest floor.
(18:59):
On the fourth day, under asomber Sunday sky, with a vast
majority of the forest already searched,Ursula and Ursula had been missing for nineteen
days at this point. At preciselynine thirty am, a resounding shout pierced
to calm morning and a secluded clearing. Roughly eight hundred meters from the lakeside
trail, an officer had encountered asolid up of obstruction beneath the earth.
(19:26):
A colleague currently joined him, andafter clearing away debris and digging through a
clay layer, they unveiled a brownblanket concealing a wooden plank. Beneath it
lay another board, seemingly on topof a box. Now, this box
measured about twenty inches by twenty threeinches. Yeah, close, It's basically
(19:51):
very similar to the size like ofa modest coffee coffee table. It was
painted a mute green and secured withseven slide bolts. At this point,
there was determined that there was alot of urgency in getting to get into
this thing, so the police officerended up prying it open. Unfortunately,
(20:14):
Oh do open it would yeah,it would reveal a heartbreaking scene. Bursla
was laying inside, no longer alive, no now overcome with sorrow and with
tears streaming down his face. Thehe he actually gently createled her in his
arms at that point. So it'shorrific. I mean, they don't even
(20:45):
know this little girl, you know, the search teams and stuff. They
didn't know her personally. But whatare something that's going to affect you for
the rest of your life. You'renever going to forget that. That's going
to be something that's going to beYou're gonna He's going to be with you
forever. That's horrific, that poorlittle girl. Yeah, So it's like
(21:07):
it's very strange becauseless now it's anyit's annoying, senseless. I mean,
cause we talked. I mean Ijust mentioned this because because of the you
know, it doesn't seem like it'sa targeted attack. But at the same
time, now we're looking at likethis was well planned. Mm hmm.
(21:30):
So someone had to have gone throughthe time and effort to dig a huge
hole to like get this, toplace this box into the ground, to
conceal it, to secure it.Yeah, so someone out there was,
like was planning on doing a kidnapping. Maybe it wasn't Ursula. Maybe Ursla
wasn't a target, but she justhappened to come across him. I don't
(21:52):
know. Now. Two detectives weresent to inform Ursules's parents. Yes,
it's very horrible. Now. Whileher mother was overwhelmed with grief and unable
to speak, her father sought clarity, asking if Ursula had suffered before she
(22:14):
died. Now the groom response wasthat she hadn't. Post Mortem findings determined
Ursula's death occurred somewhere between thirty minutesto five hours post burial, so she
was she was not alive for morethan five hours inside that box. Yeah,
that's good. Now. The absenceof any evident distress or movement within
(22:42):
the confined space led medical experts todetermine that she may have been sedated,
possibly using nitrous oxide, So therewas no sign of any sort of like
struggle. There was no sign thatshe tried to even attempt to get out
of the box. So it's veryvery possible that she was sedated the whole
(23:04):
time. So she obviously she Theydon't know whether she was dead before she
went into the box. That's thequestion you're going to ask as a parent.
You know what she already did whenshe's in the box, or did
she wake up in the box?And that's that's that horrific. Now,
the kidnappers seemingly intended to keep Ursaalive, so I don't believe that the
(23:26):
attent was to kill her. Okay. Inside this this underground chamber, which
reached a depth of one point fivemeters. It was equipped with a shelf
in a makeshift lavatory bathroom. Provisionsinside include water, fanta, chocolate bars,
(23:49):
biscuits, cookies, chewing gum,and they're also a variety of different
a variety of twenty one different booksfrom Donald Duck comics to various genre novels.
There is lighting inside of it.Go ahead, what so, so
(24:10):
they kind of it's like somewhere thatthey're like kind of holding her, so
like hiding her until they can getthe ransom money and then they'll tell her
to hell them where she is.But obviously they've not let enough oxygen in
there, and she's suffocated. That'swhat it sounds like. Yeah, so
yeah, so they had lighting inthere. There was a portable radio which
was actually set to Barren three,which was the same station that was identified
(24:34):
by the traffic jingle. The chamberdid have a makeshift ventilation system, which
was composed of plastic pipes that reachedup to the surface, but whoever designed
it failed to overlook the need forair circulation, which caused the oxygen inside
(24:56):
the chamber to deplete very very quickly. So they've not very clever, if
they're not. But they put alot of time and effort into it.
Yeah they did. But the thingis they've not been the one thing,
the one thing out of all ofthis. The two things. Okay,
the first thing, you need toget enough air into that to keep her
(25:18):
alive. That's the very first thing. The second thing is that she needs
to be Oh, it needs tobe safe. So the box itself needs
to be safe because it's if they'reburying her and it's not it's not load
bearing. It's going to cry.It's all going to come in and it's
going to kill her. So thetwo things, the two most important things.
(25:41):
One of those they haven't done.The most important thing to make sure
there's enough air getting in, andthey haven't done that. So that seems
very amateurish to me. In thiswhole elaborate scheme that they've done. Hidden
her in there to get their ransommoney and then they make sure she had
enough air in there, that seemsvery amateurish. So I actually just sent
(26:03):
you basically a diagram that was oh, what good is that of the chamber
and how she was found? Wow, Yeah, we'll have to put some
on our socials, but to tryto get an understanding of it. So
it's, like I said, it'sabout twenty three inches wide, so about
just under two feet wide twenty eightinches tall, so it was plenty of
(26:30):
space to sit in there, andshe could probably create so yeah, yeah,
exactly, it's like a little priestAnd so there was like a small
little pipe which is was was thatwent through the top of the box which
went up to the surface. Yeah, and that's really it. I mean
there looks like this shelf where therewas some food where she was found sitting
(26:56):
was basically the makeshift bathroom. Yeah, so it seems like they intended to
keep her alived. It sounds likethey intended to keep her there until they
were able to secure the money.So they had planned for her to be
there for at least a while,it seems, Yeah, But unfortunately they
just did not realize that, Hey, there's something that called air circulation,
(27:21):
and you need to make sure thatthe air is able to get in and
as well as get out. So, yeah, that's horrible. That had
to have taken a lot of timeto put together and to get set up.
This is something that you're not doingovernight. No. Because of the
size and the weight of the chamber, this led authorities to suspect that there
(27:42):
might have been multiple people involved inthis crime. Yeah. The box it
self weighed sixty kilograms, so aheavy box. Yeah, and it would
have required at least two people totransport it and to dig the hole.
They and they did the whole absolutely. Yeah. Now, they also believed
(28:03):
that the suspects were very familiar withwith the forest area, being able to
pick a secluded spot which evaded noticeduring their preparations. So obviously they were
familiar with the area, they knewwhere they could, they could dig,
and they could put this box withoutanyone noticing or seeing them. Yeah,
(28:26):
so obviously it's it's someone that that'sfrom the area. Now, this incident
would cast a shower shadow over thewhole area, and this basically it was
this once care free place parents becamebegan to become hesitant to let their children
venture out unattended. Yeah. Absolutely, Now media fever only intensified the public
(28:52):
distress and the case. On theday of Urthless funeral, her eighteen years
brother Michael actually had a run inwith an intrusive photograph photographer which caused him
to forcibly swat away at the offendingcamera. So there's a lot of press
involved, a lot of understanding case. Understandably, obviously you're not giving oh
(29:15):
very unique case, and obviously they'renot giving the family the space that they
need at this time. I mean, that would be the worst. Like
you're already dealing with the death ofyour your daughter, your sister, but
now you have to deal with themedia that just you know, they're they're
being intrusive they're trying to they're youknow, they're interfering in your life.
(29:37):
So I don't blame any of themfor, you know, getting upset or
getting frustrated with with the media coverage. Eager to find those responsible for the
death of Ursula, the police announcedeight thirty thousand deutsch mark bounty for relevant
leads. Among the many tips thatcame in, one reoccurring name that was
(30:04):
brought to the police attention was thatof Werner Massurik. He was a thirty
one year old a thirty one yearold man who lived close to the Hermann
residence now. Massurich was a skilledmechanic who ran a TV repair business.
He was a considered a looming figure, known for his fiery temper, and
(30:29):
he wasn't really popular locally at thetime of her kidnapping. Walter actually had
a huge debt, tolling over onehundred and forty thousand Deutsche marks, and
this became seemingly a motive for himto be involved in this kidnapping. A
week after Earthles's body was discovered,police would question Massurich. At first,
(30:53):
he couldn't remember his whereabouts on thenight of her disappearance. It would take
him a day or so to actuallyrecall that he had been playing a playing
a board game risk with his wifeand a couple of friends the night that
Ursula went missing. However, asearch of his property found no evidence tying
(31:15):
him to the crime, so therewas nothing that they found that was like,
okay, obviously he was involved.Later that month, invest giars found
a fingerprint on duct tape attached tothe box. They would go ahead and
fingerprint thousands of people, including WalterMazurich, but no matches were found to
that fingerprint. Now, despite lackof concrete evidence, police continued to suspect
(31:41):
Massurich's involvement. In January nineteen eightytwo, they detained him in two of
the a quainances for interrogation, Wellreleased them several days later. A month
after another associo of Missurix Klaus I'mgonna say this name wrong. Klaus Faffinger,
an unemployed mechanic with alcohol issues,was brought in for questioning. This
(32:04):
was after his landlord seeking ode rent, reported seeing Faffinger with a spade attached
to his moped around the time ofthe crime. After initially denying any involvement,
he made a startling declaration. Duringa moment alone with a police with
a police secretary, he said,what if I know something. Upon the
return of the of the interrogators,he claimed that Missourich had hired him to
(32:30):
dig a hole in the forest forsome of one thousand Deutsche marks. In
a TV he also led, seeingthe box in the hole, he dug.
