The missing person case of Rebecca Reusch: Still unsolved

On February 18, 2019, Rebecca Reusch disappeared without a trace. This year marks the fifth year in a row she has been missing. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the file is not closed.

the essentials in brief

On February 18, 2019, the then 15-year-old Rebecca Rausch disappeared in Berlin. She has been missing for five years now. Although Rebecca’s family still does not want to give up hope of a reunion, the prosecutor’s investigation in this case is no longer focused on the search for a living person – they assume that the young girl is dead.

“The file is not closed, new information is being investigated,” commented spokesman for the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office, Sebastian Büchner, to “Ippen Media”. “But there are currently no new leads in the investigation.”

Rebecca disappeared after spending the night with her sister and her husband the night before. She wanted to go to school from the house in Berlin-Britz, but never got there. Rebecca’s parents called the police as they waited in vain for their daughter to return on the evening of February 18, 2019. The Berlin police immediately began an investigation.

Chronology of the mysterious disappearance: what happened so far

On February 17, 2019, the then 15-year-old Rebecca stayed overnight at the house of her sister and brother-in-law Florian R. Both were 27 years old at the time. According to the brother-in-law, he returned from a company party on February 18, 2019 at 5:45 a.m. Rebecca’s sister Jessica leaves the house at 7:00 a.m. to take the children to daycare. According to her husband, he should have gone to bed to sleep at this point. At 7:15 a.m., Rebecca’s sister asks her husband to wake up Rebecca, who is sleeping in the living room, for school. When the brother-in-law entered the living room, she was not there, according to his statement.

According to an analysis, the missing Rebecca’s phone was last logged in at 7:46 a.m. At 8:40 a.m., mother Brigitte Reusch sent her daughter Rebecca a WhatsApp message. This was also received by Rebecca but not read, according to the mother’s statement. “She must have passed a router somewhere that transmitted this message to her. It could have been at the school, at the Gropius Passages or even at her place at the Dreieinigkeitskirche community. Or where she was still logged in.”

Rebecca then failed to show up for class at school at 9:50 a.m. At 10:47 a.m., the sister and her husband’s pink Renault Twingo was registered by the Brandenburg license plate recognition system KESY on the A12 between Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) in the direction of Poland. On the afternoon of February 18, 2019, Rebecca’s parents reported Missing to the police.

Main suspect: Brother-in-law Florian R. under suspicion

On February 19, 2019, the Berlin police published a missing person report. At 10:39 p.m., the sister and brother-in-law’s family car was repeatedly captured by a camera on the A12 between Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder). According to the report, only brother-in-law Florian R. was likely to have been traveling in the car that day. According to the police, the brother-in-law’s statements and the movement data do not match. On February 21, 2019, the police published an official missing person report for Rebecca Reusch. From February 23, 2019, the 3rd Homicide Commission of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office will be investigating. In the following days, a search operation was started with helicopters, family and friends.

On February 28, 2019, the police temporarily arrested Rebecca’s then 27-year-old brother-in-law. However, by order of an investigating judge, he was released on March 1, 2019. On March 3, 2019, the brother-in-law was arrested again because the public prosecutor’s office lodged a complaint against his release. The authorities assume it was a homicide. On March 22, 2019, Florian R. was released from custody. The search for Rebecca was stopped in April 2019.

On the day of Rebecca’s disappearance, a witness saw “a conspicuous man in a baseball cap” in a wooded area near Kummersdorf. According to witness statements, the pink car was spotted nearby. This emerged from a podcast by journalists Miriam Arndts and Lena Niethammer in December 2020.

Im Video: “Breakthrough after four years in the missing Rebecca case?”

Sudden turnaround after years of silence: On April 13, 2023, the house of the main suspect Florian R. is searched by the police for possible evidence. According to media reports, data from the brother-in-law’s Google search history showed that shortly before the girl’s disappearance, he searched the Internet for strangulation practices during sexual intercourse. In addition, a belt was missing from a bathrobe, according to investigators. Acoustic measurements were also carried out by the police. It is believed that this is to determine where and how loud possible screams could have been heard. The presumption of innocence still applies.

Theories about Rebecca’s disappearance

Rebecca’s mysterious disappearance continues to raise questions. Several theories have since emerged about the case.

According to investigators, Rebecca never left her sister and brother-in-law’s house in Berlin Britz alive. The authorities consider his brother-in-law to be the main suspect. “There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a bloody crime in the house itself. But that doesn’t have to be the case, because there are always crimes that are carried out with hands and are bloodless,” said Axel Petermann, certified case analyst and criminologist, to ” Ippen Media”.

Rebecca may have been kidnapped by a secret boyfriend. She reportedly had a chat friend named “Max”. Research has shown that he even came to Berlin to meet with the missing woman. However, Rebecca is said to have canceled this at short notice. However, the trail to the person in question led nowhere.

According to several witness accounts, Rebecca was seen on the street of her sister’s house on the day she disappeared. However, the police investigation revealed something completely different. “This was checked extensively and several times, but she could not be seen on the video cameras in the buses,” prosecutor Martin Knispel told “Bild” in 2021. “We also followed up on other clues that Rebecca allegedly saw in other places in the city. We can also rule that out to this day.”

A witness claims to have seen a strange man wearing a baseball cape in the forest area in Kummersdorf in Brandenburg on February 18, 2019, the day of the disappearance. According to investigators, a friend of the brother-in-law also has a bungalow in this settlement. According to the theory, Rebecca could have been buried in the forest. However, according to current knowledge, it is not known whether the sighting is related to the case.

Another theory assumes that the missing person could have left the country voluntarily. There are said to have been multiple sightings abroad. An eyewitness reported seeing Rebecca in a department store in Poland accompanied by a man. Rebecca also claims to have been recognized by a witness on Tenerife. “I don’t know if it was Rebecca, but we hope. Hope dies last,” explained mother Brigitte Reusch in a TV documentary. There is still no trace of the young woman.

• Sources used:

• Merkur.de: “Disappeared for 5 years: Chronicle, status of the investigation and key moments in the Rebecca Reusch case”

• Merkur.de: “5 theories about Rebecca’s disappearance: numerous “sightings” and a mysterious man in the forest”