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The cold case unit of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia (symbol photo) has apparently cleared up a 34-year-old murder case
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Panama Pictures / IMAGO
Surprising development in the case of the innkeeper's daughter Claudia Otto: The alleged murder, which occurred 34 years ago in Lohmar near Bonn, seems to have been solved.
A new attempt by the cold case unit in the State Criminal Police Office has now brought an already convicted double murderer into custody for this third alleged murder, reports the Bonn police in a press release.
The police in Bonn announced that the now 66-year-old was arrested in Detmold on Tuesday.
A judge confirmed the arrest warrant against him and sent him into custody.
According to a press release from the Bonn police, the suspect had already been targeted by investigators in December 2017 for Otto's murder.
However, an arrest warrant was revoked after it had been checked because the evidence was initially insufficient.
However, the investigators of the homicide squad stayed with the case, it is said.
They also cooperated closely with scientists and, thanks to new methods of securing, analyzing and assigning the finest DNA traces, "attribution to a person acting at the scene of the crime was confirmed".
Claudia Otto was strangled on May 7, 1987 at the age of 23 in her parents' country hotel.
A year later, the suspect had killed two people in Sauerland, had been convicted and had been behind bars for 32 years.
ktz/dpa