So now you have a person saying, yeah, he I was paid
by this guy to dig a hole, and I saw this box inside inside
of it. Now, hoping forsome sort of resolution, that investigators would
(32:51):
take this take him into the forest, asking for him to pinpoint where the
barrel site was. However, hisinability to do so led him to retract
his statements, dating, I'm evokingthis confession. It's not true what I
said. In subsequent interviews, heconsistently denied his earlier claims and was ultimately
(33:12):
released without charges. So now youhave an unreliable confession, right, he
was unreliable in the first place,though he really Oh no, absolutely absolutely.
By mid nineteen eighty two, withhis reputation further tarnished, Missurich considered
relocating from the area. Now atthis time, the primary detective on the
(33:34):
case was replaced and the focus shiftedto a broader set of suspects. A
massive public campaign was launched, withover one hundred thousand posters distributed in a
prominent feature on the television show caseNumber X Y and solved. Apparently this
show I hadn't obviously, I haven'theard this show because I'm not from Germany.
(33:55):
But this show actually would later inspireshows like BBC's Crime Watch in America's
Most Wanted. Yeah, so thiswas like one of the first, like
true crime, you know, ycase type shows. The new investigative team
discovered for further details about the kidnapperstechniques such as an alert system using wires.
(34:20):
However, leads on other potential suspectswere fruitless. Now as the decade
came to her close a probe,the probe actually lost momentum in Ursula's tragic
case remain etched in the nation's memory, so basically at this point it became
a cold case. So nothing furtherwas really learned and there wasn't really tip
(34:40):
weren't coming in, and we wereno closer to finding out what happened to
Ursula than the day that they thatshe was found. In the mid two
thousands, the Bavarian State Criminal InvestigationUnit revisited its unsolved cases. Obviously the
Ursula Herman case was on top oftheir list. Yeah. By this point
(35:00):
it had been featured at least threetimes on case number x Y and solved.
This case was a lingering black markon the local law enforcements record.
Now by this point we had investmentsin DNA. The prosecutors at this point
hoped for some sort of breakthrough.All evidence from the ransom notes to the
(35:22):
box Ursula was found in went underwentthorough re examination. Several distinct DNA profiles
were established from hairs found, andin two thousand and seven there was the
promising development. This is where thisis really strange. Okay, So DNA
from a screw on Ursula's box matchedthat from from DNA that was that was
(35:45):
recovered from a glass at a crimescene in a Munich penthouse where a wealthy
woman was killed in two thousand andsix. However, the primary suspect for
the for the crime where the wealthywoman was killed in Munich was the victim's
nephew, who was a young childduring Earthless disappearance. No way, So
(36:09):
that's weird. So I don't knowhow his DNA ends up in the box.
And then he's also now he's doingwell. Yeah, and he gets
done for for another crime. Buthe was a young child. He was
too young then. But then thatcould mean that those screws came from his
(36:30):
where he lived, So did theycome from his household or somewhere you know
that he had access to as ayoung child. He's obviously touched those screws
at some point, so then i'dbe looking at the family where he was,
where he resided at the time.Now, this is what's strange.
So a comprehensive forensic review ended upconcluding that the two cases were completely unrelated.
(36:55):
Yeah, so while the nephew waseventually convict did of the Munich murder,
there is no evidence that he hadany sort of involvement obviously in Earthless
kidnapping, and they couldn't find anysort of connection between him and his family
in Earthless kidnapping. So really,this DNA match remains a complete enigma.
(37:19):
Yeah, it does. So Idon't know how you explain that. I
don't know how you explain that.Well, at some point he has obviously
come into contact with those with thosescrews. So it's just explained how has
he come into contact with those atwhat point in his life? If that
screw was only used on that boxand ever since that they've been on that
(37:45):
box, they've been in a policeevidence bag, then obviously he hasn't touched
them since the box was pulled outof the ground. Therefore, he must
have touched them before the box werein the ground. So how if his
parents own a hardware store, thatexplains things. But if they don't,
then how has that kid got hisDNA onto those that were used in the
box of a young girl that stuckin there. He's obviously been playing with
(38:09):
those screws at some point he hadto have. I mean, his his
DNAs an't going to jump from himto magic. So he has had no
contact in Yeah, no, it'svery strange now, so by you know,
(38:29):
you know, within the last tenyears this actually trying to figure out
and solve Urthles's case became very importantbecause time was of the essence. Yeah,
Urthless case Earthless death was categorized asa kidnapping resulting at death, which
has a thirty year statute of limitations. Right, So if they weren't able
(38:54):
to solve it by twenty twenty twoor I'm sorry twenty twenty one, whoever
responsible for it would not have beenable to be charged with any crime.
So around twenty sixteen, so withfive years to go, I mean,
(39:15):
they were really hard pressed. Wehave to figure this out, we need
to get this, we need toget dis solved. At that point they
decided to go ahead and return tothe suspects the from the eighties, and
once again they found Klaus Faffinger,who had once claimed to be involved.
By this point he had passed away, so they couldn't do anything further with
(39:37):
him. They found that Warner Massurichwas still alive and residing in northern Germany,
where he was managing a boating accessorybusiness. Direk was put under observation.
An undercover officer was assigned to getclose to him in his personal spaces,
which included having his car and residentsbugged. His home would end up
(39:58):
being searched in a a saliva samplewas taken. The DNA results revealed no
match with the profiles from the box, so with them not able to connect
him using the DNA from a saliva, they looked for other ways to try
to connect him to the knapping.They are able to do so by an
(40:21):
item that was actually taken from hishouse, which was an old reel to
reel tape recorder. So like,so going back to the days after she
had been kidnapped, Yeah, theywere playing a jingle which was from the
Barn three traffic report. Right,experts decided they decided to try to figure
(40:42):
out if it was possible that thisreal to reel tape recorder could have been
used to record that jingle. Asound expert who had access to the original
recordings of the nineteen eighty one callsspent months conducting tests on the tape recorder,
ultimately concluding that it was indeed usedin the kidnapping. All right,
So with that, Walter Merzurich wasarrested and flow into Augsburg to face The
(41:10):
trial actually started in uh, letme restay, blah blah blah blah blah.
I don't I really don't like howthis, how I had this empted
it ended, so let me I'mjust give me one second here, okay,
(41:42):
you know, showing and finding evidencethat he was of quote unquote per
poor character. He had some issueswith law, including a fraud conviction in
two thousand and four for falsifying documents. The problem is the case at the
prosecution laid out was all circumstantial.Yeah. What they said was that he
(42:05):
had a motive as he needed moneybecause he was in a large amount of
debt. He had the means tosecretly build a box because he owned a
workshop. They also said that whileUrsula was missing, he had been observing
listening to police radio and that apiece of leather used in the box construction
was cut from a belt owned bysomeone with a large stomach like Waltimmerzurich R.
(42:31):
They also said that that when hishouse and phone line were bugged,
that they listened in on a phoneconversation between him and old friend from Eching
where they were discussing would they discussthe statute of limitations for the Ursula Herman
case. So this is all circumstantial. There's no hard evidence, there is
(42:53):
concrete evidence for it. The onlything that they had was this tape records
and the expert saying yeah, thisis what was used to record the jingle
off the radio. Yeah. Bythe time that that the expert testified,
(43:15):
it kind of changed from a yeah, this is what was used to It
was probable that the same tape recorderfound in waltimre yes was used in the
ransom calls. So it's probable.But despite despite all of this circumstantial evidence,
(43:40):
Waltimer Zurich would be found guilty bythree judges and two jurors and sentenced
to life in prison. Oh wow. Now his wife was also arrested as
being a part of this, asbeing part of it, but she would
end up being being found not guiltyand she was released due to insufficient insignificant
(44:04):
evidence. Insufficient, Yeah, dueto insufficient evidence. So I don't know
how I feel about this. Ifeel like there's not enough evidence to say
that this guy did it. Sure, he might have been like a a
not a great character. Maybe hewas not a great person. Yeah,
maybe he had debt. But I'mnot sure. If I don't know,
(44:30):
I don't know how I feel aboutthis kid. I think that it's very
suspicious and it's probably highly likely thathe is involved. However, you have
to go with concrete evidence. Youcan't convict somebody on a well, he
looks really guilty, it looks reallybad, even though you might be convinced
(44:50):
that he's the one that did it. You know, you have to give
the guy a fair trial if theevidence isn't there, despite the fact that
he looks like a complete dirt bagand he's highly likely to have done that,
you can't convict on evidence that isn'tthere. That's worrying. That's very
worrying for the legal system. Idon't know. I mean, yeah,
you have you have this other guywho who previously said, yeah, I
(45:14):
was paid to dig a hole andI saw a box in there, but
then he later you know, recantedhis statement. Yeah, but besides that,
there's really nothing that like, no, there's I don't know, there's
no DNA. So the DNA thatthey did find on or around the box,
none of it matched to Walter Mazurich. No, and this was in
(45:36):
nineteen eighty one, so it's notlike he was aware of DNA. So
he's not going, Yeah, hemight go and like be worried about like
fingerprints, right, So he's gonnamake sure there's no fingerprints on it.
