“Aktenzeichen XY … Cold Cases”
19-year-old disappeared 28 years ago: what happened to Sonja Engelbrecht?
Sonja Engelbrecht from Munich disappeared in 1995. Three years ago a forest worker found her bones in a wooded area. On Wednesday, the case is the subject of the special issue “Aktenzeichen XY… Cold Cases”.
© Police Bavaria
19-year-old Sonja Engelbrecht disappeared without a trace on April 10, 1995 after meeting friends. In 2020 and 2022, her bones were discovered in a forest area near Kipfenberg in the Upper Bavarian district of Eichstätt. This and other cold cases are the subject of a special edition of “Aktenzeichen XY” on Wednesday
On that Monday evening, April 10, 1995, Sonja Engelbrecht left her parents’ apartment in Munich at around 8:45 p.m. The 19-year-old has an appointment with a friend. She meets him at the main train station. The two take the subway to a bar where they meet two friends. After that evening, the four of them celebrate in the apartment of one of these friends until they leave the apartment building at around two o’clock.
According to testimonies from her friend, Sonja stopped at a phone booth on Stiglmaierplatz on the way back to call her sister or her parents, and her friend jumped into an approaching tram. There is no proof that Sonja actually calls anyone. The fact is that the young woman does not return home that night.
Forest worker finds bones of Sonja Engelbrecht
25 long years pass before there is finally a trace – and at the same time sad certainty: Sonja is dead. A forest worker finds a bone in a forest near Kipfenberg-Grösdorf in the Eichstätt district – around 100 kilometers north of Munich – which the police round a year later than her femur can identify. A large-scale search operation is then started, but this is interrupted in winter.
Last year, the police searched the forest area in large numbers where a forest worker found Sonja Engelbrecht’s bones
© Peter Kneffel / Picture Alliance
When she is taken in again, police officers find Sonja’s remains in a crevice in the rock. Police suspect she was the victim of a sex crime and that she was killed the night she went missing and her naked body was hidden in garbage bags and tarpaulins. The remains of a ceiling are also found.
The investigators found this blanket with the mortal remains of Sonja Engelbrecht
© Police Bavaria
Even 28 years after her disappearance, the police are still looking for clues in the unsolved case. What happened that night? The investigators have offered a reward of 10,000 euros for information that leads to the clarification of the crime or the arrest of the perpetrator. On Wednesday, March 1, the case will be discussed as part of the ZDF special “Aktenzeichen XY … Cold Cases” (8:15 p.m.).
These cases are also a topic in “Aktenzeichen XY … Cold Cases”
In addition to the Sonja Engelbrecht case, it also shows three other unsolved cases:
- A taxi driver was murdered in Bad Nauheim in 1988, and a few months later a female taxi driver in Florstadt near Friedberg. Is it the same culprit?
- In 1992 a prostitute was killed in an Eros Center in Trier.
- On the night of June 10th, 1987, the body of a 25-year-old woman was found in a wooded area east of Frankfurt am Main.
Here, too, the police are hoping for information from viewers of the show.
Watch the video: Packed up and sunk in the water – the corpse of a small child floated in the Danube for weeks. The boy’s identity is a mystery to investigators. A profiler explains in the video the actions of the police.
Sources: ZDF, Bavarian police, sonja-engelbrecht.de, dpa