Remains linked to the missing woman

Police and prosecutors said on Monday, 19 October, that bones found near Berg, a village by Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate, were with high probability those of a woman from Regensburg who had been missing since 2007. Forensic examiners reached that conclusion after the remains were dug up on 9 October. The woman was 39 when her brother reported her missing in the summer of 2007. Officials presented the findings at a press conference in Regensburg. The case had been unsolved for 19 years, and the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office has offered a reward of 10,000 euros for decisive tips. The case had also been featured twice on the ZDF crime programme Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst.

Three suspects and a confession

Investigators now name three suspects and treat the disappearance as a violent crime. A 56-year-old woman, one of the suspects, made a comprehensive confession and led police to the burial site. According to the investigators, the three suspects jointly planned the killing. A 66-year-old man is alleged to have strangled the woman, and he is in pre-trial detention; he has not commented on the accusations. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that the killing took place in 2007 in a flat in an apartment block in Regensburg belonging to a man who has since died, and that the third suspect is also dead. The arrest warrant against the 56-year-old woman has been suspended, and the presumption of innocence applies to all suspects.

How the case was solved

According to the Mittelbayerische Zeitung, the 56-year-old woman contacted police in early 2026 and later gave a detailed confession. She led officers to Berg, near Neumarkt, where police began digging on 8 October and dug up the remains on 9 October. The search then widened to a forest in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, which the tip also named, but officers found nothing further there. Police had already searched a spot only a few hundred metres away in 2012, the newspaper reported. In 2024 officers searched a forest near Regensburg after a tip from a man who described himself as a psychic, and investigators say they followed up even that lead.

What remains open

Robert Fuchs, a senior criminal director, spoke about the state of the investigation as reported by the Mittelbayerische Zeitung.

“There is still a lot to do in this case.”

Senior public prosecutor Thomas Rauscher said the investigation remains very active, and the last arrest warrant was issued at midday on Monday. The woman's partner told investigators in 2007 that she had left him and driven away with an old friend in a dark car bearing Deggendorf plates. Police have not yet managed to identify that friend.