But he's not gonna be going aroundthis box making sure that he cleans every
piece of it to make sure thatnone of his DNA is on it.
Well, no, because DNA wasn'teven a thing then, not used routinely.
(45:59):
It was only just in its stages. So tell me, how did
the guy put together a large woodbox, bury it in the ground,
get a ten year old girl inthe box, lock it up, secure
it and there's no DNA that pointsto him? Yeah, it doesn't make
(46:21):
sense, does it? And evenif he did, Even if he did,
I mean, what has he sedatedher with? If that's the case,
I mean, what likely stuff canyou get to sedate a child?
You know that that's going to bereadily available to get in and around hardware
stores or things like that. Sowhat exactly has he given her? I
mean I would imagine that they stilldid things like tox screens back then to
(46:45):
some points. They would know ifthere was alcohol in her blood. So
it's not like he got her reallydrunk with alcohol and she passed out.
So she's still alive. But youknow, so I would see, well,
what's in her system for sedation?Where would somebody get that? Can
you get that locally? Is thatsomething that he has within his work?
You know? Is it something thathe can easily get hold of? It
just seems very Yeah, it seemslike they've picked the weirdest guy locally,
(47:10):
who everybody thinks has got a bitof a temper, and because he's the
weird, the local kind of personthat people thinks weird, they've just stuck
to him just because of that.I don't I don't necessarily think that that's
the right thing to do. Thereisn't enough that points to him. He
might be a bit weird, butthere's not really enough that points to him.
I don't think personally in this case, if you were to be a
dura on this case, could yousay with one hundred percent, there is
(47:35):
no reasonable doubt that this guy didit. No, there is reasonable doubt,
and so therefore you can't convict him. That's it. That's how the
work. That's how the system works. Yeah, so it's so so strange.
I don't I don't know. Idon't know what to think about this
one. So he was sent toprison for so he ended up serving for
life. Yeah, so he wassentenced to life in prison. However,
(47:59):
he was actually released after serving fifteenyears in jail this past June. So,
June twenty twenty three, he washe was released from prison. And
now he is so he got outon parole, so he has served his
(48:20):
whole time. He's basically served histime that he would have been that is
the right time that he was actuallyconvicted for, and he might not necessarily
have done it. So that guyhas spent all that time in prison for
something that he not necessarily did.Yeah, that's hard exactly. So he
so he's out, he's trying toprove his at this point, he's trying
(48:43):
to prove his innocence. He's stillclaiming innocence in the case. Good for
him. I don't think it washappy. I mean at this point,
like I can't say it was himeither. I can't. I can't say
I can't say it is I can'tsay hundred percent yes it was him.
I don't think the evidence is thereto say that, in which case that
(49:07):
means that the person that did doit. If you can't one hundred percent
say this guy did it, there'sa huge chance that the person that did
do it has been walking free thiswhole time. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like this islike they they they found their guy.
(49:27):
This guy has to be it.I mean, yeah, he was a
suspect from the beginning, but therewasn't enough. So like, okay,
well we can't. We can't continueon this path of him. You know,
we be guilty of it because they'reunder pressure to take some sort of
justice. Yeah, we need toget it solved. So let's go back
and see who we looked at before. Okay, here's this guy, and
(49:50):
yeah, maybe he's a weird guy. Yeah, maybe he has the ability
to to be able to build somethinglike this. Maybe he was in debt.
Okay, well, there's their motive. He has the ability to build
a box and get in the ground. But that's it. I don't know.
No, it's not enough for me. It's not enough. I can't.
I can't pin that one him onehundred percent. That's not I don't
(50:13):
think that's enough. You can't convictoff of a probable, no, a
probability that that a real to realtape recorder could have recorded that that that
that jingle and played during the phonecall. Well, I mean, that's
the thing. How many tape recordersare in people's houses at that time.
I had a tape recorder in nineteeneighty five. You know how many people
(50:37):
had tape recorders? Probably quite afew people, just because there was a
tape record. I mean, ifhe found the tape in it that had
the jingle on it, okay,but they didn't. So right, that's
like saying, oh, well,he had a TV in his house or
he had a hammer in his house, so he must have built that box
because he had a hammer. Thatdoesn't that doesn't make sense. But here's
the thing too, So the taperecorder, it wasn't found in the hall
(51:00):
back in Echine, right, Soit wasn't like they found the tape recorder
back in nineteen eighty one. Theyfound it when they when they searched in
the two thousands in his home innorthern Germany. Yeah, and so we
don't even know if he had thattape recorder at the time of the kidnapping.
He could have picked up an oldtape recorder because he had tapes at
home that he wanted to listen to. You know, he could have done
(51:22):
it, picked it up at ajumble sale or something. You just don't
know. I mean, there's justnot enough. There's not enough. He
actually claims, I mean, heactually claims that he purchased that tape recorder
in two thousand and seven from aflea market in lower Saxony. There you
go, there you go. Iremember we had when I was a kid,
we had a Spectrum. Do youremember the Spectrum computers? And you
(51:45):
used to put a It was ablack computer. Basically, it was like
a black keyboard, right and nextto it you had a tape recorder.
Then you'd plug it in and youhad to put this tape in. You'd
put it down, it would goand it would load up the game so
you could then play the game.And we had one of these. We
had one of these now about Ithink it's scott to have been our early
(52:07):
twenties. We were at like ajumble sale thing, a car boot sale
or something, and we walked pastthe table and there was a spectrum.
I think it was like a Spectrumtwo thousand something, it's called something like
that, and we saw one andwe're like, oh my god. We
had that when we were a kid. Should we buy it? In the
end, we decided not to becausewe're not going to use it, but
we did think about buying it.And that was when I was in my
(52:29):
twenties. And I had that whenI was like eleven, like ten or
eleven, and we saw it andwe're like, oh, should we just
try it? Yeah, so that'sthat's highly probable that he did do that,
and he's telling the truth. Sohere's the thing. If they say
that it's probable that this real,real tap recorder was used to record a
(52:52):
pole and was used to play thejingle on these calls, if he didn't
have that tape, that real realtape recorder in nineteen eighty one, then
it's probable that he didn't do it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
This is crazy. It is crazy, that's yeah. Wow. Yeah,
(53:19):
oh so just looking it up.So so I guess in Germany the
criminal code. According to the CriminalCode in Germany, a life sentence can
be suspended after fifteen years if theperpetray did not commit any wrongdoing during the
period of imprisonment. Oh. Ok, so it gets some from good behavior.
Yeah, pretty much. So that'swhy he's out. And I I
(53:44):
can't say that I'm I'm upset thathe's out because I don't know if he
is guilty. No, I agree, that's harsh, it is. I
don't know. It's it's tough,like I want to have you'd want to
have justice to the family, youwant to have justice for ursula, But
(54:04):
I think the way they went aboutgetting justice is not the way you should
be doing it. But as afamily member, I would want to make
sure the right person was away.I would to make sure the right person
was in prison. And if Iwas watching this case, I'd be thinking,
this isn't not one hundred percent convincedit's him. I think it needs
re examining him right from the beginning. I think it needs to go again,
(54:24):
and it needs fresh eyes on thecase, like fresh eyes to look
I mean, as it stands,this is a closed case. Now it
is because they've got their manners donehis time and he's back out again,
so it's it's a close and finishedcase. Yeah, you can't proscute anyone
for it, but it needs tobe re examined. Yeah, it would
be a good idea to look atit again by people who are privy to
(54:46):
all the information. It's going tohave to be somebody who's who's privy to
everything, because there's obviously things inthis case that they haven't released to the
public. There's going to be thingsthat we don't know about that make it
may make it more certain that hedid it. But I think it would
I think it would do too.But they're not going to do it again
because there's no reason. It's allin their eyes. It's a solved case.
(55:07):
It's done, he's done his time. That's it. They're not going
to look at this again. There'sgoing to be no need for them to
look at it again because as faras they're concerned, they've got their man.
So sad they didn't. They gotit. They got a man,
They got a man. I'm notsure that they got the man, not
not based on what you've said today, I don't I'm not one hundred percent
(55:27):
sure. I couldn't convict him onthat evidence. So that was our frustrating
case for this week. Wow,thank you very much for that case.
That was a very frustrating case.Yeah. I don't know. I'm still
sitting I'm like shaking my head andI'm just I don't know. Well,
hopefully Walter ends up getting somebody tolook at it again and it proves his
(55:52):
innocence, because that must be horribleif you are living a life knowing that
you are not the child murderer buteverybody thinks you are. I would be
fighting too for Nail to try andmy name clear that was me. I
would not give up on that.I would keep going and keep going.
So I hope if he didn't doit, I hope that he does keep
going and keep fighting that so thatpeople know the truth about him, because
(56:13):
that's not a very nice cloud tolive under. I think he was an
outsider in the area. You know, he was different from from everyone else
in the area. He people thoughthe was a weird guy in Yeah,
that's exactly. I think that's whatThat's all it was. Well, thank
you very much for that. Wehave at the end of each show.
