IIn the case of the alleged serial killer from Schwäbisch Hall, the investigators of the special commission “Height” are also examining some of the death investigation procedures that have been discontinued. The aim is to determine whether there were any other robberies or murders that the 31-year-old alleged perpetrator, who has been in custody since Tuesday, must be charged with.
The “Südwest Presse” reported on a possible case: On December 14, 2022, an 86-year-old woman was found dead with a head injury in her apartment near the home of the alleged perpetrator, who is a Serbian citizen. According to the newspaper, the public prosecutor’s office and the police investigated the crime scene and circumstances, but came to the conclusion that it must have been an accident. The woman was buried in an urn at the Haller Waldfriedhof on December 23, which is why the police are now limited in their subsequent clarification of the case, because exhumation and autopsy are no longer possible.
According to a directive on the application of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the public prosecutor’s office can temporarily prohibit cremation if there is a risk that evidence could be lost. A spokesman for the police headquarters in Aalen told the FAZ: “We also routinely check older cases, and this is one of them.”
The chief public prosecutor responsible for the investigation said: “We never spoke of a fatal head injury in this case, we can deny that.” Even if the age of the victim and the spatial and temporal proximity of the death match the other acts of the alleged serial killer, there are also differences. The finding situation of the 86-year-old woman is different, whether money was stolen is unclear in this case.