← Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
Inga Gehricke: The Girl Who Vanished in the German Woods
01:14:13
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- [00:00]
Morgan Absher
Foreign. This is Crime House.
- [00:10]
Kaylin Moore
A five year old girl disappears from a family barbecue in the German countryside. Her parents think that she's lost in the woods, but police and search crews look for days and don't find a single trace of her.
- [00:22]
Morgan Absher
Many believe that's because Inga Girica was not lost at all. She was actually taken. Hi friends. Welcome back to Clues where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.
- [00:47]
Kaylin Moore
I'm Kaylin Moore and I'll be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories and the court files released on these cases.
- [00:53]
Morgan Absher
And I'm your Internet detective, Morgan Absher. I'm the one who's diving into anything I can find online to talk about the lesser known details and pull out those threads that just aren't adding up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social media. Want ad free listening and early access. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts and make sure to go back and listen to all of our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's dive into Inga Girka's case and the clues that defined it. This episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus Elle every year after the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances chemistry you can
- [01:44]
Kaylin Moore
feel through the screen.
- [01:46]
Morgan Absher
Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime Girl.
- [01:51]
Kaylin Moore
Winter is so last season and now
- [01:55]
Morgan Absher
spring's got you looking at pictures of
- [01:56]
Kaylin Moore
tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs.
- [02:00]
Morgan Absher
You're thirsty for the sun on your
- [02:02]
Kaylin Moore
shoulders that perfect hang on the patio sundress.
- [02:06]
Morgan Absher
Those sandals you can wear all day and all night.
- [02:08]
Kaylin Moore
And you've had enough of shopping from your couch.
- [02:11]
Morgan Absher
Done. Hoping it looks anything like the picture
- [02:13]
Kaylin Moore
when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross.
- [02:19]
Morgan Absher
Work your magic.
- [02:21]
Kaylin Moore
This is a really heavy case that we're going to get into today. But Morgan, should we start by telling everyone? Kind of a happy spooky thing that happened to us recently.
- [02:29]
Morgan Absher
Oh my gosh. From the two Hot Takes episode we did.
- [02:32]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. So I was recently on two Hot
- [02:33]
Morgan Absher
Takes with my face. You guys. I was like so scared. I was like, where is this going? Ah, okay. Yes. This is so cool.
- [02:39]
Kaylin Moore
I was just on two Hot Takes with Morgan and we were doing Kind of spooky. Some let's Not Meet stories, some like pregnancy related stories. And at one point I was talking about my aunt who passed away while I was pregnant. And we put up the. The episode. It did pretty well. And then, Morgan, you got a message from someone.
- [02:57]
Morgan Absher
I got a message from a listener and she sent it to me on my Patreon and it's from the username Crafty Cottontail. But she basically said, do daffodils or yellow flowers mean anything specific to you or K Lyn? And she said that, like when she was listening to the two Hot Takes episode, she got this. This vibe and this read as you were talking about your aunt that passed.
- [03:17]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. And you texted me that being like, hey, like, I don't know if this is anything, but someone sent me this.
- [03:22]
Morgan Absher
I'm gonna send it. Of course. Yeah.
- [03:24]
Kaylin Moore
And Black Eyed Susans were my aunt's favorite flower. And when she passed away, we all got little bookmarks with her handwriting on them and they were covered in Black Eyed Susan. So the second you said, hey, do yellow flowers mean anything? I just immediately knew. And so I texted my whole family about it and we all had goosebumps and we're just honestly kind of freaked out. But that was very cool.
- [03:45]
Morgan Absher
It's incredible. I really believe some people just have that gift. And she said she had just been able to like tap into it recently
- [03:52]
Kaylin Moore
and which I'm so curious what that means. Is that something that we all have that we can kind of tap into
- [03:56]
Morgan Absher
or is we should have a psychic? Come on. We need to do like a. A spirit episode.
- [04:01]
Kaylin Moore
Very, very, very cool. So what was their name? Cotton Eyed?
- [04:05]
Morgan Absher
Crafty Cottontail.
- [04:06]
Kaylin Moore
Crafty Cottontail. Thank you so much for reaching out with that because that's was amazing.
- [04:10]
Morgan Absher
I know. If anyone has any spiritual stories like that, please, please share visitation. Dreams are so fascinating to me.
- [04:16]
Kaylin Moore
Yes.
- [04:17]
Morgan Absher
But let's get into this case. This is a really intense one. I. I feel like I really fell down the rabbit hole on this case and. And I will say we are having quite a few German pronunciations today. Please excuse our mispronunciations. We literally were practicing before the episode. But a lot of the source material I watched on this was in German and I had to listen with subtitles on. Like there's no really good translated material on this case. So it is a heavy one and it's. It's going to be a doozy for you guys out there.
- [04:52]
Kaylin Moore
Definitely. And just a quick reminder that we always give if you're watching this episode, on YouTube, you're going to see some pictures, videos that will help you visualize the case. And if you're listening, you can find those same photos and videos on our social media. That's at Clues Podcast. And as always, you should just follow us there anyways. Cause we talk a lot about these cases there as well.
- [05:09]
Morgan Absher
Yeah, we do confessionals over there talking about things we missed. As we were recording the episode, literally we hit end record and I'm like, oh, my God, I forgot to mention this. Yeah, like last week, I literally added a botched mark on the board during our confessional. So we're still getting into the cases over there and diving a little bit deeper. So go ahead and follow. And just a warning before we begin. This episode includes discussions of child abduction, child abuse, child sexual abuse, serious mental illness, animal death, and other potentially upsetting material. So please listen with care.
- [05:40]
Kaylin Moore
Before we dive in, we kind of briefly mentioned this, but today's case did happen in Germany, which has some of the world's most restrictive privacy laws. That means law enforcement agencies and journalists are required to keep a lot of information about criminal investigations secret, especially things that could cast suspicion on a person who has not been charged with a crime. So there are some points in the story where we just don't have as many details as we normally might. And it's also worth noting that when it comes to the family, hardly any personal details were released publicly. So everything we know about them basically is included in the story today. And with that, this case starts on May 2, 2015. Artist Victoria Girica and her husband, a social worker named Jensuva, are enjoying a little family trip. Earlier that morning, they drove 50 miles from their home in Schunabek, Germany, to a recreation area in a tiny village called Willemsof. They were going to spend a day out in the countryside. They arrived around noon and they were there with two other families. Now, they've been kind of doing this thing for the last few years, meeting up in different places to all spend time together. It's become somewhat of a tradition. The Girkas took their four kids that day. Two boys age 10 and 8, and two girls who are 5 and 3 years old. The original plan was that this was just going to be a day trip and they were going to head home in the early evening. The other families that they're with have six children between them, so. So it was going to be this big group of 10 kids playing together all day. They had coffee and cake. They played football. They socialized while the kids were out playing, tiring themselves out. And when evening rolled around, everyone decided they were still having such a great time that they weren't ready to leave. So the three families decided to build a campfire around a barbecue site near the woods. They also arranged to use a kitchen at a house in the park to cook a meal and prepare any food for barbecuing that day. So at around 6pm, Victoria heads inside to start dinner. She keeps an eye on the kids through the kitchen window, specifically her five year old daughter, Inga. She is this big ball of energy. Her two blonde pigtails are bouncing around as she's chasing the other kids near a nearby field where there's adults playing soccer. At one point, Victoria sees Inga running towards the edge of the woods, which are kind of close by. But there's other adults that are keeping eyes on the kids there, so she's not really worried when Inga briefly slips out of her sight. Now, Inga is this really lively child who loved spending time with her family and exploring the world around her. So her kind of running around near the edge of the woods isn't surprising. She was known among relatives and friends for her curiosity and also her playful spirit and really her cheerful personality. So Victoria doesn't think too much about this and she goes back to preparing the food for that night. She wants to get dinner on the grill before it gets too dark out. And a few minutes before 6.30pm, just as the sun is going down, Inga's dad, Yenzuva sees her on the footpath going from the house to the outdoor barbecue area where the families are planning on eating. And she's carrying these two big bottles of water. Now, Yenzuva assumes that she's trying to help with a barbecue. She's the kind of kid who always wants to do her part. She was described as being very helpful. Even at five years old, she was always the type to, you know, bring the water bottles to her parents or just see what she could do to help. And a few minutes after that, two other kids see Inga heading back towards the house where her mother's cooking. Only she never makes it inside. At 6:45pm, Victoria realizes that her daughter is nowhere to be found. So she runs outside and she starts screaming for Inga. As everyone sees what's happening, they rush in to help. They start running around the woods calling for Inga. The other kids were all looking for sticks for the campfire before she vanished. So at first the parents assumed that maybe she got lost while doing the same thing. But after over an hour of searching, there was still no sign of her. Not a single footprint, nothing. And now it's getting dark, and it's getting too dark for a child to be out there alone. There's also wolves in this part of Germany, and they're surrounded by over 8,600 acres of forest. And these are dark, deep German forests. Like, these are the forests that the Brothers Grimm would write about in their fairy tales. So at 8.13pm, Yanzeva and Victoria call the police and they officially report their five year old daughter, Inga Girica, as a missing person. Now let's hit pause for just one second and talk a little bit more about the area that this disappearance happened in. It's in the Altmark region on the northeast side of Germany. That's about 95 miles west of Berlin. Altmark is very rural, and the place that the families were visiting, Willemsof, is especially remote. Now, you're gonna see some videos on YouTube or on Instagram, but picture this. A giant, dense patch of forest surrounded by mostly farmland with just one one narrow paved road and a couple of footpaths. In the center of the forest, you find this big clearing that has a bunch of buildings, some of which are over 200 years old. That is Willimsov. It was originally built as a big sheep farm, and During World War I, it served as a military hospital. But after that it became a rehab center as well as a residential home for those with intellectual disabilities. And that is what it was in 2015, and that's what it still is today. The facility and grounds are owned by a social work organization within the German Protestant church. And in addition to this facility, Willemsof also has 22 guest houses and a small working farm and many other structures.