(56:34):
If you don't listen regularly, youwon't know, but if you do,
then you know what's coming. Wehave at the end of each show to
make you smile. Something we liketo call dumb criminals. They use a
dummy and use a piece of shit. So today's case is a funny one
for you. So two burglars weregoing through burglarizing an apartment in Brazil and
(56:57):
they were disturbed by police. Sopolice know that the burglar inside. So
what they did was they jumped outof a window with a stash of jewelry
from the apartment. They got away, but soon afterwards the police picked up
two men that were acting very suspiciously, not knowing that they were the people
from the burglary. Now, whilstin custody, one of the men started
to report of being very ill.His condition worsened and he needed hospital treatment,
(57:24):
so they took him to the hospitaland doctors x rayed him. When
they x rayed him, the problemwas pretty clear. Two rings, a
necklace, and a pendant were allstuck in his esophagus. Oh shit,
So the x rays showed that hehad swallowed the I mean, how ridiculous.
(57:46):
When that comes out, they're goingto be able to prove that that
came from that burglary and you arestuffed basically, So they gave it.
He had to have surgery because itwouldn't come out. So there was obviously
no way to him up for thisbecause they actually cut it out of his
body. The apartment owner identified allthe items and the person was then burglary.
(58:13):
What a dummy, I beg youbefore the robbery they watched the goonies
and oh mouth put all these jewelsand stuff in his mouth. I can
imagine that. Yeah, oh my, remember Mama for telling you that he
kept pulling out like all the beadsand pearls, and when they squeeze his
cheeks and they all come out andhe's spitting out rubies. Do you know?
(58:37):
It doesn't tell you how old thesetwo burglars are, but you know
that they have got to be eightieskids because they definitely watched the Goonies before.
Enough makes you think, oh,I'll just swallow these. That's stupid.
It is come out one way theother. Yeah, and you don't
want to want to be rifling throughthat to get your booty out, do
(58:59):
you good? It's not good.No, No, that's not smart people.
No, So that is this week'sdumb criminal. So very doubt very
much. We will be back nextweek with another episode. In the meantime,
let us know what you thought ofthis episode. What do you think?
Do you think he was guilty ordo you think that this was a
(59:20):
wrong for conviction. You can talkto us on Probably not best on Facebook,
to be honest. I logged ontoFacebook today and there was loads of
messages that I hadn't seen. Soif you want to get a message from
us, it's probably best to doit on Instagram because that's something that we're
both on quite often. We doget to Facebook, but not as often
as Instagram. So yeah, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, any of those.
You can send us a message,but if you want an answer,
(59:43):
you want us to see it.Highly likely we're going to see the Instagram
one and we will be back nextweek. And it's Halloween, Halloween weekend
next weekend, so I think ourepisode drops on Halloween, So we're going
to have a special for view nextweek, maybe a trick or maybe a
treat. So for now, benice and bye
Welcome to crime Pedia. I amone of your wonderful hosts. My name
is Morgan. I hope you're havinga great day with me. As always,
is my favorite true crime friend.She is my true crime bff.
She is my partner in crime.It's lovely Cherry. Hello, Cherry,
how are you? I'm good.She's also the leader of a very very
(00:58):
well known gang in America. Butto find out more, you'll need to
listen to our crime Media extra episodewhen I inadvertently outed myself as the gang
of as the leader of a veryvery prominent gang. It's all completely untrue.
It was just me and my bigmouth. Yeah, we learned a
lot about you, did you did? About how you wanted to start a
(01:23):
cult with a bunch of NaNs andgranddads. Yep, we've discovered that I
need a buffer button so that youcan cut me off before I open my
stupid mouth and brand our podcast issomething absolutely terrible. Oh yeah, no,
no, no, oh, well, well I'm glad it's your episode
this week, so you can makeall the mistakes. Is it on me
(01:46):
for a change, Yeah, No, usually it is. It's usually me
that that's making all the mistakes.Having edit on my my stuff out,
No, what have you got forus this week? Then I'm excited about
this one. We've Last week wasa stressful weekman, But I must say
thank you to the people that havemessaged us this week. I honestly wasn't
(02:07):
expecting the communication that we actually gotfrom this episode. The feedback has been
was really humbling, actually, andit was actually exactly what we wanted to
do as the host for that episode. It's the fact that if we reached
one person that listened to our episodeand went, wait, hang on a
(02:28):
minute, that sounds like so andso, I wonder if that's what she's
going through, or oh my god, that's me, this isn't normal,
then that was exactly what it wasintended for. And I am absolutely gobsmacked
to find out that actually more thanone person messaged me to say, oh
my goodness, thank you for thatepisode. I can't believe that I've just
(02:49):
realized how bad the relationship so andso is in is and you've completely opened
my eyes to it. And thatis just I'm so pleased, because if
we can save one person from goingthrough what Sally went through, then that
is just fantastic. No. Absolutely, yeah, so that was a very
(03:10):
emotional. That was very emotional,and actually we I think our last two
cases have been really frustrating and emotionaland yeah, so yeah, what a
way to come back after our littlebreak. Thanks very much for you.
Yeah, thank you for your honestfeedback on that. I really appreciate it.
Yeah. So, unfortunately we haveanother frustrating one today. This is
(03:31):
a an older case and we areactually going back across the pond for me,
So we're going back to Germany.So this is uh, this is
our third case. Third yeah,third case in Germany. And this is
actually a very well known case overthere. I've only recently learned about it.
(03:53):
But this is the the kidnapping ofUrsula Herman. On September fifteenth,
nineteen eighty one, Ursula Herman,a ten year old girl, wrote her
by Colm after visiting with a cousin, she would never make it. This
(04:15):
event marked the beginning of one ofGermany's most debated in infamous criminal cases in
modern history. This is Crimpedia andthis is the girl in the box,
(04:45):
all right, cherry. Tuesday,September fifteenth, nineteen eighty one was the
first day of the new school yearfor ten year old Ursula Herman. After
school, Ursula would return to herhome and aching AMRCI once again. I
want to apologize to all of ourGerman listeners if I completely butchered some of
these names. I am now aGerman speaker. I'm try my best.
(05:06):
So this is Eching is located inthe alpine foothills of southern Germany. Now,
after practicing piano with her oldest brother, Michael, Ursula would head off
on her bike to her late afternoongymnastics lessons in a Seawendorf, cycling through
the forest along the lakeside path.So this is about two miles for or
(05:27):
just about two miles from from thevillage that she lived in, so not
terribly far, no fa no,so you you know you want to be
and especially here this is really isjust it's extremely a rural So it's you
want to be too concerned about,you know, having your daughter, you
know, biking two miles to thenext village over. So it wasn't a
(05:47):
big deal. Now. When thegym class was over, she went over
to her cousin's house in Seawendorf,where she ate dinner. At seven pm,
Ursula's mother would phone the aunt tosay that her daughter was needed to
come home. Now. The bikeride from from her cousin's home back to
her her home should have only takenabout ten minutes, so really close to
(06:12):
being home. Now half an hourlater, Ursula still still had not arrived
home. Her mother would call backover to the aunt's house again, learning
that Ursula had left her cousin's placeabout twenty minutes prior. This, of
course, would create the sense ofworry to her mother. Obviously, right,
she should have been home at leastfifteen minutes ago. Now, as
(06:35):
soon as she found out that shehad left twenty five minutes ago, she
had been home. Ursula's father andher uncle would go out into the forest
to start looking for her. Andso they were both coming from from two
different ways, so they should shouldhave obviously met right in the middle,
and their hope was they would haverun into her somewhere along the path.
(07:00):
Unfortunately, they did not find her. They called out her name, they
they searched everywhere, they searched aroundthe pass, and there was no absolutely
no sign sign of her. Nowwithin an hour more locals, along with
police and firefighters, joined in onthe search. They combed the areas with
(07:20):
flashlights, using them to comb overthe lake as well as to search through
the dense forest. It was verydifficult because there was a lot of heavy
undergrowth, which which made it actuallysearching off the path really difficult for them.
So this is, like I said, this is a very heavily forested
(07:43):
area, and it's it's honestly alot of a lot of the places along
the path, it would have beenhighly unlikely that she would have been she
would have been, you know,would have went off the path herself.
Yeah, but they still they stillwere looking looking for her off you know,
off off chance that she, youknow, had made a stop somewhere
(08:05):
and got hurt. Well, yeah, because kids, the kids aren't the
I mean, she might have madea stop off because she needs the toilet,
and so obviously you're in a forestarea. She might have had an
accident or was close to have anaccident and just nipped off to go to
the toilet and something happened, youknow. So I suppose from that point
of view, you would wouldn't youwould frantically just look everywhere you could.
Yeah, no, absolutely, Imean, so yeah, you're gonna look
(08:26):
everwhere, You're gonna look in thewater. You're gonna look off the path,
you know. Yeah, you don'tknow what could have happened. Now,
at around midnight that evening, therewas there was some rain, so
it had been raining on and offthe whole day. Around midnight, one
of the search dogs ended up directingits handler off the path, which would
(08:48):
lead them to Ursula's abandoned red bicycle. Oh no, However, there was
no other trace of her anywhere nearby, so they were able to find her
bike, but there was no therewas nothing else around that would indicate what
happened to her or where she went. Yeah. Now, the following day,
obviously, the search efforts would becomemore amplified. Numerous officers dressed in
(09:15):
rain gear would comb through the thickwoods adjacent to landheim Schendorf, which is
a prestigious private school that was establishedin nineteen oh five and was actually very
popular amongst Bavarian influential figures. Sothis whole area is actually there's a lot
of wealthy families that lived within thisarea and a lot of the kids in
(09:37):
the area were sent off to thisprivate school. At the same time,
there were helicopters circling while a policeboat in divers did explore the lake's edges.
