A skin particle under the fingernail of a murder victim has led investigators in Düsseldorf on the trail of a murderer. After decades, it has now been possible to clear up the cold case "Murder in the Cornfield", the police and public prosecutor reported on Thursday.

Because Sigrid C. (50) desperately fought back in her agony in a corn field near Düsseldorf on August 20, 1992, a piece of skin was found under one of her fingernails. If the homicide squad couldn't do anything with it at the time, forensic scientists have now managed to secure a DNA trace.

A comparison with the DNA database revealed a direct hit: The DNA belongs to an already convicted child killer who has been behind bars for almost 28 years.

He was arrested three years after the murder in Meerbusch after another murder in Bad Liebenzell in Baden-Württemberg. There he had stabbed a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. For this he had been sentenced to the maximum penalty for murder by the district court of Tübingen: life imprisonment with a particularly heavy degree of guilt.

The now 63-year-old is silent on the new murder allegation. In both murders, investigators assume a sexual motivation. Düsseldorf prosecutors have already filed charges for the 1992 murder. A date for the trial has not yet been set.