- [11:15]
Morgan Absher
When you guys see these aerial shots of this place, you're going to be blown away by how vast it is. It's essentially a small village in the middle of a massive forest. And again, like deep, scary forest. Like, it is dense. And in one news investigation I saw they noted over 38 structures. So it's not like, I don't know, in my head I was envisioning like a KOA campground where it's like, oh, there's a forest nearby, but, you know, open field where, like, there's a couple things. No, this is a village. There's so many buildings and some of them look like big apartment buildings. This, this place is really expansive.
- [11:52]
Kaylin Moore
Now, people receiving services from Willemsof give back by working on the farm and maintaining the guest houses. It's a workhouse. In that way, Church groups, self help groups, social workers, and community organizations are then invited to use the guest houses and grounds for retreats, exactly like what the Guerrikas and their friends were doing that day. And as of this recording, the authorities haven't shared who the other families were with the Girkas, Kind of relating back to the privacy laws. Yenzua, Inga's father, was a social worker at the time of Inga's disappearance, meaning that he was actually a member of one of those groups that were allowed to host retreats and rent the guest houses there, which they could use to prepare their food. But it also meant that the Girkas and their friends were not alone in those woods. Between Willemsof staff, residents, and guests. There were over 100 people in the area when Inga vanished. And again, it's a huge area and there's a hundred people, so still feels very isolated.
- [12:45]
Morgan Absher
A lot of people coming and going. And the family interacted with a lot of people like strangers throughout that day. Like when they were playing soccer, they invited people to join them during their game. So there's a lot of interaction between other people that aren't that known to them.
- [13:01]
Kaylin Moore
Exactly. And the grounds are technically open to the public. Just the guest houses require a reservation by the people who are approved to reserve them. So there could have also been other visitors just wandering around that day as well. But with so many people in this area, Shirley, someone had to have seen something. And that brings us back to the search that first night on May 2, 2015. Inga's parents called the police at 8:13pm and the first patrol car arrived just nine minutes later at 8:22. And at this point, everyone still assumed that Ingo was lost in the woods. That's kind of the last place that they saw her. So the officers rush into the forest, and they join the groups of friends and family already searching for her. But by 10pm there's still no sign of Inga. And that's when search dogs arrive on the scene and begin their hunt as well. The search continued throughout the night, mostly focusing on that forest. By Sunday morning, May 3rd, they still had not located Inga or any sign of where she had gone. And the police realized that they're gonna have to expand their radius and bring in more resources. So on Monday, May 4, that's now a day and a half after inga disappeared. Over 1,000 people joined the mission, scanning the remote forests surrounding Willemsof. Police officers, firefighters, trained volunteer disaster relief workers, helicopters with thermal Cameras scanned all 8,600 acres of the area from above, while 60 search and rescue dogs tracked the forest floor. Like, if she is in this area, they have the resources to find her.
- [14:37]
Morgan Absher
Yeah.
- [14:37]
Kaylin Moore
But even with this massive search effort, there's still not a single shred of evidence that leads to Inga, which is
- [14:45]
Morgan Absher
insane to me because we know from previous cases we've done, these dogs are so good. Like, these scent dogs are insane.
- [14:52]
Kaylin Moore
And especially if she. I mean, there's not that many people in the area. So there's, you know, a lot of times scent dogs get confused. If too many people tramp through a crime scene, there's not that many people in the area. She took off on foot. And if she went into the forest, a dog should be able to follow that scent and find her. And they're not finding anything, and everyone starts getting a really bad feeling.
- [15:11]
Morgan Absher
I know. And you guys will see the videos of this team. I mean, they did their diligence and they went arm to arm and walked through the forest. And when I heard, like, firefighters, I'm like, oh, well, you know, that's great. But no, there were trucks and trucks of firefighters. Like, everyone showed out for this search. But still, they didn't really get anything from it except one kind of witness. Which brings us to our first clue. Testimony from a local hunter. After hearing about this search, an unnamed hunter contacted the police to say that he heard a child screaming in the woods the night that Inga vanished. Now, again, we don't know who this hunter was. Law enforcement have never named him, and he's never spoken to the press on his own. But hunting season had just started, and there were a handful of hunters in this forest surrounding Wilhelmsoff when Inga went missing. Now, Germany has a very set way. They allow for people to hunt. You have to acquire permits through your hunting club to even go on these lands. It's a very put together organization there to hunt. And most of these hunters were super eager to help police. But there was only that one that heard something unusual that night. After this tip, though, police went and reviewed footage from several hunters game cameras. They even brought tracking dogs to the area that he claimed to hear the screams. But the dogs weren't able to locate Inga's scent anywhere nearby. So investigators at this point are really starting to wonder, especially given their extensive search efforts, maybe Inga wasn't lost in the woods at all. The search dogs did provide investigators with kind of a little bit of a lead, though. According to Inga's Family. The dogs did alert to a few spots near a field full of solar panels called Solarfeld, which is our second clue. The Solarfeld is about four miles from Wilhelmshof or about a nine minute drive. There are a few houses and other buildings bordering the solar park itself. And there's a 400 person village that's somewhat nearby. But even with the help of their massive search party, detectives didn't find anything that would explain the alerts from those dogs at this Solarfeld. There was one other important thing near the Solar park though, that investigators started to turn to, and that's our third clue, which is a forensic psychiatric hospital. The Uch Spring State Hospital for Forensic Psychiatry is located between Wilhelmshof and the Solarfeld. It's about two and a half miles from the park by foot or a six minute drive. And this facility is for people that are considered so dangerous and have mental health challenges so severe that they can't be punished for their crimes with a prison sentence. And this facility houses up to 290 patients at a time. A large portion of them are sex offenders, and it's more like a prison than your average hospital. Patients are involuntarily confined, so they're not allowed to go in and out. They have extensive security measures both indoors and outdoors to prevent them from escaping. And based on what we know about the search radius, it's likely that the hospital was included in this massive search. Although it's never explicitly stated in our sources, we're unclear if there were any people that had escaped or were missing at this time. None of that has been released again due to those strict privacy laws. And if investigators found anything there of note, it's never been released to the public.