Local radio stations began broadcasting the newsof the missing girl. At the
time, she was described as beingfour foot seven four foot seven inches tall.
(10:01):
She is real tiny, with shortblonde hair. At the time,
she was wearing dark green trousers agreat card again in reddish brown brown sandals.
Two days after her disappearance, therewas a very strange phone call that
that that came into the herman's home. When the line was picked up,
(10:26):
Ursula's parents were met with silence,followed by a jingle that they recognized from
the Barren three radio's traffic updates.So it was silence, and then all
of a sudden, this jingle right, so really strange. Now the mysterious
and call would repeat over and over. So there was so this So it
(10:52):
was so the call would come in, you'd hear the same jingle, and
then the call would hang up.This would happen at least three more times
over the next several hours. Thelocal police, which were now at this
point operating from the hermit's home,became documenting all of these calls because you'd
wonder, wouldn't you is it hertrying to call and she can't say anything.
(11:15):
Or is this somebody being torturous andjust trying to talk to you?
You know, Is she okay?If somebody got her? Are they just
doing this just to hurt you.It's as horrible, I mean, with
that coming in multiple times, you'dhave to figure that it was it had
some sort of involvement with her disappearance. It's just it's just so strange for
(11:35):
it not to write. It's weird. I don't know, so very weird
now the follow By midday the followingday, an envelope labeled urgent and addressed
to Ursules's father was handed over toU was handed or by the postman.
The envelope contained a ransom message craftedfrom clipping of newspapers. It read,
(11:58):
in fragment into German, we haveyour daughter, pay two million Deutsche marks
if you wish to see her alive. So at the time, two million
Deutsche marks would have been equivalent toabout four hundred and fifty thousand pounds,
so a substantial amount of money,you know, especially in nineteen eighty one,
that's a lot of money. Now. The kidnappers mistakenly anticipated the letter
(12:24):
to have reached a day earlier,and in the letter it actually mentioned their
intent to use the jingle as anidentifier during the calls, So the calls
that started the day before were anindication like, hey, this is us.
Yeah. Now they would warned thehermans inform us whether your pay or
(12:50):
not, and if they involved thepolice or they failed to pay, it
would result in the death of theirdaughter. Imagine that that must be horrific
to know that someone's got your childand that they're threatening to too harm to
her if you don't pay them.I mean, that's that's terrible. That's
(13:11):
a horrible thing to have to dealwith as a parent, Very very horrible
thing to deal with. I couldimagine it. I would never want to
manage. Imagine. No, that'shorrible. Now. That afternoon, when
the phone rang and the jingle sounded, Ursula's mother immediately committed to paying the
ransom. So as soon as shepicked up, she said, you know
(13:33):
what, we'll pay. We'll pay. We'll do whatever you need. Of
course, now you do whatever youdo, whatever you could, wouldn't you,
oh, absolutely absolutely. Seeking assurance, she pleaded for confirmation of her
daughter's well being. She did thisby asking asking whoever was on the other
line. What the names? Whatname she gave her two stuffed animals?
(13:56):
Good idea. Now try and makesure she's that it's actually her and she's
there at yeah, good height exactly. Now met with silence, desperation would
take over and she began yelling,talk to me, say something something from
Ursula. So at this point theydon't even have confirmation that Ursula is even
alive. Yeah, they didn't evenknow that the people that actually have her.
(14:20):
Later that evening, another letter fromthe captors was sent, which would
arrive on Monday, September twenty first. The note contained oddly detailed directives about
the ransom payment. They demanded thatthe funds that they demanded the funds and
used one hundred dollars Deutsche mark notesneatly packed in a suitcase. The drop
off location remained unspecified, with thestipulation that Ursula's father should be the one
(14:45):
to deliver it. Now he was. He was to drive alone in a
yellow Fiat six hundred, maintaining aspeed no greater of ninety kilometers per hour,
which is fifty five miles per hour. That's very strange. Oh yeah,
why would they say that? Like, what does that? What does
that matter? What speed he's going? That's weird. I don't know,
(15:07):
Like, what does it matter?I have no idea why. Yeah,
I don't know why it would matter. Like even if it's like, okay,
well, we want to make sure, you know, we want to
make sure that he gets there atthe right time, and so if he's
going fifty five miles an hour andwe're fifty five miles away, it's going
to take it. I don't know. It's really weird that that they have
those specifics. Why would they specificallyask for that? That's weird. Mm
(15:31):
hm, No, it's very strange. Now, unlike many an eching in
the parents of students at the ShorendorfBoarding School, the Herman family, they
were not affluent at all. Theirlakeside home was only possible because of land
or Soul's great grandfather had acquired yearsprior. Now. Luckily, a kind
(15:52):
hearted neighbor contributed a portion of thisransom ransom that was requested, while the
government committed to fund the remaining balance. So they weren't a wealthy family.
So this amount of money that they'reasking for, it wasn't like that the
people knew, like Okay, they'regoing to have money and we'll be able
to get it from them. Theyactually had, They had to get money
(16:14):
from other sources in order to evenHow heartbreaking must that be to have your
daughter being held captive by somebody andknowing that you don't have the funds to
pay to get her back, thatmust be just must be horrific. It's
bad enough if you had the funds, but if you don't have the funds,
that must leave you feeling pretty desperate. That's horrible, so horrible.
(16:40):
So it's weird because you would thinkthat this is a small community. You
would think that you know who hadmoney, who didn't have money, So
it's almost like whoever took her hasgot no concept of the value of money.
So it sounds like it sounds tome like people that don't really understand
because when children children thinks that money'sendless, don't they have no concept of
(17:02):
money and how much people have got. They know the difference between somebody who's
got a very poor life and somebodywho's got a more affluent life. But
middle of the road life and veryaffluent life is very it's saying, isn't
it like the dad drives a nicecar. They don't know that dad's got
that on finance and things like that. You know. It's so that sounds
very and it sounds very kiddish tome for some reason. I don't know.
(17:25):
I'll see what you think as yougo on. Yeah, no,
I mean I agree, but Ithink it's you know, it's also the
same where it's like, whoever isdoing this, they don't They don't know
that. The Hermans, they don'thave this money, so it's like,
why would you, so I don't. I feel like it's not even like
it's like not a target. Itdoesn't sound like a targeted attack or targeted
(17:47):
kidnapping. No, it's strange tome. Yeah, that is very strange.
Now, the Hermans at this pointthey were anticipating further directives in regards
to how to get the money tothem and how to get Ursula back.
However, after this it pretty muchwent silent. There were no letters nor
(18:10):
calls that are being received. Ohno. And the police were also having
issues, so they were trying tograpple all this with really having no absolutely
no leads, so there were likeno good leads into kind of like pointing
them where they should go which theyshould look now. After two weeks,
(18:32):
they decided to go ahead and searchthe forest again. Okay. Over one
hundred officers, which were supplemented byten tracking dogs, were mobilized. The
forest reign was methodically divided into sectionsand then subdivided into precise grids. Painstakingly,
each segment was searched officers using metalrods to sift through the forest floor.
(18:59):
On the fourth day, under asomber Sunday sky, with a vast
majority of the forest already searched,Ursula and Ursula had been missing for nineteen
days at this point. At preciselynine thirty am, a resounding shout pierced
to calm morning and a secluded clearing. Roughly eight hundred meters from the lakeside
trail, an officer had encountered asolid up of obstruction beneath the earth.
(19:26):
A colleague currently joined him, andafter clearing away debris and digging through a
clay layer, they unveiled a brownblanket concealing a wooden plank. Beneath it
lay another board, seemingly on topof a box. Now, this box
measured about twenty inches by twenty threeinches. Yeah, close, It's basically
(19:51):
very similar to the size like ofa modest coffee coffee table. It was
painted a mute green and secured withseven slide bolts. At this point,
there was determined that there was alot of urgency in getting to get into
this thing, so the police officerended up prying it open. Unfortunately,
(20:14):
Oh do open it would yeah,it would reveal a heartbreaking scene. Bursla
was laying inside, no longer alive, no now overcome with sorrow and with
tears streaming down his face. Thehe he actually gently createled her in his
arms at that point. So it'shorrific. I mean, they don't even
(20:45):
know this little girl, you know, the search teams and stuff. They
didn't know her personally. But whatare something that's going to affect you for
the rest of your life. You'renever going to forget that. That's going
to be something that's going to beYou're gonna He's going to be with you
forever. That's horrific, that poorlittle girl. Yeah, So it's like
(21:07):
it's very strange becauseless now it's anyit's annoying, senseless. I mean,
cause we talked. I mean Ijust mentioned this because because of the you
know, it doesn't seem like it'sa targeted attack. But at the same
time, now we're looking at likethis was well planned. Mm hmm.
(21:30):
So someone had to have gone throughthe time and effort to dig a huge
hole to like get this, toplace this box into the ground, to
conceal it, to secure it.Yeah, so someone out there was,
like was planning on doing a kidnapping. Maybe it wasn't Ursula. Maybe Ursla
wasn't a target, but she justhappened to come across him. I don't
(21:52):
know. Now. Two detectives weresent to inform Ursules's parents. Yes,
it's very horrible. Now. Whileher mother was overwhelmed with grief and unable
to speak, her father sought clarity, asking if Ursula had suffered before she
(22:14):
died. Now the groom response wasthat she hadn't. Post Mortem findings determined
Ursula's death occurred somewhere between thirty minutesto five hours post burial, so she
was she was not alive for morethan five hours inside that box. Yeah,
that's good. Now. The absenceof any evident distress or movement within
(22:42):
the confined space led medical experts todetermine that she may have been sedated,
possibly using nitrous oxide, So therewas no sign of any sort of like
struggle. There was no sign thatshe tried to even attempt to get out
of the box. So it's veryvery possible that she was sedated the whole
(23:04):
time. So she obviously she Theydon't know whether she was dead before she
went into the box. That's thequestion you're going to ask as a parent.
