How many years does it take to find a killer who doesn’t really exist?

Two years later, German police discovered him in 2009, after revealing that one of the country’s most untraceable killers was in fact non-existent.

The case of the “Ghost of Heilbronn” turned out to be one of the most embarrassing in history. German law enforcement, after spending two years and more than 16,000 additional hours investigating dozens and dozens of crimes they thought were linked, discovered that the “culprit” they had in mind was the product of faulty DNA samples.

Time ma magazine reported that police across the country were convinced that a female serial killer had been among them for more than 16 years, with DNA evidence linking the mysterious suspect – nicknamed the “Ghost of Heilbronn” – dating back to a 1993 murder. 2009, a discrepancy in a DNA test began to shed light on the real culprit: an innocent worker in an Austrian factory, whose DNA ended up on swabs used by German investigators in each case.

Fifteen years later, PEOPLE looks at how this strange affair unfolded.

The “Ghost of Heilbronn”

News of the “Ghost of Heilbronn” first spread in Germany – and across Europe – in 2007, when a 22-year-old police officer was murdered in the southern town of Heilbronn and DNA found at the scene matched a number of other crimes committed throughout history. Germany.

Police traced the suspect’s DNA to 40 crime scenes across the country, as well as in Austria, leading the public to nickname her the “Ghost of Heilbronn” and “The Faceless Woman”, according to THE BBC.

In retrospect, what might have been a red flag, police linked the “Phantom” to a wide range of crimes: six murders and a slew of thefts and break-ins, ranging from schools to car dealerships. According to Timethe alleged “Phantom” killer had also collaborated with accomplices from Serbia, Slovakia, Albania and Romania, among others. In all cases, the people already behind bars for these crimes have denied having a collaborator matching the profile of the “Ghost”.

Years of research, but no results

Time reported that the German police’s two-year search for the “Ghost” extended to Austria and France. According to the BBC, police have also offered a €300,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

In 2009, police finally began to suspect that something much more embarrassing was going on, according to The times from London. Investigators testing DNA from the charred remains of an asylum seeker in France found that, surprisingly, the DNA matched that of the “Ghost of Heilbronn”.

“It was obviously impossible, because the asylum seeker was a man and the ghost’s DNA belonged to a woman,” said Ernst Meiners, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Saarbrücken, Germany. The times. “This raised suspicions that the materials were contaminated.”

What really happened

Now, with suspicion focused solely on themselves, the police began to investigate what they could be doing wrong by taking DNA samples.

According to the BBC, police soon realized that every DNA sample for the crimes in question dating back to 1993 matched a female factory worker in Bavaria, Austria. The factory where she worked produced cotton swabs used for DNA collection.

A spokesperson for the Baden-Württemberg police union called the story “very embarrassing.” Times.

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The factory behind the cotton swabs clarified that their products were intended for medical purposes and not qualified for DNA testing, according to the publication, which also reports that although the cotton swabs are disinfected before leaving the factory, their disinfection does not eliminate DNA.

“DNA analysis is a perfect tool for identifying traces,” concluded Stefan König of the Berlin Bar Association in an interview with Time in 2009. “What we must avoid is assuming that the producer of the traces is automatically the culprit. »

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