- [18:43]
Kaylin Moore
So the search for Inga continued over the next two days, May 5 and May 6, 2015, drainage ponds in the area were emptied. Searchers paid special attention to any slopes where Inga could have fallen, thinking that maybe, you know, she was little and she tripped. And they were also looking for, specifically for tripping hazards in the woods. The search party also combed through every building at Willemsof and interviewed about a hundred people who were there when Inga vanished. Every garbage container was emptied. Each apartment was searched from top to bottom. The koi pond was even drained so they could look for any clues in there. Searchers removed all the straw from the Vilmsoff barn and shoveled through a huge livestock manure pile. They were really searching every square inch of this entire Place. By May 6, four days in, there still was not a single shred of evidence. And that's when they admitted defeat and they called off the mass search. The next day, May 7, Inga's parents left Willemsoff and headed home to Schunabeck with their three other children. And that same day, police made a really big announcement. They said that they no longer believed Inga got lost on her own, but that now it did appear to be a kidnapping case.
- [20:05]
Morgan Absher
Another one of this week's partners is Merit Beauty. Merit has become essential in my makeup routine.
- [20:12]
Kaylin Moore
We've gotten a few products from Merit that I use every day. The flush balm is one of my favorites. Every time you see me on camera, I have the flesh balm on the bronzer stick. Bronzer. And the mascara. That's another fan favorite of mine that I probably wear every single day.
- [20:26]
Morgan Absher
Oh, the lip. I cannot go anywhere without a Merit lip on. And they have so many. They've got tinted. They've just got clear. It's not sticky. I feel moisturized. I got a nice glow. I'm pretty much obsessed with all of Merit's products. Merit is really this minimalistic beauty brand that makes elevated makeup and skincare designed to help you look put together in a matter of minutes. Right now, Merit Beauty is offering our listeners their signature makeup bag with your first order@merit beauty.com that's M E R I T beauty.com to get your free signature makeup bag with your first order. Merit beauty.com One of this week's partners is Aura Frames. Mother's Day is coming up, and it's time to upgrade mom's gift. This year, no more just flowers and a card, something that she's really going to love and find a lot of sentimental value in witches aura frames.
- [21:16]
Kaylin Moore
I'm literally gonna cry talking about this, but it's gonna be my first Mother's Day, and I have my aura frame at home, and I. I mean, already it's just full of pictures of my baby, and I'll sit and watch it like a TV screen and just all the pictures coming up. It really is such a great gift for Mother's Day because you can also preload the frame with photos so you can send it to your mom with a bunch of pictures that you want her to see.
- [21:36]
Morgan Absher
It's also such a great way to keep pictures of your kids off the Internet and still share them with family.
- [21:42]
Kaylin Moore
That's a big thing that I'm dealing with now because I don't really post pictures of his face on Instagram. Want my grandma and my mom to be Able to see all the cute little milestones that he's hitting.
- [21:51]
Morgan Absher
Yeah, and sharing the photos is effortless. You can download the free aura app or text photos straight to your frame so you can constantly update family on the little one.
- [22:00]
Kaylin Moore
Make mother's day special with Aura Frames. Name number one by wire cutter. You can save on the gifts mom loves by visiting or frames.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $25 off their bestselling carver mat frame with code clues. That's a U R A frames.com promo. Code clues. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. On May 12, 2015, 10 days after 5 year old Ingo went missing, police announced that they were creating a task force specifically for her case. It was codenamed Vald, which means forest. The vault team included about 40 people, all working under the top criminal investigator in the area. The same day that they revealed this task force, police also launched a website to share any information and to collect tips on Inga's disappearance. And luckily, her family had taken several photos of her the day she went missing so the public could see exactly what she was wearing. A blue shirt with a butterfly on it. Blue jeans and pink barrettes holding back her blonde pigtails. Her missing front teeth also made her very recognizable. And that same week, police worked with a nonprofit to have over 3,000 posters printed for her. They also had her flyer displayed on almost 300 public information screens in places like subway stations and airports all across Germany. And by the third week of the search, Inga's case was featured on a German TV show about open investigations, which when it's translated is called XY Unsolved. I've talked about it on Heartstarts Pounding before because it's a huge show over
- [23:29]
Morgan Absher
there and I've never heard of it.
- [23:30]
Kaylin Moore
It's. Oh my God. The actual term is like, I'm gonna butcher it, so I'm not even gonna try. But it's like a very long German name, okay? But it's responsible for like a whole bunch of cases being solved. We, we covered one on Pounding the Gorda murders, which were solved because of this show, basically. So it's huge over there. And when cases are featured, you know, a lot of people see them. So when this airs, it generates a huge new wave of tips. Police followed every single one of these tips that seemed credible. They even followed suggestions that came from psychics. That's how desperate they were for any information on this. But one by one, they crossed all of these off the list without Any solid leads that came through on June 2, 2015. That's now a month after Inga disappeared. Police decided to up the ante and they announced a 25,000euro reward for any information that led to Inga's location. It was the largest police reward offered in German history. And unfortunately, it did not really help the investigation, not at all.
- [24:32]
Morgan Absher
And by this point, officials were getting desperate. So by the end of May, the police hired a private team of specialized scent trailing dogs and their handler, Andrea von Budenbrock. What she and her dogs found is our fourth clue. Andrea claimed that these animals were essentially miracle workers. They could do things no other trained dogs could, like trail a missing person by scent, even if they were traveling by vehicle. To be clear, most experts will say that scent trails last about two weeks at most. And scent particles are only detectable until they dry out. At this point, Inga had been missing for a month and a scent trail blowing through the air, say from a moving car window, would dissipate almost immediately. But Andrea claimed her dogs had abilities that couldn't entirely be explained by science. And I will say a lot of police departments and prosecutors in the area at the time swore by her work, her magic dogs. Her dogs are magical.
- [25:38]
Kaylin Moore
Wow.
- [25:39]
Morgan Absher
So she had actually been hired to assist with everything from bombings to homicide investigations. And this really just blew my mind, you guys. There's a case that Andrea testified that her dogs alerted to a murders suspect's scent on a bullet that was still inside the victim's skull.
- [25:58]
Kaylin Moore
Unreal. So someone had fired the gun and the dog could still smell the person that was holding the gun just from the bullet. Yeah, which sounds like it wouldn't be a real thing. But that's amazing that the dog was able to do that, I guess. Yeah.
- [26:14]
Morgan Absher
This was based on a sniff of the bullet after it was fired into that victim. Like mind blowing for me. So that June, Andrea traveled to Wilhelmshof along with an assistant and seven specially trained dogs. Soon, two dogs caught a scent near Wilhelmsaf and began moving south towards the Solarfeld and psychiatric hospital. But the dogs kept following the trail past those locations, way past those locations. Actually. They followed ascent trail all the way out of the region. Eventually, the dogs do split up. One turned east and ultimately led its handler to Dresden, Germany, which is about 305 kilometers, or 190 miles from where Inga disappeared. The other dog just kept going and going and going. This dog was with Andrea and it eventually stopped in the town of Ziltz, Austria, which is about 800 kilometers or 500 miles south of where Inga disappeared.
- [27:15]
Kaylin Moore
Wow.
- [27:15]
Morgan Absher
500 miles.
- [27:17]
Kaylin Moore
I'm curious, too. When they are they just letting the dog walk for 500 miles and they're just trailing him? Because how is a dog picking up on ascent for 500 miles?
- [27:28]
Morgan Absher
Is the dog behind the wheel of the car?
- [27:30]
Kaylin Moore
That's what I'm wondering.
- [27:31]
Morgan Absher
Are we just following the snoot?
- [27:32]
Kaylin Moore
Yes, that's. That's what I'm curious about. Because it's just like, I'm a little skeptical of this at this point.
- [27:38]
Morgan Absher
I'm skeptical. I'm trying to say it with a straight voice, but I watched an interview with a scientist who discusses this scenario. He's talking about the likelihood of Andrea being able to even do this scientifically. And when you listen to him, you kind of become dumbfounded because the skin cells of that person would have to travel through the car's ventilation system and then swirl around on the roadway, quickly dissolve, evaporate, be undetectable. And the chance of catching that three and a half weeks later, he says it is, quote, impossible. And I have a quote here directly from him. Quote, this must be dismissed as nonsense from the onset.