You know what she already did whenshe's in the box, or did
she wake up in the box?And that's that's that horrific. Now,
the kidnappers seemingly intended to keep Ursaalive, so I don't believe that the
(23:26):
attent was to kill her. Okay. Inside this this underground chamber, which
reached a depth of one point fivemeters. It was equipped with a shelf
in a makeshift lavatory bathroom. Provisionsinside include water, fanta, chocolate bars,
(23:49):
biscuits, cookies, chewing gum,and they're also a variety of different
a variety of twenty one different booksfrom Donald Duck comics to various genre novels.
There is lighting inside of it.Go ahead, what so, so
(24:10):
they kind of it's like somewhere thatthey're like kind of holding her, so
like hiding her until they can getthe ransom money and then they'll tell her
to hell them where she is.But obviously they've not let enough oxygen in
there, and she's suffocated. That'swhat it sounds like. Yeah, so
yeah, so they had lighting inthere. There was a portable radio which
was actually set to Barren three,which was the same station that was identified
(24:34):
by the traffic jingle. The chamberdid have a makeshift ventilation system, which
was composed of plastic pipes that reachedup to the surface, but whoever designed
it failed to overlook the need forair circulation, which caused the oxygen inside
(24:56):
the chamber to deplete very very quickly. So they've not very clever, if
they're not. But they put alot of time and effort into it.
Yeah they did. But the thingis they've not been the one thing,
the one thing out of all ofthis. The two things. Okay,
the first thing, you need toget enough air into that to keep her
(25:18):
alive. That's the very first thing. The second thing is that she needs
to be Oh, it needs tobe safe. So the box itself needs
to be safe because it's if they'reburying her and it's not it's not load
bearing. It's going to cry.It's all going to come in and it's
going to kill her. So thetwo things, the two most important things.
(25:41):
One of those they haven't done.The most important thing to make sure
there's enough air getting in, andthey haven't done that. So that seems
very amateurish to me. In thiswhole elaborate scheme that they've done. Hidden
her in there to get their ransommoney and then they make sure she had
enough air in there, that seemsvery amateurish. So I actually just sent
(26:03):
you basically a diagram that was oh, what good is that of the chamber
and how she was found? Wow, Yeah, we'll have to put some
on our socials, but to tryto get an understanding of it. So
it's, like I said, it'sabout twenty three inches wide, so about
just under two feet wide twenty eightinches tall, so it was plenty of
(26:30):
space to sit in there, andshe could probably create so yeah, yeah,
exactly, it's like a little priestAnd so there was like a small
little pipe which is was was thatwent through the top of the box which
went up to the surface. Yeah, and that's really it. I mean
there looks like this shelf where therewas some food where she was found sitting
(26:56):
was basically the makeshift bathroom. Yeah, so it seems like they intended to
keep her alived. It sounds likethey intended to keep her there until they
were able to secure the money.So they had planned for her to be
there for at least a while,it seems, Yeah, But unfortunately they
just did not realize that, Hey, there's something that called air circulation,
(27:21):
and you need to make sure thatthe air is able to get in and
as well as get out. So, yeah, that's horrible. That had
to have taken a lot of timeto put together and to get set up.
This is something that you're not doingovernight. No. Because of the
size and the weight of the chamber, this led authorities to suspect that there
(27:42):
might have been multiple people involved inthis crime. Yeah. The box it
self weighed sixty kilograms, so aheavy box. Yeah, and it would
have required at least two people totransport it and to dig the hole.
They and they did the whole absolutely. Yeah. Now, they also believed
(28:03):
that the suspects were very familiar withwith the forest area, being able to
pick a secluded spot which evaded noticeduring their preparations. So obviously they were
familiar with the area, they knewwhere they could, they could dig,
and they could put this box withoutanyone noticing or seeing them. Yeah,
(28:26):
so obviously it's it's someone that that'sfrom the area. Now, this incident
would cast a shower shadow over thewhole area, and this basically it was
this once care free place parents becamebegan to become hesitant to let their children
venture out unattended. Yeah. Absolutely, Now media fever only intensified the public
(28:52):
distress and the case. On theday of Urthless funeral, her eighteen years
brother Michael actually had a run inwith an intrusive photograph photographer which caused him
to forcibly swat away at the offendingcamera. So there's a lot of press
involved, a lot of understanding case. Understandably, obviously you're not giving oh
(29:15):
very unique case, and obviously they'renot giving the family the space that they
need at this time. I mean, that would be the worst. Like
you're already dealing with the death ofyour your daughter, your sister, but
now you have to deal with themedia that just you know, they're they're
being intrusive they're trying to they're youknow, they're interfering in your life.
(29:37):
So I don't blame any of themfor, you know, getting upset or
getting frustrated with with the media coverage. Eager to find those responsible for the
death of Ursula, the police announcedeight thirty thousand deutsch mark bounty for relevant
leads. Among the many tips thatcame in, one reoccurring name that was
(30:04):
brought to the police attention was thatof Werner Massurik. He was a thirty
one year old a thirty one yearold man who lived close to the Hermann
residence now. Massurich was a skilledmechanic who ran a TV repair business.
He was a considered a looming figure, known for his fiery temper, and
(30:29):
he wasn't really popular locally at thetime of her kidnapping. Walter actually had
a huge debt, tolling over onehundred and forty thousand Deutsche marks, and
this became seemingly a motive for himto be involved in this kidnapping. A
week after Earthles's body was discovered,police would question Massurich. At first,
(30:53):
he couldn't remember his whereabouts on thenight of her disappearance. It would take
him a day or so to actuallyrecall that he had been playing a playing
a board game risk with his wifeand a couple of friends the night that
Ursula went missing. However, asearch of his property found no evidence tying
(31:15):
him to the crime, so therewas nothing that they found that was like,
okay, obviously he was involved.Later that month, invest giars found
a fingerprint on duct tape attached tothe box. They would go ahead and
fingerprint thousands of people, including WalterMazurich, but no matches were found to
that fingerprint. Now, despite lackof concrete evidence, police continued to suspect
(31:41):
Massurich's involvement. In January nineteen eightytwo, they detained him in two of
the a quainances for interrogation, Wellreleased them several days later. A month
after another associo of Missurix Klaus I'mgonna say this name wrong. Klaus Faffinger,
an unemployed mechanic with alcohol issues,was brought in for questioning. This
(32:04):
was after his landlord seeking ode rent, reported seeing Faffinger with a spade attached
to his moped around the time ofthe crime. After initially denying any involvement,
he made a startling declaration. Duringa moment alone with a police with
a police secretary, he said,what if I know something. Upon the
return of the of the interrogators,he claimed that Missourich had hired him to
(32:30):
dig a hole in the forest forsome of one thousand Deutsche marks. In
a TV he also led, seeingthe box in the hole, he dug.
So now you have a person saying, yeah, he I was paid
by this guy to dig a hole, and I saw this box inside inside
of it. Now, hoping forsome sort of resolution, that investigators would
(32:51):
take this take him into the forest, asking for him to pinpoint where the
barrel site was. However, hisinability to do so led him to retract
his statements, dating, I'm evokingthis confession. It's not true what I
said. In subsequent interviews, heconsistently denied his earlier claims and was ultimately
(33:12):
released without charges. So now youhave an unreliable confession, right, he
was unreliable in the first place,though he really Oh no, absolutely absolutely.
By mid nineteen eighty two, withhis reputation further tarnished, Missurich considered
relocating from the area. Now atthis time, the primary detective on the
(33:34):
case was replaced and the focus shiftedto a broader set of suspects. A
massive public campaign was launched, withover one hundred thousand posters distributed in a
prominent feature on the television show caseNumber X Y and solved. Apparently this
show I hadn't obviously, I haven'theard this show because I'm not from Germany.
(33:55):
But this show actually would later inspireshows like BBC's Crime Watch in America's
Most Wanted. Yeah, so thiswas like one of the first, like
true crime, you know, ycase type shows. The new investigative team
discovered for further details about the kidnapperstechniques such as an alert system using wires.
(34:20):
However, leads on other potential suspectswere fruitless. Now as the decade
came to her close a probe,the probe actually lost momentum in Ursula's tragic
case remain etched in the nation's memory, so basically at this point it became
a cold case. So nothing furtherwas really learned and there wasn't really tip
(34:40):
weren't coming in, and we wereno closer to finding out what happened to
Ursula than the day that they thatshe was found. In the mid two
thousands, the Bavarian State Criminal InvestigationUnit revisited its unsolved cases. Obviously the
Ursula Herman case was on top oftheir list. Yeah. By this point
(35:00):
it had been featured at least threetimes on case number x Y and solved.
This case was a lingering black markon the local law enforcements record.
