Criminal case Ursula Herrmann (10): New documentary fuels doubts about perpetrators – "Must have been accomplices..."
Created: 03/11/2022 05:14
By: Andreas Thieme
Ursula Herrmann was kidnapped in September 1982 and suffocated in a wooden box.
© LKA Bavaria
On September 15, 1981, Ursula Herrmann died horribly.
A documentary now gives new clues about the perpetrator.
Munich – Who is Ursula's kidnapper?
And why did the girl have to die?
For more than 41 years, these questions have been rumbling in Michael Herrmann (59) – he is the victim's brother.
The pay station
sky
has now placed him at the center of an exciting documentary that sheds new light on the case.
Criminal case Ursula Herrmann: There has never been any evidence of the perpetrator for 41 years
"The girl in the box" is the name of the 90-minute film that will be broadcast from tomorrow and raises doubts about Werner M.'s guilt.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2010 by the Augsburg Regional Court for extortionate kidnapping resulting in death.
But Werner M. still denies the crime.
"I was sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime I did not commit," he says in the documentary.
He has been in prison since 2008.
Werner M. (72) has been in prison since 2008.
He is said to be Ursula Herrmann's kidnapper, but he still denies the crime to this day.
© Andreas Gebert, dpa
But the fact is: there was never any evidence of his guilt.
The 72-year-old was sentenced solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
Ursula Herrmann's relatives and leading experts no longer believe in Werner M.'s guilt - because there are now new indications.
Especially with regard to the tape recorder: After Ursula's kidnapping, her family had been called several times.
A sound track was played on which the Bayern 3 jingle could be heard.
27 years after the crime, the device was found by Werner M., who was considered technically adept.
One in five million: New report relieves convicts
"This tape recorder was an essential part of the conviction," his lawyer Walter Rubach told our editorial team.
Experts had classified it as "probable" that the device found on M. was the crime.
Today that is doubted.
The filmmakers have had a new report drawn up, which comes to the conclusion: The probability that the soundtrack really came from Werner M.'s device is one in five million.
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Killed Ursula Herrmann: The victim's brother says "I was never able to close this crime"
“This crime changed my life.
I was never able to complete it completely," says Michael Herrmann on sky.
About the investigations and the court process, he believes "that a lot went wrong there." Judges, investigators and contemporary witnesses appear in the documentary, which is disturbing and intense even more than four decades after the crime.
Because it shows a number of original pieces from back then: Ursula's clothes, for example - or the box in which she died.
Michael Herrmann, the brother of the kidnapping victim Ursula Herrmann, sits in a courtroom of the Augsburg Regional Court.
© picture alliance / Stefan Puchner/dpa
Because of Werner M.?
According to sky, this is now also doubted by a written report that was created for the ransom note.
Accordingly, the real perpetrator was much younger.
Rubach believes: "The accomplices who must have existed are still walking around freely." Because the logistics - from the construction of the box, to the observation path in the forest to the blackmail letter - was "very complex".
Release from prison 2023?
Werner M. wants the truth in the criminal case Ursula Herrmann
Werner M. is now "an old, sick and broken man." In 2023 he can apply for release from prison for the first time - then he has served 15 years in prison.
The crime, on the other hand, has long since expired.
"The case will probably never be cleared up," says Herrmann at sky.
"He is still interested in the truth," adds his lawyer Joachim Feller of the tz.
"It's a scar that stays."
(A. Thieme)
You can find more current news from Munich and the region at
tz.de/muenchen.