- [28:22]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [28:23]
Morgan Absher
And just imagine that in a really beautiful German accent, like, it was just like, yes, mic drop, my guy. But yet they spent a lot of time and resources doing this. They did end up searching the area in zilt. They apparently found someone suspicious, and they became the focus of the investigation for a while. They never ended up charging that person. They've never said their name publicly. We have no details that have been leaked. And it was kind of clear at this point that this lead went nowhere. This extensive dog tracking operation was a bust. I will say, when you watch an interview with Inga's mom, like, she did appreciate this. She appreciated the search team's effort and the fact that they were willing to do this because it gave her such hope. And at this point, that's all you're holding on to, is hope? Yes, this operation did end up going from June 2015 until December of 2015, and it put police out of €40,000, not to mention all the travel expenses for the officers who accompanied her to Austria. And again, they were kind of right back to where they started. No forensic evidence, no suspects, and no sign of Inga, which I will say, like, I know the family appreciated this effort, but to spend €40,000 on this dog tracking situation? Yeah, that doesn't even seem scientifically valid. Some might include this as botched at this point.
- [29:56]
Kaylin Moore
So, yeah, I'm curious what people would say because at the same time, it's great that they're still spending resources on this case to find her. I mean, what else are they going to do? They have nothing else to go off of.
- [30:07]
Morgan Absher
You think that the dogs initially at the scene though, would have found something? Yeah, but again, her dogs are special. So let us know. I'm not, I'm going to be more cautious with my botched marks today. But let us know if you would be adding one here at this point given.
- [30:23]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [30:23]
Morgan Absher
The validity of this.
- [30:24]
Kaylin Moore
I mean, there's so many cases like we covered the Beaumont children in Australia where they like will dig up people's entire properties just based on what a psychic says. Like they've spent so much money on so many leads that really have gone nowhere. So just kind of like a common thing.
- [30:38]
Morgan Absher
But yeah, and there's a lot of pressure, I mean, public pressure, pressure from everyone involved. So I understand it's, it, it's a tight spot to be in rock and a hard place and you're holding out hope for anything.
- [30:50]
Kaylin Moore
Well, after the unsuccessful six month canine search, the vault task force went back to following tips, checking alibis and looking into anyone suspicious in the Willemsoff area. And they released very little information about what they were doing at the time. But we do know that they were looking into all of the known child sexual predators who lived in the area. And they did find one who seemed very suspicious at the time, though they wouldn't reveal this part of the investigation publicly, at least for years to come.
- [31:19]
Morgan Absher
Towards the end of 2015, the police became aware of a suspect that really fit who they thought they were looking for. He was a 39 year old sex offender who owned a dilapidated factory which was located about 60 miles from where Inga went missing. And he also owned an apartment in another town which was about 65 miles away. His name was Christian Bruckner.
- [31:41]
Kaylin Moore
And those of you listening might have immediately had alarm bells go off because his name has been in the news a lot, somewhat recently, quite a bit.
- [31:51]
Morgan Absher
Christian Brueckner is our fifth clue. He had a lengthy criminal record dating back to his teenage years when he was first charged with sexually abusing a child. And as police continued to dig into him, they got a hold of his Skype chat history, which really set off alarm bells. In 2013, two years before Inga disappeared, Bruckner sent a friend a Skype message saying he wanted to, quote, capture something small and use it for days. When his friend, allegedly a fellow pedophile, Warned him that might be dangerous. Brueckner reportedly replied, quote, not if the evidence is destroyed afterwards. That same year, police investigating the disappearance of a three year old English girl named Madeleine McCann also got a tip about Brueckner. And again, as Kaylan mentioned, you might recognize Bruckner's name. And it's because of his potential connection to the Madeleine McCann case, which, if you're unfamiliar with that case. Madeleine McCann was taken from her bedroom at a luxury resort during a family vacation to Portugal in 2007. Her parents had left her and her twin siblings alone in their unlocked Portuguese vacation apartment. They were dining nearby at a tapas restaurant about 55 to 82 meters away. Would check on the children periodically, but upon going back, had discovered that Madeline was kidnapped.
- [33:15]
Kaylin Moore
Is one of the theories, one of the. I know there's a lot of people who think that the parents had something to do with it. Yeah, definitely.
- [33:21]
Morgan Absher
There's a lot of other podcasts out there that have done it, but let us know if you'd want to hear from us.
- [33:25]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, there's been a couple updates in the last few years.
- [33:28]
Morgan Absher
I mean, you look.
- [33:28]
Kaylin Moore
Especially with Bruckner.
- [33:29]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. There's a new article that came out just five days ago.
- [33:32]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. That they lost a little bit of money that they were going to use to investigate the case more. So they might have hit another roadblock.
- [33:38]
Morgan Absher
So stuff is still coming up.
- [33:39]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [33:40]
Morgan Absher
But they also found that Brueckner matched the description of a man that was seen near the resort when Madeline disappeared. Several witnesses even told police that Bruckner had talked about killing Madeline, but none of them could prove it. Now, Bruckner was still being considered a suspect in Madeline's case in 2015. When the investigators on Inga's case heard about him. However, he hadn't been publicly named in Madeline's case by that point. Again, those strict privacy laws. The public had no idea who Christian Brueckner even was at the time. However, once the task force began putting the pieces together, they realized something chilling. Those investigators on this case thought Madeline and Inga looked really similar. Both blonde hair, light colored eyes. And what investigators were finding, really frustrating is at this time, the Madeleine McCann investigation was stalled. It had kind of run cold. And get the marker ready. When the investigators were first looking into Brueckner, local police actually sent him a letter warning him that he was a suspect in that case. They didn't have a search warrant or anything in hand to search his property. So there was nothing to keep him from potentially destroying Evidence.
- [34:59]
Kaylin Moore
Which obviously he's going to do.
- [35:01]
Morgan Absher
Come on. You're gonna give your number one suspect a warning that, hey, we're looking at you.
- [35:07]
Kaylin Moore
Hey, by the way.
- [35:07]
Morgan Absher
But we can't. We can't come on site yet.
- [35:10]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. So if you have a hard drive with anything bad on it, promise you'll keep it intact. Like, no, of course. Which we know now, too, that he tried to destroy evidence.
- [35:20]
Morgan Absher
Come on. And the investigators in Madeline's case believed this was probably why two years later, they still didn't have enough forensic evidence to arrest him. Like you guys, they shot themselves in their own foot.
- [35:33]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [35:34]
Morgan Absher
So at this point, Inga's task force knew that they couldn't make the same mistake. They began collecting evidence against Bruckner to get a search warrant for his factory and that apartment he had. It wasn't easy. This guy was intelligent, calm, well spoken. He presented himself well in court, had a lot of experience with the legal system. And if they gave him a chance to fight their warrant, he might win. So they knew it was going to take a lot of good police work and luck to get past his defenses. Today's episode is brought to you by Alma. It can be challenging to find the right therapist. Someone that gets you, teaches you strategies that are actually going to work for you and your needs. And it can sometimes be costly. Well, ALMA is on a mission to change all that. They want to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care. And they have over 20,000 diverse therapists and an easy to use platform. One thing I love about Alma is that you can do consultations with a therapist. It's almost like an interview. And you can make sure you guys match each other's vibes before you really jump in and get started. Their directory helps you find a therapist that takes your insurance and meets your specific needs with filters like gender, race, therapeutic approach, and more. And you're going to know if exactly how much you're paying upfront. With their free insurance, cost, estimator, calculator. We're entering a new year, so now is the perfect time to start addressing things you might want to work on. A year from today isn't that far away. Get started now@helloalma.com clues. That's hello a l m a.com clues. One of this week's partners is Instacart. I hate grocery shopping. I hate going to the store. I hate getting overwhelmed by all the choices, and I really, really hate forgetting items.
- [37:23]
Kaylin Moore
And now that I have a baby, I legitimately just don't have time to go. That's like so low on my priority list that I always open my fridge and I have truly nothing inside. Instacart Instacart is more than a grocery technology platform. It's a care company designed to make life easier. It connects you with thousands of stores across the United States, giving you time back to focus on what matters most. Like my baby. With just a few taps, you can shop from your favorite stores and have quality groceries and household essentials carefully selected and ready for pickup or delivered to your door in as fast as 30 minutes.
