Münster: search for a convicted murderer - police publish photos of the escape vehicle

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Mug shot of the police

Photo: Police headquarters in Münster

In the case of the convicted murderer, who fled shortly before entering prison, the police have released new information.

As the investigators announced, the suspect may be traveling in one of two cars of his partner.

Both cars are Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars in blue with almost identical Münster license plates.

The police released a photo of one of the vehicles.

In January, around 27 years after the violent death of the then 16-year-old high school student Nicole Denise Schalla in Dortmund, the man was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Because the judiciary saw no risk of escape and the verdict was not yet final, the man remained free after the guilty verdict and was given an ankle cuff.

The judgment became final a few days ago after a decision by the Federal Court of Justice.

The public prosecutor's office was informed on Tuesday - whereupon they wanted to have the detention carried out.

According to "Bild" the man took off his ankle cuffs on Tuesday evening at 8:10 p.m. and left his cell phone behind.

The police started a public search.

A police spokeswoman said on Thursday that a lot of information had been received.

The man can no longer be found.

The man from North Rhine-Westphalia had overpowered Nicole Denise Schalla in 1993 not far from a bus stop near her home in the west of Dortmund.

Schalla's body was discovered in a bush near an elementary school.

The youth had been abused and strangled.

The murderer, who has now been convicted, was arrested in the summer of 2018 after subsequent DNA analyzes of crime scene traces revealed a hit.

The Dortmund prosecutors had to struggle with particular difficulties in the Schalla case: Since the body was lying in the rain, many traces were washed away over several hours.

With a new investigation method, which has only recently been used in North Rhine-Westphalia, the investigators tracked down the man.

A single flake of skin that was secured to the exposed part of the corpse was very likely to have come from the convicted man.

The man had always denied the act.

jpz / dpa