It was Sunday when the boy disappeared, a 13-year-old with blonde hair. He meets a friend, he told the supervisors of his youth facility in Oer-Erkenschwick in the Ruhr area. He promised to report after an hour.
The boy was missing for two and a half years, 922 days. Until last Friday.
Investigators searched the apartment of a man in Recklinghausen who is said to have owned child porn. They spotted the boy in a closet. His mother later said the "Bild am Sonntag" that he still wore the same clothes as back then.
The boy disappeared on June 11, 2017 and was found on December 20, 2019. What happened in all that time? Answering this is now the task of the Bochum public prosecutor.
Your investigation is just beginning. Another public prosecutor in North Rhine-Westphalia told Bochum that there was a man living in Recklinghausen who probably distributed child porn. The 44-year-old suspect's home was then searched.
The officers not only found the boy, but also found the suspect's father. According to the prosecutor, there are no suspicions against him. Even if he knew about his son's crimes, he was under no obligation to report them to the investigative authorities, a spokesman for the prosecutor said.
The boy was reportedly neither tied nor injured when he was found. In addition, the 15-year-old told the police that he had never been detained in the apartment.
Less than ten kilometers away
The boy's mother had searched for her son with great effort, running a Facebook page, for example. In June she appeared on "Case number ... XY unresolved" - but the boy was still not found. Less than ten kilometers lie between Recklinghausen and his last known place of residence, the youth facility in Oer-Erkenschwick.
The boy didn't seem to notice anyone. Wasn't he possibly out at all of the time? According to previous investigations, it is assumed that he has spent at least the past two years in the apartment without leaving it, a spokesman for the Bochum prosecutor told SPIEGEL.
The 44-year-old suspect was sentenced to a ten-month suspended sentence in 2018 for distributing abuse videos. Did he abuse the missing boy? The question is obvious in this constellation. The spokesman for the prosecutor said on request that the man was accused of distributing child pornography. He did not want to say whether there were any other accusations and referred to the victim protection.
Yelled for six hours straight
The boy was a difficult child, as was evident in the "Aktenzeichen ... XY" program. His father died when he was five years old. If you believe the show, the boy never coped with it.
He came to a youth facility at the age of nine and stayed there until he was twelve. Then his mother brought him home, it didn't go well for long. Some days he had screamed for six hours straight, the mother said. Because he became violent towards teachers and students, he flew from school. He can only go to school again after he has completed therapy.
In spring 2017 the boy got a place in the facility in Oer-Erkenschwick. Some time later he tried to take the cell phone from a girl by force and was reported for attempted robbery.
"What sits in the clinic doesn't remind me of my son."
Apparently he was getting into shady characters. During this time, he suddenly was able to afford expensive things, reported a supervisor. On the day of his disappearance, the boy claimed to be meeting Ismael. Before that, he'd given a last name. Police investigation revealed that the person does not exist.
The police initially detained the 15-year-old and then took him to a clinic. When he can go back to his mother is still unclear. "The decision as to what happens to the boy will be a medical one, not a police one," said a police spokesman.
Mother and son have already met. The mother told the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" about the reunion. He had fallen into her arms and "pressed and pressed and pressed", she said. But also: "What is in the clinic does not remind me of my son." He was neglected and had long fingernails.
The Facebook page for her son still exists. A large banner is now emblazoned above his photo with the words: "Found."
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