- [37:54]
Morgan Absher
The app is is super easy to use. You can pick exactly what you want and even message your shopper, which is key for me. When things are out of stock, I want to know what replacement I'm getting and make sure it's the right one.
- [38:05]
Kaylin Moore
Instacart brings convenience, quality and ease right to your door so you can focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app now and get groceries just how you like. If you like your true crime like you like your coffee, Red Handed is the podcast for you. It's dark, intense and might just keep you up all night.
- [38:22]
Morgan Absher
I'm Hannah.
- [38:23]
Kaylin Moore
I'm Saroti, and every week on Red Handed we break down a different fascinating case. From the most recent US Trials everyone
- [38:30]
Morgan Absher
is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reid and Ellen Greenberg, to the most
- [38:34]
Kaylin Moore
unbelievable stories from around the world. There's nothing we love more than digging
- [38:38]
Morgan Absher
into every detail of the cases we
- [38:39]
Kaylin Moore
cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story.
- [38:43]
Morgan Absher
Red handed has over 400 episodes ready
- [38:46]
Kaylin Moore
to binge right now.
- [38:48]
Morgan Absher
Plus be sure to check out our
- [38:49]
Kaylin Moore
weekly sister show Shorthand, where we unpack everything from the Black death to Area 51. If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts. One thing that's interesting about German law too is you don't necessarily have to investigate someone who's dead. So if there's a cold case and the person has died, oftentimes those cases just will never get solved. They don't put any more resources into investigating someone if they've passed away. So there's been a couple high profile cases in Germany where the suspect will get tipped off that there may be a suspect and they'll just kill themselves and then the case just goes nowhere after that. So it can be really hard to keep a cold case like interested in it and resources going to it. Especially, wow, if the person dies.
- [39:37]
Morgan Absher
That's insane.
- [39:38]
Kaylin Moore
Different than how we do it in America.
- [39:39]
Morgan Absher
Again, why tip them off? Yeah, you're so strict on privacy and not releasing anything in regards to the investigation. Why even.
- [39:49]
Kaylin Moore
Why risk it?
- [39:50]
Morgan Absher
Risk it? Why say anything?
- [39:51]
Kaylin Moore
It's a little bit of a botch. In late 2015, the vault task force was having a pretty difficult time getting a search warrant for Christian Bruckner's properties. But that all changed on January 14, 2016, because that's when a neighbor of Bruckner's, identified only as Steve M, Had a pretty disturbing experience near Bruckner's factory. So Steve's Rottweiler broke away from him and ran onto Bruckner's property and just started digging. And when Steve caught up with his dog, he could smell that something was rotting nearby, is how he described it. And Steve was pretty sure he knew what that smell was because his girlfriend Katarina was a police officer, and she'd been trying to help the Vault Task force get more information and evidence from Bruckner recently. So Steve called Katarina and he told her about this smell. And under German law, that was enough for local police to search the property, which also, you know, eventually people were wondering if maybe they set that up. Like, maybe Katarina told Steve, hey, if the dog smells something on the property that smells like a dead body, like, we can get a warrant. And at that point, you know, it's been so long that they haven't been able to get a warrant, so maybe it was orchestrated like that. The timing's a little suspect at straws.
- [41:10]
Morgan Absher
A little.
- [41:10]
Kaylin Moore
But regardless, they were able to go actually investigate.
- [41:13]
Morgan Absher
I know, and I'm unfamiliar, obviously, I'm unfamiliar with all law, but German law. Really unfamiliar with. I wonder if that could have been a botched mark for us, if that wouldn't have held up. And Brueckner, you know, being savvy with the law would have been like, that's not legit. Yeah, your warrant is invalidated. But it worked in this case.
- [41:35]
Kaylin Moore
It did work.
- [41:36]
Morgan Absher
And they got on site. So later that same day, January 14, 2016, officers began digging around the property for the source of the smell. It turned out it was coming from a body, but not a human one. Two officers uncovered a dog buried in a shallow grave. And luckily, they didn't just stop there. For some reason, they decided to search for beneath the dog. And that is when they found some pretty damning evidence. Underneath the dog was a bag containing USB flash drives, which is clue number six for us. When police looked at what was on those USBs, they found a lot of child sexual abuse material. There were also some text files where Bruecker had typed out violent sexual fantasies, including one about sexually assaulting a mother and her five year old daughter at an isolated farm. There was more than enough for them to then get a warrant for a full scale search of the property. And police knew they only had one shot. If they didn't find enough evidence to arrest Brueckner, he'd get a chance to destroy anything they missed. And he would. But in February 2016, they took their chances. They had two teams totaling 100 police officers, and they split up and entered Brueckner's factory, as well as his apartment about an hour's drive away. They turned both places upside down, but never shared exactly what they found. According to media reports, which police have declined to confirm, they may have seized 75 girls swimsuits, more child sexual abuse material, a computer hard drive, a laptop, and more USB drives and memory cards. As far as we know, police did not find anything belonging to Inga or any evidence that would conclusively link Brur to her disappearance.
- [43:32]
Kaylin Moore
The Vault task force didn't give up on Bruckner, though. But they were now hitting a wall. Later in 2016, they commissioned a psychological analysis of the case to see if an expert could provide any new insights. And unfortunately, the person they hired had very little experience, if any, in criminal investigations. Which you can put that on the botchboard because.
- [43:52]
Morgan Absher
Oh, no, just wait.
- [43:53]
Kaylin Moore
You got to do your due diligence.
- [43:54]
Morgan Absher
Just wait. We're gonna get messy with this one.
- [43:57]
Kaylin Moore
We're teeing it up. According to a lawyer representing the Guerrica family, she didn't even turn in a full psychological analysis. She mostly just focused on the timeline of the crime. And that document apparently didn't provide any new clues on who the suspect could be.
- [44:14]
Morgan Absher
Okay, so let's get messy here. That same family lawyer for the Guerricas, he does not even believe that this psychologist is an actual forensic psychologist. So I watched an interview that was done on a German MDR investigative show, and they interviewed this lawyer, and he said this. He also made a claim that this psychologist only got hired because of her connection to the lead investigator. So then this MDR investigative team, they go out, they're like, okay, you can't make this claim. We. We need to fact check you. So they do, and they go out, and here's what they find, and we will have this linked. So if you do speak German, please go and watch this clip. Like, let us know your thoughts on what they found. But here's what I have. So they did find. She is an actual psychologist. She did an internship in 2004 and 2005. Get this. Under the same lead investigator on Inga's case, who then commissioned her for this analysis in 2016. This lead investigator and psychologist ended up getting married. Yeah, married.
- [45:33]
Kaylin Moore
Married.
- [45:34]
Morgan Absher
They were already reportedly a couple as of 2015, 2016, when he commissioned her for this report.
- [45:42]
Kaylin Moore
So a huge conflict of interest in, like, these are people's lives that we're dealing with. They're getting a family who's missing their daughter, and he is hiring.
- [45:51]
Morgan Absher
You're using more resources to hire your girlfriend, who is completely unqualified. The lawyer in this interview talks about how they had access to the state crime lab, forensic psychologists they could have
- [46:02]
Kaylin Moore
used, and they didn't.
- [46:03]
Morgan Absher
Why hire her?
- [46:04]
Kaylin Moore
Chose someone else because of your personal connections to them.
- [46:06]
Morgan Absher
Yeah, it's getting an extra mark on the botched more for the conflict of interest.
