A 67-year-old stateless man is on trial in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg for allegedly killing his German ex-girlfriend nearly 42 years ago after the cold case was reopened at the end of 2024 and authorities were able to track him down.
Prosecutors alleged on Thursday, the trial's opening day, that the man, then 25, killed Maria Köhler, then 19, after she let him into her room at a home for trainee nurses in in Aschaffenburg on July 30, 1984. He tightened a scarf around her neck in a jealous rage, they said.
The state is arguing that the man murdered the teen out of jealousy, as she had split up with him and had a new boyfriend, a US soldier stationed in Hanau, near Frankfurt.
"The defendant acted out of a crude, exaggerated jealousy devoid of any comprehensible reason because the injured party, Maria Köhler, had turned to another man," senior public prosecutor Jürgen Bundschuh told the court.
The man is charged with murder, which is the only charge that is not limited by the statue of limitations. Five trial days are scheduled until the end of June
The victim made it clear to the defendant that the relationship was over and that he should no longer visit her," Bundschuh said as the indictment was read out. "This led to a row between the two with mutual insults and abuse, possibly also with slaps."
The man also acted out of vindictiveness because the young woman did not want to marry him and he would therefore have had no chance of obtaining a residence permit in Germany, the prosecution argued.
Defence lawyer Diane Waterstradt rejected those claims.
"At the time, my client was very hurt but not excessively jealous," she said.
Waterstradt said the two argued on the day of the crime and she admitted that the defendant then tightened a scarf the victim had been wearing around her neck.
"He is very sorry about it and he stands by that." It happened in the heat of the moment, she said. "He was never violent before or afterwards."
The man claimed that it was Maria who wanted to marry him, though he did not comment directly on the crime during the hearing.
"She made the proposal," he said, adding th she changed her mind two to three months before the crime.
On the run for 40 years
After the crime and his departure from Germany the man was wanted worldwide. In mid-1998, investigators say, he re-entered Germany under another name, together with his new German wife, whom he is said to have married in Turkey. He then lived in Aschaffenburg for about 16 years under a false identity before travelling back to Turkey.
"I always had the fear," of being discovered, the defendant said.
According to police, the 67-year-old has no nationality. He lost his Turkish nationality, presumably because he refused military service.
Cold case reopened at end of 2024
At the end of 2024, chief cold case investigator Jörg Albert and colleagues reopened the unsolved crime and finally tracked down the defendant in Turkey.
"We had everything on him. We had photographs, we had a description and also DNA," inspector Albert said. The suspect was transferred to Germany in September last year and has been in pre-trial detention ever since.
Experts had previously been able to secure DNA on the presumed murder weapon. "With a probability bordering on certainty," the suspect is the source, prosecutors said.