Now by this point we had investmentsin DNA. The prosecutors at this point
hoped for some sort of breakthrough.All evidence from the ransom notes to the
(35:22):
box Ursula was found in went underwentthorough re examination. Several distinct DNA profiles
were established from hairs found, andin two thousand and seven there was the
promising development. This is where thisis really strange. Okay, So DNA
from a screw on Ursula's box matchedthat from from DNA that was that was
(35:45):
recovered from a glass at a crimescene in a Munich penthouse where a wealthy
woman was killed in two thousand andsix. However, the primary suspect for
the for the crime where the wealthywoman was killed in Munich was the victim's
nephew, who was a young childduring Earthless disappearance. No way, So
(36:09):
that's weird. So I don't knowhow his DNA ends up in the box.
And then he's also now he's doingwell. Yeah, and he gets
done for for another crime. Buthe was a young child. He was
too young then. But then thatcould mean that those screws came from his
(36:30):
where he lived, So did theycome from his household or somewhere you know
that he had access to as ayoung child. He's obviously touched those screws
at some point, so then i'dbe looking at the family where he was,
where he resided at the time.Now, this is what's strange.
So a comprehensive forensic review ended upconcluding that the two cases were completely unrelated.
(36:55):
Yeah, so while the nephew waseventually convict did of the Munich murder,
there is no evidence that he hadany sort of involvement obviously in Earthless
kidnapping, and they couldn't find anysort of connection between him and his family
in Earthless kidnapping. So really,this DNA match remains a complete enigma.
(37:19):
Yeah, it does. So Idon't know how you explain that. I
don't know how you explain that.Well, at some point he has obviously
come into contact with those with thosescrews. So it's just explained how has
he come into contact with those atwhat point in his life? If that
screw was only used on that boxand ever since that they've been on that
(37:45):
box, they've been in a policeevidence bag, then obviously he hasn't touched
them since the box was pulled outof the ground. Therefore, he must
have touched them before the box werein the ground. So how if his
parents own a hardware store, thatexplains things. But if they don't,
then how has that kid got hisDNA onto those that were used in the
box of a young girl that stuckin there. He's obviously been playing with
(38:09):
those screws at some point he hadto have. I mean, his his
DNAs an't going to jump from himto magic. So he has had no
contact in Yeah, no, it'svery strange now, so by you know,
(38:29):
you know, within the last tenyears this actually trying to figure out
and solve Urthles's case became very importantbecause time was of the essence. Yeah,
Urthless case Earthless death was categorized asa kidnapping resulting at death, which
has a thirty year statute of limitations. Right, So if they weren't able
(38:54):
to solve it by twenty twenty twoor I'm sorry twenty twenty one, whoever
responsible for it would not have beenable to be charged with any crime.
So around twenty sixteen, so withfive years to go, I mean,
(39:15):
they were really hard pressed. Wehave to figure this out, we need
to get this, we need toget dis solved. At that point they
decided to go ahead and return tothe suspects the from the eighties, and
once again they found Klaus Faffinger,who had once claimed to be involved.
By this point he had passed away, so they couldn't do anything further with
(39:37):
him. They found that Warner Massurichwas still alive and residing in northern Germany,
where he was managing a boating accessorybusiness. Direk was put under observation.
An undercover officer was assigned to getclose to him in his personal spaces,
which included having his car and residentsbugged. His home would end up
(39:58):
being searched in a a saliva samplewas taken. The DNA results revealed no
match with the profiles from the box, so with them not able to connect
him using the DNA from a saliva, they looked for other ways to try
to connect him to the knapping.They are able to do so by an
(40:21):
item that was actually taken from hishouse, which was an old reel to
reel tape recorder. So like,so going back to the days after she
had been kidnapped, Yeah, theywere playing a jingle which was from the
Barn three traffic report. Right,experts decided they decided to try to figure
(40:42):
out if it was possible that thisreal to reel tape recorder could have been
used to record that jingle. Asound expert who had access to the original
recordings of the nineteen eighty one callsspent months conducting tests on the tape recorder,
ultimately concluding that it was indeed usedin the kidnapping. All right,
So with that, Walter Merzurich wasarrested and flow into Augsburg to face The
(41:10):
trial actually started in uh, letme restay, blah blah blah blah blah.
I don't I really don't like howthis, how I had this empted
it ended, so let me I'mjust give me one second here, okay,
(41:42):
you know, showing and finding evidencethat he was of quote unquote per
poor character. He had some issueswith law, including a fraud conviction in
two thousand and four for falsifying documents. The problem is the case at the
prosecution laid out was all circumstantial.Yeah. What they said was that he
(42:05):
had a motive as he needed moneybecause he was in a large amount of
debt. He had the means tosecretly build a box because he owned a
workshop. They also said that whileUrsula was missing, he had been observing
listening to police radio and that apiece of leather used in the box construction
was cut from a belt owned bysomeone with a large stomach like Waltimmerzurich R.
(42:31):
They also said that that when hishouse and phone line were bugged,
that they listened in on a phoneconversation between him and old friend from Eching
where they were discussing would they discussthe statute of limitations for the Ursula Herman
case. So this is all circumstantial. There's no hard evidence, there is
(42:53):
concrete evidence for it. The onlything that they had was this tape records
and the expert saying yeah, thisis what was used to record the jingle
off the radio. Yeah. Bythe time that that the expert testified,
(43:15):
it kind of changed from a yeah, this is what was used to It
was probable that the same tape recorderfound in waltimre yes was used in the
ransom calls. So it's probable.But despite despite all of this circumstantial evidence,
(43:40):
Waltimer Zurich would be found guilty bythree judges and two jurors and sentenced
to life in prison. Oh wow. Now his wife was also arrested as
being a part of this, asbeing part of it, but she would
end up being being found not guiltyand she was released due to insufficient insignificant
(44:04):
evidence. Insufficient, Yeah, dueto insufficient evidence. So I don't know
how I feel about this. Ifeel like there's not enough evidence to say
that this guy did it. Sure, he might have been like a a
not a great character. Maybe hewas not a great person. Yeah,
maybe he had debt. But I'mnot sure. If I don't know,
(44:30):
I don't know how I feel aboutthis kid. I think that it's very
suspicious and it's probably highly likely thathe is involved. However, you have
to go with concrete evidence. Youcan't convict somebody on a well, he
looks really guilty, it looks reallybad, even though you might be convinced
(44:50):
that he's the one that did it. You know, you have to give
the guy a fair trial if theevidence isn't there, despite the fact that
he looks like a complete dirt bagand he's highly likely to have done that,
you can't convict on evidence that isn'tthere. That's worrying. That's very
worrying for the legal system. Idon't know. I mean, yeah,
you have you have this other guywho who previously said, yeah, I
(45:14):
was paid to dig a hole andI saw a box in there, but
then he later you know, recantedhis statement. Yeah, but besides that,
there's really nothing that like, no, there's I don't know, there's
no DNA. So the DNA thatthey did find on or around the box,
none of it matched to Walter Mazurich. No, and this was in
(45:36):
nineteen eighty one, so it's notlike he was aware of DNA. So
he's not going, Yeah, hemight go and like be worried about like
fingerprints, right, So he's gonnamake sure there's no fingerprints on it.
But he's not gonna be going aroundthis box making sure that he cleans every
piece of it to make sure thatnone of his DNA is on it.
Well, no, because DNA wasn'teven a thing then, not used routinely.
(45:59):
It was only just in its stages. So tell me, how did
the guy put together a large woodbox, bury it in the ground,
get a ten year old girl inthe box, lock it up, secure
it and there's no DNA that pointsto him? Yeah, it doesn't make
(46:21):
sense, does it? And evenif he did, Even if he did,
I mean, what has he sedatedher with? If that's the case,
I mean, what likely stuff canyou get to sedate a child?
You know that that's going to bereadily available to get in and around hardware
stores or things like that. Sowhat exactly has he given her? I
mean I would imagine that they stilldid things like tox screens back then to
(46:45):
some points. They would know ifthere was alcohol in her blood. So
it's not like he got her reallydrunk with alcohol and she passed out.
So she's still alive. But youknow, so I would see, well,
what's in her system for sedation?Where would somebody get that? Can
you get that locally? Is thatsomething that he has within his work?
You know? Is it something thathe can easily get hold of? It
just seems very Yeah, it seemslike they've picked the weirdest guy locally,
(47:10):
who everybody thinks has got a bitof a temper, and because he's the
weird, the local kind of personthat people thinks weird, they've just stuck
to him just because of that.I don't I don't necessarily think that that's
the right thing to do. Thereisn't enough that points to him. He
might be a bit weird, butthere's not really enough that points to him.
I don't think personally in this case, if you were to be a
dura on this case, could yousay with one hundred percent, there is
(47:35):
no reasonable doubt that this guy didit. No, there is reasonable doubt,
and so therefore you can't convict him. That's it. That's how the
work. That's how the system works. Yeah, so it's so so strange.
I don't I don't know. Idon't know what to think about this
one. So he was sent toprison for so he ended up serving for
life. Yeah, so he wassentenced to life in prison. However,
(47:59):
he was actually released after serving fifteenyears in jail this past June. So,
June twenty twenty three, he washe was released from prison. And
now he is so he got outon parole, so he has served his
(48:20):
whole time. He's basically served histime that he would have been that is
the right time that he was actuallyconvicted for, and he might not necessarily
have done it. So that guyhas spent all that time in prison for
something that he not necessarily did.Yeah, that's hard exactly. So he
so he's out, he's trying toprove his at this point, he's trying
(48:43):
to prove his innocence. He's stillclaiming innocence in the case. Good for
him. I don't think it washappy. I mean at this point,
like I can't say it was himeither. I can't. I can't say
I can't say it is I can'tsay hundred percent yes it was him.