- [46:10]
Kaylin Moore
It should get a huge botch mark because after that, too, the budget is basically all used up. Like, all the money that they had to investigate this case is gone. They'd followed over 2,000 separate leads. They investigated 600 supposed sightings, and all of those were without results. So In August of 2016, 15 months after Inga vanished, the task force was officially disbanded. In early 2017, Inga's case files were transferred to the public prosecutor's office for safekeeping, and the investigation was closed. It was obviously a huge disappointment to Inga's family, but it did allow her parents to give interviews for the first time without jeopardizing an active investigation. They can kind of lift that veil of privacy a little bit. And that's actually how the public learned that Victoria and Yenzuva had gotten divorced. Over time, they were driven apart by their differing beliefs on what had happened to their daughter. Yenzuva thought she was deceased, though he did still hope that her remains would be found. Victoria, on the other hand, just had a strong gut feeling that Ingo was still alive, which is why Victoria continued to push hard for a new investigation and then get that botchboard ready. In 2019, four years after Inga vanished, it looked like Victoria was about to have her request granted. A review team was formed by the Stendahl police force to examine all the work that was done in Inga's case and find a path forward. But instead of reviewing the entire case, the team was told to focus only on one thing. Whether or not Inga's kidnapping was connected to Madeline McCann's. Case. And that review ended after just 11 days. And the team, you know, hadn't reviewed all of Inga's case files yet in those 11 days. There was a lot. I mean, we were just talking about, like, 600 potential sightings. It's a lot to go through. You're not going to go through it in 11 days. And it later came out that the head of the review team had complained about his own appointment to lead the review. He said that he did not feel qualified, but he was told that, you know, he had to do it anyways. He had never worked on a homicide investigation before.
- [48:17]
Morgan Absher
I'm sorry, what?
- [48:18]
Kaylin Moore
And in his final report, the lead investigator called the circumstances surrounding the review team suspect.
- [48:26]
Morgan Absher
Okay, great. Thanks. What do we do with that?
- [48:29]
Kaylin Moore
Exactly? It's just botched.
- [48:31]
Morgan Absher
We are up to 4 marks on the botched board. And I do have one off to the side under some words that say magic dogs. Question mark.
- [48:38]
Kaylin Moore
Because it's Andrea. I would say, because we have a hard and fast rule on the show that dogs cannot be botched.
- [48:44]
Morgan Absher
So Andre.
- [48:45]
Kaylin Moore
Yes, it's Andre.
- [48:46]
Morgan Absher
And I will say I'm giving it a hard time because she was utilized so much in a lot of other cases. And there was a. A policeman that was interviewed on this source. I watched, and he's like, yeah, I had issues with her on another case. Basically leading the dog in the direction she wanted the dog to go. Basically being like, she's making the dogs alert.
- [49:07]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, they're. They're not getting special training. So I was wondering how they had the ability to do other things that some dogs couldn't do.
- [49:15]
Morgan Absher
As far as I know, these dogs can't drive cars, so.
- [49:18]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. So who's leading them around now? As for the question of whether or not those two girls cases were connected, the review team's full report has never been released to the public, so we're not really sure. But in June 2020 five years after Inga disappeared, police announced that they had eliminated Christian Bruckner as a suspect based on cell phone location records. And what was found in those records has also never been released. More time continued to pass without any progress, and Victoria's frustration only grew. Meanwhile, Inga's older brother, now an adult, hired a lawyer to continue looking into his sister's case. And the lawyer agreed that the original investigation had missed significant leads and wasted resources on ineffective strategies like those miracle dogs. And none of those strategies found any hard evidence. But the authorities still didn't want to open a New investigation. So in March of 2023, that's nearly eight years after Inga's disappearance, Victoria took her complaints to the Saxony Anhalt state parliament. On April 16, 2023, following an investigation by the Ministry of the Interior, Inga's case was taken away from the Stendahl police and given to the Halle police. Halle is about 90 miles away from Willemsoff. Close enough to know the region, but far enough that they were kind of a fresh set of eyes. Victoria urged the new investigators to re examine every past lead and stop only when her daughter was found. But as the new team got to work, there was another investigation into Inga's disappearance happening. Only this one was actually seeing results.
- [50:52]
Morgan Absher
This investigation was not being conducted by law enforcement, though. Instead, this was a collaboration between Inga's brother's attorney, Stefan Chape, and German journalists. In October, six months after Inga's case moved to Holly, one of those journalists, Sebastian Lieber, published an explosive report bringing us to our seventh clue. A mysterious new suspect. Police gave him the pseudonym Martin H. So we're gonna call him Martin. When the lawyer, Stefan, got a hold of the police files in Inga's case, he learned that Martin had actually been on their radar all along. And Stefan couldn't figure out why the police never seriously pursued Martin as a suspect. Martin grew up in Stendahl, the closest town to Wilhelmzoff. His pattern of sexually predatory behavior started at the age of 11, when he began assaulting his nine year old sister. And it was then that Martin developed an obsession with young girls. By the age of 20, he was officially diagnosed with pedophilia, which was the formal diagnosis in the DSM at the time. It has since been updated to pedophilic disorder. That same year, Martin had an episode of psychosis and ended up at a psychiatric hospital for several months. And Martin's hospitalization at this time didn't cure him of his pedophilia, but it did get him back on his feet enough to move to Berlin, where he then worked as a handyman. That's about a hundred miles from Wilhelmshof. And it's where he was still living in November 2015, six months after Inga disappeared. He was in his early 30s at that time, and he rented an attic from a local homeowner that he used as a workshop, which he kept padlocked when he wasn't inside of it. Eventually, the homeowner got tired of dealing with Martin. Apparently he was a really unreliable tenant. And so one day she decided to just abruptly end his lease and ended up trying to go up into the attic and remove his things. But after locksmiths arrived to help get her inside, she found a lot more than just carpenter tools. Martin was using this workshop to store a collection of homemade toddler sized sex dolls that were dressed in real children's clothing.
- [53:18]
Kaylin Moore
I, you know, no worries.
- [53:22]
Morgan Absher
It's. It's just.
- [53:23]
Kaylin Moore
No words.
- [53:24]
Morgan Absher
Just deranged, disgusting, horrible. And the homeowner immediately recognized this and phoned the police. She was like, this is up.
- [53:32]
Kaylin Moore
What.
- [53:33]
Morgan Absher
What am I seeing in my house?
- [53:33]
Kaylin Moore
But there's no way. There's no way this is the only thing that he's doing. Like, someone needs to check this guy's hard drives.
- [53:39]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. Police arrive, they do discover child sexual abuse material and a backpack full of what seemed to be supplies for a potential child abduction. There were gloves, cable ties, tape, pepper spray. Two days later, police did arrest Martin and began interrogating him. Martin admitted that he had been fantasizing about kidnapping and essaying a young girl. But he told investigators that he would never actually hurt a child.
- [54:07]
Kaylin Moore
I don't believe that for a single second. You have duct tape in your backpack.
- [54:13]
Morgan Absher
No chance. According to investigators, though, Martin seemed relieved to be caught. Martin ends up telling the cops that his girlfriend had warned him that the police were looking for him. He.
- [54:25]
Kaylin Moore
He had a girlfri.
- [54:27]
Morgan Absher
He had a girlfriend at this time. And instead of trying to flee, he had actually gone and met up with a friend to seek advice. Police did manage to track this friend down, and she confirmed the whole conversation. She said that when Martin first came to her, he assumed the police were looking for him. Get this. As a suspect in Inga's kidnapping, Martin's making the connections.
- [54:53]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, he's the one being like, oh, I assume that they're just looking into me as, like, a suspect in this case.
- [54:58]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. Martin confessed to his friend that he was a pedophile and said he wished he had been the one to run across Inga alone in the woods. I didn't do it, but.
- [55:09]
Kaylin Moore
But I wish. I wish I had, but I wish it was me.
- [55:12]
Morgan Absher
He even called the person who kidnapped her a, quote, lucky finder.
- [55:18]
Kaylin Moore
I do think that some people deserve a little bit of medieval torture.
- [55:23]
Morgan Absher
Martin, however, did insist he never actually met or harmed Inga, Though he did tell his friend that he knew Inga was dead and that police were looking for her in the wrong area.
- [55:36]
Kaylin Moore
He. Yeah, I mean, saying that, you know, that she said, because we talk about this in cases, too, like, you have to watch out when someone's talking about someone in a past tense. Because usually that's a tell. Like if. If you ask them family members, like, hey, this person's missing. What does your gut say? If they're like, well, I really know that they're dead, usually that's a bad sign.
- [55:53]
Morgan Absher
How. How do you know that's a tell? How? And Martin never explained how he knew this?
- [55:59]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. Right.
