The Weimar Murder Case Study

( Part 1)

This is the Case study which will let us know the Real life Usage of the Locards Exchange Principle . I will be dividing the Full Case study into several Important subtopics . This case study is all about the Karola and Melanie Weimar, aged 5 and 7 who was living with their parents, Reinhard and Monika, in Germany .

1) Chronology of the Events

On the early afternoon of August 4, 1986, Karola and Melanie Weimar, five and seven years old, are reported missing in the village of Philippsthal/Hesse by their mother. During her first few hearings the mother, Monika Weimar, reported that the children had got up at around 9.30 am and, after a short breakfast at round 10. 15 am, had left the house to go to a playground nearby. The father of the children, Reinhard Weimar, told the police that he had slept until the late morning, finally got up at around 11.30 am and waited for his wife to come back who had driven into town an hour earlier on some errands. She had come back at around 12.15 pm. On the same day Afternoon the Neighbors of the Weimar’s were serching here and there around the city , where as her own mother Mrs. Weimar was not at all involved in the Search. Missing’s Father was also involved in the search , he even searched at pigeon release stand and at a fair also. After a two days rigorous search along with the hundreds of police and Federal Border Police combinationally searched all surrounding forests, fields and meadows for Melanie and Karola but all gone in vain. During the investigations Police found that Marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Weimar was not Quite Happy one , Mrs. Weimar was having an External Affair with Kevin Pratt , An Americal Soldier since May 1986 . Mr. and Mrs. were already been talking of divorce. The criminal investigators’ first suspicion falls upon Monika Weimar , they assume the children were abducted, possibly with the help of Kevin Pratt.

In the afternoon of August 7, 1986, Hans-Georg Führer, a bus driver, stoped on a car park on road 3255 between Wölfershausen and Herfa to have a coffee break. While busy straightening the net curtain on a side window of his bus, his eye fell on a dense strip of stinging nettles that has grown in front of a bank on the next field. A short gust of wind stirs the stinging nettles, and Hans-Georg Führer noticed the legs of a child about one meter deep behind the straight-growing nettles. The Driver then called the police, and Melanie Weimar’s body was recovered. The body of another sister Karola Weimar was soon found after intensive search on surrounding picnic areas. They find Karola at around 6 pm on a disused street in the so-called Bengendorfer Grund, four kilometers from the other place where Melanie was found.The next day, a post-mortem was carried out, and the specialists in forensic medicine diagnose that Karola died of strangling and Melanie of suffocation, possibly under a soft cover. On August 11, 1996, the children were buried with great participation and sympathy of the public.

On August 22, 1986, the special task force received the first results of various investigations which were ordered from the criminal department of the Office of Criminal Investigation of the state of Hesse . They find out that a crack in the windshield of the Weimar car cannot have been caused from outside –i.e. by falling rocks, according to Monika Weimar , but by a ramming impact from inside the car. Furthermore, it becomes evident that two allegedly anonymous letters that Monika Weimar received and handed over to the criminal investigators were very probably written by herself. Then a witness, who went to his dentist in Wölfershausen on his motorcycle on the day the girls were reported missing, later on stated that he saw a white Volkswagen Passat with black fancy stripes like the one that Mr and Mrs Weimar own on the car park of road 3255, both on his way to the dentist at 11.03 am and back home at around 11.20 am . One thing seems to be obvious that Monika Weimar must have been the driver of the car. And there is even more that seems to be evident which was Her false statement concerning the cause of the damaged windshield, the origin of the anonymous letters as well as her appearance, a few hours before the children were reported missing, on the site where Melanie’s body was later found, focus suspicion on her.

On August 28, 1986 , Mr and Mrs. Weimar were Questioned By the Police . During the Questioning Session Monika Denies to be the author of the Letters which were found in the Early stage of the Investigation. Along with that she also explained the reason behind the crack in the Windshield of the Car with the Fact that , On the night before August 4, 1986, when she came back from a discotheque with Kevin Pratt , She had sexual intercourse with him in the car, her foot slipped and her heel bumped on the windshield. After several Evidences and Questioning , Police Arrested Monika Weimar on the same Evening. On August 29 the Questioning continued with Monika Weimar , she continued to give same answers given and Story Narrated on the earlier day till the Break around 11 AM . After Break she came up with the totally Different Story : now she declares that the children had already been dead when she returned home on the night of August 4, 1986 and tried to blame her husband for the Murder of her Children .The story was narrated like this .

• When she opened the apartment door the rooms were dark; the dining room alone was lit. She immediately entered it and went from there to the children’s room. Her husband was sitting on the edge of Karola’s bed, bent down, weeping and totally confused. He made a very absent impression on her. Next to him, on the floor, there was an empty beer bottle. Then she saw the children. Both were still half covered with the blanket. She touched and shook the children, but they gave no sign of life at all. She took her husband by the shoulder and asked him: “What have you done?” As she could no longer bear the sight of the dead children she ran to the bedroom and sat there on the bed. She was totally desperate and did not know what to do. After she had sat for some time in the bedroom, shocked and dazzled, she heard the sound of a car; she believed it to be the family car. Some time later the car came back. Her husband entered the apartment and came to her in the bedroom. Again she asked him: “Why did you do that?” He answered: “Now nobody will get the children.” He described to her where he had disposed of the bodies. She explained her stay next day on the place where Melanie was found with the fact that she wanted to see her children once more. Yet she could only find Melanie’s body. Asked why she had reported them missing and why she had given a false statement of what happened on that Monday morning, she said that she felt pity for her husband and that she had also blamed herself for the death of the children. Nobody beside her husband and herself knew how the children died and were brought to the places where they were found. She then narrated the same story through out the Questioning on August 29 .

This was the Small part of the full Case Study about The Weimar Murder .

Thank You for Reading this . Coming up with the Part 2 soon . Till then

Happy Learning :) .