A body has been found after the disappearance of a 14-year-old boy from Wunstorf near Hanover. The police confirmed this. It was initially unclear whether the dead man was the missing boy. The body was found in the Blumenau district.
With a large contingent, the police and fire brigade had been searching a wooded area near the small town since early Wednesday morning. The body was discovered a few kilometers away on the edge of a field. A 14-year-old teenager is also being investigated on suspicion of a homicide. A police spokesman said the suspect had given relevant information. He was taken into custody and was to be questioned. The officials did not initially provide any further information.
On Tuesday evening at 6.45 p.m., the parents from Wunstorf reported their son missing. After information from the boy of the same age in the night, the search measures were intensified. In the course of the night, the missing person case became a suspected homicide, it was also said. The police spokesman could not initially say anything about the relationship between the two young people.
Firefighters combed through a piece of forest while it was still dark, and in the morning there was another operation with hundreds of police officers. A helicopter with a thermal imaging camera and on Wednesday a drone and sniffer dogs were used.
Because of the search, the Hanover - Wunstorf railway line was temporarily closed. According to Deutsche Bahn, delays and train cancellations were to be expected until midday. Regional trains and all ICE and IC trains on the route between Minden in Westphalia and Bremen or Hanover are affected.
According to the police spokesman, because it is a very young suspect, his interests worthy of protection must be taken into account. Among other things, he could only be questioned in the presence of his parents.
According to criminologists, homicides involving very young suspects are not common. In Braunschweig, however, a 14-year-old has been on trial since the end of December. Together with a classmate who was 13 at the time, he is said to have insidiously murdered a 15-year-old girl from Salzgitter.