- [56:00]
Morgan Absher
After prosecutors in Berlin heard his story and reviewed the case, they did suspect Martin was somehow involved in Inga's disappearance. In early 2016, they sent copies of all of their files to the police in Stendahl and urged them to treat him as a likely suspect. So the police in Berlin were essentially being like, here we have this guy. Here's the connection to your case. They're putting him on the Stendahl investigators radar. And this was right around the time that that vault task force was focused on Christian Bruechner. After the disturbing double search of his two properties, Stendahl investigators did open an investigation into Martin H. And learned that the attic in Berlin was not his only layer. Martin also owned a small house in a remote village about two hours drive from Wilhelmshof. The windows of the house were bricked up, the doors had alarms on them, and the whole property was surrounded by a privacy fence. But the real surprise for investigators was a short distance from the house, inside of a wood shed.
- [57:07]
Kaylin Moore
I mean, it feels automatically like it's not that you don't want people to come in, it's that you don't want people going out immediately reading, like the
- [57:16]
Morgan Absher
description of this fucked up windows.
- [57:17]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [57:18]
Morgan Absher
Fences, alarms, privacy fence. What. What are you.
- [57:22]
Kaylin Moore
What's going on?
- [57:23]
Morgan Absher
What are you hiding?
- [57:23]
Kaylin Moore
What's going on there?
- [57:24]
Morgan Absher
Inside of this woodshed, there was a hatch in the floor that revealed a staircase that led down to an underground dungeon like room. Now, police did not find any forensic evidence linking him to having Inga inside of this bunker. And afterwards, Martin continued to insist that he hadn't taken Inga or any other children. But he still couldn't control his fantasies, which is why he prepared for the day he might take a child, the day that it might happen.
- [58:01]
Kaylin Moore
All of these preparations, building an entire bunker.
- [58:03]
Morgan Absher
But according to the lawyer Stefan, who worked for the Guerricas, there were a few other red flags. Police had also found that Martin used an excavator on his property shortly after Inga's kidnapping and that he might have dismantled his own car around that time. It was all incredibly suspicious. But Martin provided an alibi for May 2, 2015. And the task force allegedly found it credible. They eliminated Martin from the suspect list without formally naming him as a suspect.
- [58:33]
Kaylin Moore
My. Okay, I'm just gonna botch it for. Because even if that alibi was confirmed by, like, CCTV footage or whatever, like, that person cannot be released back into society.
- [58:46]
Morgan Absher
Like the dungeon. It's. It's horrific.
- [58:50]
Kaylin Moore
And I know that the laws are like, oh, if you haven't broken a law, you can't go to jail. And I do understand that on like a. In a philosophical sense.
- [59:00]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. And.
- [59:01]
Kaylin Moore
But as a mom now, you're coming
- [59:03]
Morgan Absher
at it from a tough angle.
- [59:05]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, it's like, oh, my God, give him the brazen bull or something. Just.
- [59:09]
Morgan Absher
We do get there, so. Yeah, we do get there. So as this is all happening, though, Sebastian Leader, the reporter that was working with Stefan, digs a little deeper, and he was able to find two anonymous sources who he described as close to the investigation. And they weren't sure that this was the right call to eliminate Martin as a suspect. They said that the person Martin had used for his alibi could not clearly remember where they were and what they did that day.
- [59:37]
Kaylin Moore
Okay, so do we get another botch?
- [59:38]
Morgan Absher
I honestly think so, yeah.
- [59:39]
Kaylin Moore
I'm just gonna keep botching it.
- [59:40]
Morgan Absher
What do you mean? I don't think there was CCTV footage. Like, and even now, because of AI, I think we're gonna have a lot of difficulties being like, oh, there's footage tied to this.
- [59:50]
Kaylin Moore
Oh, yeah, no, there's already, like, we're gonna have issues who have loved ones that are missing, who are complaining that people are them, like AI images of their loved ones. And like, AI that's devastating. Their loved ones.
- [60:01]
Morgan Absher
That is devastating. But instead of trying to break this alibi, the task force just kind of moved on from Martin and then they disbanded later that same year. As for Martin, though, which again, kind of speaks to that first botch mark you put. After a brief prison sentence for distributing marijuana, he was still found to be too dangerous to children. And this led to his confinement in secure psychiatric care. And as for those child sex dolls, in 2021, Germany also banned childlike sex toys like the ones Martin had made and stiffened their sentencing guidelines for sex crimes against children.
- [60:45]
Kaylin Moore
I'm still going to botch it because why did it take so long? I'm sorry, I'm just mad. 2021, 2021, 2021.
- [60:53]
Morgan Absher
Tough pills.
- [60:53]
Kaylin Moore
Until then, you could have a toddler sized sex doll and, like, botched. Sorry. Okay.
- [61:00]
Morgan Absher
I know I'm a little nauseous.
- [61:01]
Kaylin Moore
Gotta take a deep breath after that section.
- [61:03]
Morgan Absher
I hope everyone is hanging in there. Okay. This is. It is a very tough, tough case.
- [61:08]
Kaylin Moore
It's so hard to read about. It's just. It reminds me of JonBenet in the sense that one of the shocking parts about the case is how many predators you realize live in the area where you're like a little girl goes missing. The fact that we have multiple suspects because there were just that many predators living, like really horrible, documented proof that they were predators in the area is just very upsetting.
- [61:33]
Morgan Absher
I know. In the beauty pageant world. And who can just show up to those?
- [61:37]
Kaylin Moore
I mean, well, especially for JonBenet Ramsey. I mean, it's just like. I just don't. It's so hard to read about as now having a kid, too. How do you even protect your child?
- [61:46]
Morgan Absher
Exactly. And it makes you realize how much we don't protect kids. It's just. It's horrific.
- [61:52]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [61:53]
Morgan Absher
So big change needs to keep happening now.
- [61:56]
Kaylin Moore
Since Inga's case moved to the Holly Police Department in April of 2023, there have been a few new developments. But sadly, none of them have led to finding Inga or charging a suspect. In December of 2023, there was a brief surge of hope after cadaver dogs discovered bone fragments in the forest around Willemsof. They did turn out to be animal bones. And then in 2024, there was a new effort to solicit tips from the public with the full support of Inga's family. And that's when a German beverage manufacturer got involved. They worked with cold case investigators to create an age progression photo of Inga, who would have been 15 at the time. And Inga's photos, along with information on how to submit a tip, were printed on smoothie bottles sold in Germany and in neighboring countries. The smoothie company also donated €25,000 to double the reward fund. And this campaign brought in 82 potentially useful leads.
- [62:48]
Morgan Absher
And that was in just the span of a month.
- [62:50]
Kaylin Moore
Yes.
- [62:50]
Morgan Absher
The picture was only on those bottles for a month.
- [62:52]
Kaylin Moore
And as a result of those new leads, a new search team spent two months in early 2025 scouring the forest around Willemsalf once again. And unfortunately, that search did not turn up any new evidence. As of May 2025, there were still eight investigators assigned to Inga's case. But they've gone quiet since early 2025. So we don't really know what they're focused on right now. We do know that the Police have followed over 4, 000 leads during the nearly 11 year investigation and they still don't have a single piece of hard evidence at this point. Investigators believe that any forensic evidence in that forest was likely trampled on and destroyed during the first few days of the search. As for Christian Bruckner, he's never been charged with kidnapping, either in Meline McCann's case or in Inga's. The German authorities believe Meline is dead and that Brner did kill her though. But they still haven't revealed exactly what evidence they have. But we were reading about it earlier and there's potentially like an email that Brooker was in charge of that in January, you know, around the time that Meline disappeared. There was maybe some emails that they found or something about this email address that that connected him to her death
- [64:03]
Morgan Absher
and potentially phone tracking records. Yeah, putting him in that location. So it'll be interesting to see what comes out.
- [64:12]
Kaylin Moore
Bruckner does continue to protest his innocence, though he did serve some prison time starting in 2017, first for sexually assaulting his ex girlfriend's 5 year old daughter, and then for sexually assaulting a 72 year old woman. Police hope to have enough evidence to charge him with Madeline's murder before the second prison sentence ended up. But a massive search using excavators and ground penetrating radar failed to unearth any remains. So Bruckner was released from prison on September 17, 2025. And as of this recording, he is enjoying his newfound freedom by camping out in northern Germany in the middle of the forest.