I don't think the evidence is thereto say that, in which case that
(49:07):
means that the person that did doit. If you can't one hundred percent
say this guy did it, there'sa huge chance that the person that did
do it has been walking free thiswhole time. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like this islike they they they found their guy.
(49:27):
This guy has to be it.I mean, yeah, he was a
suspect from the beginning, but therewasn't enough. So like, okay,
well we can't. We can't continueon this path of him. You know,
we be guilty of it because they'reunder pressure to take some sort of
justice. Yeah, we need toget it solved. So let's go back
and see who we looked at before. Okay, here's this guy, and
(49:50):
yeah, maybe he's a weird guy. Yeah, maybe he has the ability
to to be able to build somethinglike this. Maybe he was in debt.
Okay, well, there's their motive. He has the ability to build
a box and get in the ground. But that's it. I don't know.
No, it's not enough for me. It's not enough. I can't.
I can't pin that one him onehundred percent. That's not I don't
(50:13):
think that's enough. You can't convictoff of a probable, no, a
probability that that a real to realtape recorder could have recorded that that that
that jingle and played during the phonecall. Well, I mean, that's
the thing. How many tape recordersare in people's houses at that time.
I had a tape recorder in nineteeneighty five. You know how many people
(50:37):
had tape recorders? Probably quite afew people, just because there was a
tape record. I mean, ifhe found the tape in it that had
the jingle on it, okay,but they didn't. So right, that's
like saying, oh, well,he had a TV in his house or
he had a hammer in his house, so he must have built that box
because he had a hammer. Thatdoesn't that doesn't make sense. But here's
the thing too, So the taperecorder, it wasn't found in the hall
(51:00):
back in Echine, right, Soit wasn't like they found the tape recorder
back in nineteen eighty one. Theyfound it when they when they searched in
the two thousands in his home innorthern Germany. Yeah, and so we
don't even know if he had thattape recorder at the time of the kidnapping.
He could have picked up an oldtape recorder because he had tapes at
home that he wanted to listen to. You know, he could have done
(51:22):
it, picked it up at ajumble sale or something. You just don't
know. I mean, there's justnot enough. There's not enough. He
actually claims, I mean, heactually claims that he purchased that tape recorder
in two thousand and seven from aflea market in lower Saxony. There you
go, there you go. Iremember we had when I was a kid,
we had a Spectrum. Do youremember the Spectrum computers? And you
(51:45):
used to put a It was ablack computer. Basically, it was like
a black keyboard, right and nextto it you had a tape recorder.
Then you'd plug it in and youhad to put this tape in. You'd
put it down, it would goand it would load up the game so
you could then play the game.And we had one of these. We
had one of these now about Ithink it's scott to have been our early
(52:07):
twenties. We were at like ajumble sale thing, a car boot sale
or something, and we walked pastthe table and there was a spectrum.
I think it was like a Spectrumtwo thousand something, it's called something like
that, and we saw one andwe're like, oh my god. We
had that when we were a kid. Should we buy it? In the
end, we decided not to becausewe're not going to use it, but
we did think about buying it.And that was when I was in my
(52:29):
twenties. And I had that whenI was like eleven, like ten or
eleven, and we saw it andwe're like, oh, should we just
try it? Yeah, so that'sthat's highly probable that he did do that,
and he's telling the truth. Sohere's the thing. If they say
that it's probable that this real,real tap recorder was used to record a
(52:52):
pole and was used to play thejingle on these calls, if he didn't
have that tape, that real realtape recorder in nineteen eighty one, then
it's probable that he didn't do it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
This is crazy. It is crazy, that's yeah. Wow. Yeah,
(53:19):
oh so just looking it up.So so I guess in Germany the
criminal code. According to the CriminalCode in Germany, a life sentence can
be suspended after fifteen years if theperpetray did not commit any wrongdoing during the
period of imprisonment. Oh. Ok, so it gets some from good behavior.
Yeah, pretty much. So that'swhy he's out. And I I
(53:44):
can't say that I'm I'm upset thathe's out because I don't know if he
is guilty. No, I agree, that's harsh, it is. I
don't know. It's it's tough,like I want to have you'd want to
have justice to the family, youwant to have justice for ursula, But
(54:04):
I think the way they went aboutgetting justice is not the way you should
be doing it. But as afamily member, I would want to make
sure the right person was away.I would to make sure the right person
was in prison. And if Iwas watching this case, I'd be thinking,
this isn't not one hundred percent convincedit's him. I think it needs
re examining him right from the beginning. I think it needs to go again,
(54:24):
and it needs fresh eyes on thecase, like fresh eyes to look
I mean, as it stands,this is a closed case. Now it
is because they've got their manners donehis time and he's back out again,
so it's it's a close and finishedcase. Yeah, you can't proscute anyone
for it, but it needs tobe re examined. Yeah, it would
be a good idea to look atit again by people who are privy to
(54:46):
all the information. It's going tohave to be somebody who's who's privy to
everything, because there's obviously things inthis case that they haven't released to the
public. There's going to be thingsthat we don't know about that make it
may make it more certain that hedid it. But I think it would
I think it would do too.But they're not going to do it again
because there's no reason. It's allin their eyes. It's a solved case.
(55:07):
It's done, he's done his time. That's it. They're not going
to look at this again. There'sgoing to be no need for them to
look at it again because as faras they're concerned, they've got their man.
So sad they didn't. They gotit. They got a man,
They got a man. I'm notsure that they got the man, not
not based on what you've said today, I don't I'm not one hundred percent
(55:27):
sure. I couldn't convict him onthat evidence. So that was our frustrating
case for this week. Wow,thank you very much for that case.
That was a very frustrating case.Yeah. I don't know. I'm still
sitting I'm like shaking my head andI'm just I don't know. Well,
hopefully Walter ends up getting somebody tolook at it again and it proves his
(55:52):
innocence, because that must be horribleif you are living a life knowing that
you are not the child murderer buteverybody thinks you are. I would be
fighting too for Nail to try andmy name clear that was me. I
would not give up on that.I would keep going and keep going.
So I hope if he didn't doit, I hope that he does keep
going and keep fighting that so thatpeople know the truth about him, because
(56:13):
that's not a very nice cloud tolive under. I think he was an
outsider in the area. You know, he was different from from everyone else
in the area. He people thoughthe was a weird guy in Yeah,
that's exactly. I think that's whatThat's all it was. Well, thank
you very much for that. Wehave at the end of each show.
(56:34):
If you don't listen regularly, youwon't know, but if you do,
then you know what's coming. Wehave at the end of each show to
make you smile. Something we liketo call dumb criminals. They use a
dummy and use a piece of shit. So today's case is a funny one
for you. So two burglars weregoing through burglarizing an apartment in Brazil and
(56:57):
they were disturbed by police. Sopolice know that the burglar inside. So
what they did was they jumped outof a window with a stash of jewelry
from the apartment. They got away, but soon afterwards the police picked up
two men that were acting very suspiciously, not knowing that they were the people
from the burglary. Now, whilstin custody, one of the men started
to report of being very ill.His condition worsened and he needed hospital treatment,
(57:24):
so they took him to the hospitaland doctors x rayed him. When
they x rayed him, the problemwas pretty clear. Two rings, a
necklace, and a pendant were allstuck in his esophagus. Oh shit,
So the x rays showed that hehad swallowed the I mean, how ridiculous.
(57:46):
When that comes out, they're goingto be able to prove that that
came from that burglary and you arestuffed basically, So they gave it.
He had to have surgery because itwouldn't come out. So there was obviously
no way to him up for thisbecause they actually cut it out of his
body. The apartment owner identified allthe items and the person was then burglary.
(58:13):
What a dummy, I beg youbefore the robbery they watched the goonies
and oh mouth put all these jewelsand stuff in his mouth. I can
imagine that. Yeah, oh my, remember Mama for telling you that he
kept pulling out like all the beadsand pearls, and when they squeeze his
cheeks and they all come out andhe's spitting out rubies. Do you know?
(58:37):
It doesn't tell you how old thesetwo burglars are, but you know
that they have got to be eightieskids because they definitely watched the Goonies before.
Enough makes you think, oh,I'll just swallow these. That's stupid.
It is come out one way theother. Yeah, and you don't
want to want to be rifling throughthat to get your booty out, do
(58:59):
you good? It's not good.No, No, that's not smart people.
No, So that is this week'sdumb criminal. So very doubt very
much. We will be back nextweek with another episode. In the meantime,
let us know what you thought ofthis episode. What do you think?
Do you think he was guilty ordo you think that this was a
(59:20):
wrong for conviction. You can talkto us on Probably not best on Facebook,
to be honest. I logged ontoFacebook today and there was loads of
messages that I hadn't seen. Soif you want to get a message from
us, it's probably best to doit on Instagram because that's something that we're
both on quite often. We doget to Facebook, but not as often
as Instagram. So yeah, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, any of those.
You can send us a message,but if you want an answer,
(59:43):
you want us to see it.Highly likely we're going to see the Instagram
one and we will be back nextweek. And it's Halloween, Halloween weekend
next weekend, so I think ourepisode drops on Halloween, So we're going
to have a special for view nextweek, maybe a trick or maybe a
treat. So for now, benice and bye
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