"Polizeiruf 110: Only ghosts" - This is how many "cold cases" there are in Germany
In the new"Polizeiruf 110" from Rostock, the investigation into the case of a murdered plastic surgeon leads to a mysterious cold case. After intact DNA from a teenager who disappeared 15 years ago is found at the crime scene, the unsolved criminal case is taken out of the filing cabinet again - and finally solved by detectives König (Anneke Kim Sarnau, 51) and Böwe (Lina Beckmann, 42). In reality, the German criminal investigation department also has to deal with such cold cases on a daily basis.
A case automatically becomes a so-called cold case when the police officers reach their limits in their investigations and the crime cannot be solved at first. Contrary to what the term suggests, however, the investigation is not put on hold completely. This applies in particular to murder cases or other serious crimes with a long statute of limitations.
3300 unsolved old cases in the filing cabinets
In Germany, such unsolved cases are increasingly being dealt with by specialized "cold case units", which can now be found in almost every federal state. An inquiry by the magazine "Spiegel " to all 16 interior ministries revealed that there are currently at least 3,300 unsolved old cases in the filing cabinets of these special units awaiting final clarification.
For some years now, not only active detectives have been entrusted with processing these cases, but also former investigators who have come out of retirement to actively support the cold case units with their wealth of experience. As the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia proudly announced in 2021, a total of 28 former investigators have been recruited to support a newly formed "Special Organizational Structure 'Cold Cases'".
Laborious investigative work with a low success rate
The work of these special investigators is extremely laborious and the success rates are not particularly high. For example, the Berlin cold case unit, which was founded in 2007, has only managed to identify suspects for serious crimes committed a long time ago in ten old cases. To the frustration of the detectives, however, only three of these cases actually resulted in a conviction. In the remaining cases, the evidence was not sufficient for a prosecution or the identified perpetrators were already deceased.
However, this extremely low number of cold cases solved should not obscure the fact that the police can boast much higher success rates in normal operations. According to the statistics platform "Statista", the average murder clearance rate in Germany is just under 95%.
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Source: www.stern.de
