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Ingolstadt: Police officers search a forest for traces and objects
Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa
A young woman's body is found in a car.
The car belongs to a suspect who looks deceptively similar to the dead man – and is silent on the allegations: Even more than a week after the body of a woman was found in Ingolstadt, many questions remain unanswered.
What is known so far about the mysterious criminal case from southern Germany:
On the evening of August 16, a Tuesday, the body of a 23-year-old woman was discovered in a vehicle parked in Ingolstadt.
According to the police, supposed family members had previously found the woman in an obviously needy situation.
However, an emergency doctor could only determine her death.
The body was in the apparently locked car of the woman, who is now considered a suspect.
The parents thought the dead woman was their daughter, and the investigators initially assumed that the dead woman was a 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman from Ingolstadt.
Autopsy raises "massive doubts"
But just one day later, an autopsy and forensic comparisons raised "massive doubts about the identity of the woman".
In addition, according to the information, several witness statements underpinned these investigation results.
On the evening of August 17, the police in Ingolstadt arrested a 23-year-old woman who was initially thought to be dead.
Shortly thereafter, a 23-year-old Kosovar was arrested in his apartment with the help of a special unit, the investigators said.
There were sufficient suspicions against him that he was involved in the homicide.
A few days later, on Monday of this week, a DNA comparison brought certainty that the dead woman was a 23-year-old from the Heilbronn district.
According to the police, she comes from Algeria - and looked "strikingly similar" to the suspect.
The background to the homicide remains unclear.
"Faking one's own death is the most likely motive at the moment," said senior public prosecutor Veronika Grieser on Tuesday of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
There are indications of this, which are based, for example, on witness statements.
However, other motives for the crime cannot currently be ruled out.
Meanwhile, the police and the public prosecutor's office in Baden-Württemberg were also investigating the victim's environment.
The Heilbronn Kripo is looking for clues about connections between the two suspects and the woman, said a police spokesman.
Attempts are also being made to reconstruct the route taken by the car.
A police spokesman told SPIEGEL that it is hoped that this will provide clues to the crime scene.
Suspects are silent on the allegations
The duo are said to have had contact with the victim before the crime.
The two suspects are in custody.
So far they have remained silent about the allegations, said the police spokesman.
According to the police, more than a hundred officers searched for the murder weapon around where the body was found on Tuesday – and secured several knives.
A partially densely overgrown area along the Danube in Ingolstadt was combed.
Other objects were found in addition to the knives.
Whether the finds are related to the crime must now be investigated, it said.
The murder weapon sought could therefore be a knife or a knife-like object.
The police are looking for witnesses who could have noticed something suspicious in the Heilbronn/Eppingen area on Tuesday, August 16.
The police are specifically asking for information about a black Mercedes coupé with the license plate number IN-RS 2915.
With material from dpa
