15-year-old Jutta was on her way home from a visit to an outdoor pool when she was raped and murdered. Almost 40 years after the crime, the investigators found the alleged perpetrator. A now 61-year-old man is suspected of having killed the young woman on June 29, 1986 in a forest near Lindenfels in the Bergstrasse district, not far from Jutta's parents' house.

As the public prosecutor's office in Darmstadt, the Hessian State Criminal Police Office and the police headquarters in southern Hesse announced on Thursday, DNA from the suspect was discovered during a renewed examination of gene traces in the old evidence. In addition, the investigators have witness statements that would have substantiated the suspicion. A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office did not provide any further details due to tactical reasons.

According to the investigators, the native of Bensheim has been convicted several times for sexual offenses and other crimes and has been in a special closed facility for mentally ill offenders since 2012. The basis for this was a judgment by the district court in Kiel. Because of the murder case in southern Hesse, an investigating judge issued an arrest warrant for murder against the 61-year-old, he was then returned to the closed facility in northern Germany, where he was previously housed. "The accused is currently not providing any information on the allegation," said the investigators.

When the 15-year-old did not return home after visiting the outdoor pool in the summer of 1986, she was reported missing. Several searches were unsuccessful. Jutta's fate remained unclear for a good year and a half before a walker discovered her skeletonized body in February 1988. The young person could be identified from her dental chart, the remains of a blue cotton dress and a bikini. It was initially very difficult for investigators to clarify the cause of death.

The crime ended up being committed by the so-called cold case units of the LKA and the South Hesse police, who systematically check unsolved murder cases for new clues from time to time and use new forensic technology to look for traces that have not yet been discovered. The case was only presented last week on the ZDF program “XY … unsolved”.

A spokesman for the Darmstadt public prosecutor's office explained on Thursday that the aim was to obtain witness information that would further substantiate the existing suspicion against the man. In the aftermath of the broadcast, there was such a hint. The spokesman initially did not provide any information on who the witness with the decisive clue was.

Further source: Press release from the Darmstadt public prosecutor's office.