After decades, the police in Düsseldorf have achieved a successful investigation 31 years after the violent death of the then 50-year-old Sigrid C. in a corn field in Meerbusch near the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital, the public prosecutor's office has now brought charges against a man who is now 63 years old the investigating authorities announced on Thursday.

The suspect has been in prison for 28 years for stabbing a 12-year-old schoolgirl in Baden-Württemberg in 1995. The Regional Court of Tübingen sentenced him to life imprisonment and determined the particular gravity of his guilt.

The investigators tracked down Sigrid C.'s alleged murderer by evaluating a DNA trace. A skin particle of the man under the victim's fingernails could be assigned to the suspect in custody and brought the breakthrough. In the past, DNA analysis hadn't progressed far enough for homicide detectives to do anything with it.

Since there is no statute of limitations on murder in Germany, the police regularly pull out the files from so-called cold cases and check whether there are new points of contact for further investigations - in the case of the "murder in the corn field" with success.

The suspect is said to be silent on the renewed murder allegation. The public prosecutor's office assumes a sexual motivation for the crime. It is not yet clear when the trial against him will begin.