- [64:49]
Morgan Absher
That's gonna get a botched. Why is a person like this enjoying foreign freedom?
- [64:53]
Kaylin Moore
Anything. Why does he enjoy anything? But if you were to ask Inga's father, Yenzua, he does not think Martin H. Or Christian are guilty in his daughter's disappearance. He is convinced that the perpetrator was someone within his own circle of acquaintances. Someone that Inga might have gone with willingly. That was a huge, huge update when that was announced.
- [65:19]
Morgan Absher
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people note how calm she was that day and it might not have even been someone that was connected to those two other families they came with. But you know, maybe it was an adult playing soccer with them earlier that day and was familiar enough to where she wouldn't react and scream and things like that. So that's a tough, tough one. I know in a clip I saw of her mom from an interview, her mom said basically, if she could beam herself back, I would search the grounds and the houses first and not the forest.
- [65:51]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, that's what Yenzuha said too. He said that he does think the case might have been solved if they had focused on the grounds and the buildings that day, rather than immediately just running straight into the forest, diverting all of their attention away from these buildings.
- [66:05]
Morgan Absher
It's just so tough to know how to react properly in that situation.
- [66:09]
Kaylin Moore
I know, I know. He does remain fairly certain that she is no longer alive. However, regardless of which direction she went off in, he mourns her each year on the anniversary of her disappearance by making a pilgrimage to villains, often laying flowers at the base of a tree. There's also a theory that supports Yenzu's feelings. A well known German professor of Criminology, Dr. Bettina Gutsa, reviewed the case and predicted that the perpetrator would likely have been a man between 40 and 55 years old. He was probably employed. He probably was known to the family and likely well spoken and presentable. More of a kindly uncle figure rather than a creepy weirdo. And as for Victoria, she does still hold out hope that Inga is alive somewhere. And she's holding that same Hope for Madeleine McCann's family as well.
- [67:00]
Morgan Absher
But that is kind of where we're at today. There's a few loose ends with Andrea von Budenbrock, whose dogs supposedly followed Inga's scent all the way to Austria.
- [67:11]
Kaylin Moore
The Magic dogs.
- [67:12]
Morgan Absher
The Magic Dogs. After the Inga investigation, Andrea published a book on her dog training methods. As of January 2026, she's under criminal investigation for fraud related to her scientifically improbable claims about her dog's insane performance. Her house was searched in December 2025. Police and prosecutors now suspect that Andrea was controlling her dog's route herself rather than actually following them as they tracked Ascent. She earned a lot of money from various police departments and prosecutor's office that way over the years and gave expert testimony in several high profile cases which the validity of those cases now, like the trial, you could throw those trials out. They might. That might be a mistrial. That might be enough for an appeal.
- [68:06]
Kaylin Moore
There could be people in prison because of her lies, basically.
- [68:10]
Morgan Absher
So that is getting solidified. No more magic dog question mark. It's. It's now an official mark.
- [68:18]
Kaylin Moore
This is the first case we've done that has dog fraud in it.
- [68:22]
Morgan Absher
Dog fraud.
- [68:23]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [68:23]
Morgan Absher
I mean, it does make sense. Like if you teach a dog a command and you're like, okay, wink, sit alert.
- [68:30]
Kaylin Moore
Like, yeah, absolutely. Like it would be very easy to do fraud on a command in that way.
- [68:36]
Morgan Absher
They talk about this with car searches, when police will bring in dogs for car searches. A Lot of times they'll have the dog alert so they can search the vehicle. Like, there's a lot of cases that have gone to trial for misuse of dogs.
- [68:53]
Kaylin Moore
Wow.
- [68:54]
Morgan Absher
Just insane. Another loose end that I came across is in that MDR investigative. There was a pastor who came forward with a confession. This pastor contacted police and shared that someone did confess to him that Inga is still alive, potentially in a place called Ziltz. And when this investigative team looked at the people that were present that day at Wilhelmshof who was interviewed, there was someone there that did live in Ziltz. Now, the investigative team that I watched, they did note that there were 11 places that could have matched this zilt. However, I will say magic dogs did go there. So it's an odd coincidence.
- [69:40]
Kaylin Moore
It would be an odd coincidence, but I also wonder if that person read the dog in the dog in a newspaper. Yeah, that. Oh, the dog alerted and silts.
- [69:48]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. I believe the pastor has since passed, so.
- [69:52]
Kaylin Moore
Interesting.
- [69:53]
Morgan Absher
Unclear if this tip will go anywhere at this point.
- [69:56]
Kaylin Moore
Also, I forget what the rules are about pastors breaking that.
- [70:01]
Morgan Absher
That oath.
- [70:01]
Kaylin Moore
Oath during confession. I believe if you confess to murder, your. Your pastor doesn't have to, though.
- [70:09]
Morgan Absher
I. I think the church is okay with them sharing, but I don't know. They're not mandated reporters, from my knowledge.
- [70:18]
Kaylin Moore
No, they're not.
- [70:19]
Morgan Absher
Like, there are certain careers that are mandated reporters. If they hear something, they have to report it.
- [70:25]
Kaylin Moore
I don't know. A quick Google search says yes, pastors can and often are required to report you. In most US States, clergy are considered mandated reporters.
- [70:32]
Morgan Absher
There we go.
- [70:33]
Kaylin Moore
Especially for suspected child abuse or neglect.
- [70:36]
Morgan Absher
There we go.
- [70:37]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, that is. That is. But that's the U.S. i mean. Yeah. Who knows? It could be.
- [70:42]
Morgan Absher
If you're in Germany, please let us know if you have an answer to that. Maybe we have a clergy person listening.
- [70:50]
Kaylin Moore
Catholic priests that listen to heart starts pounding. Because we. We've talked about exorcisms before, and I've had some priests reach out with some really spooky stories on exorcisms they've witnessed. And so forgive me, Father, for forgetting.
- [71:02]
Morgan Absher
I wonder if that has also changed in recent years with a lot of what's, you know, changed within the church.
- [71:08]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah.
- [71:09]
Morgan Absher
Due to previous child essay. So maybe now they are mandated reporters.
- [71:14]
Kaylin Moore
So. Interesting. Would love to.
- [71:15]
Morgan Absher
We're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna have to do a deep dive on that for the confessional.
- [71:19]
Kaylin Moore
Absolutely.
- [71:20]
Morgan Absher
Literally the clues.
- [71:21]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah. Clues.
- [71:22]
Morgan Absher
Confessional.
- [71:22]
Kaylin Moore
I mean, we're ending this case, I think, with more questions than answers for sure. And that's why lawyers and advocates for the Guerrica family recently launched a new website asking the public for more tips. Which is why we wanted to talk about this case in 2026. If you have any information about this case, I know we have a largely US audience, but people from Germany have said that they listen to this show. So if you have any information about this case, you can share it directly with the family's legal team by visiting. The website is inga-s u c h e.deAngus family has also chosen to highlight a specific non profit on their website. So to honor the Garricka's wishes, we wanted to share a little about them too. It's called Victim Recovery Dogs EV It's a non profit organization working in Germany and Switzerland providing specially trained dogs to search for missing persons, particularly in cold cases. Unlike the miracle dogs, these are real search and recovery dogs whose work is supported by science.
- [72:22]
Morgan Absher
Yeah, we respect the dogs in this house and there are real good trained dogs doing amazing work.
- [72:28]
Kaylin Moore
Absolutely.
- [72:28]
Morgan Absher
This is one organization that supports that.
- [72:30]
Kaylin Moore
If you are in their service area and you need help, you can reach out via their website. That's victim-recovery.com and if you're the loved one of a cold case victim in the United States, there's a resource for that too. The non profit Season of Justice offers public awareness campaign grants to immediate family members of missing or murdered people whose cases are at least two years. These grants can be used to pay for mass media outreach strategies like billboard campaigns. And they'll be opening applications for the 2027 round of grants on September 1st of this year, 2026. So you can sign up now to be notified when applications open. That's seasonofjustice.org and with that we're going to go to our highlighted missing person of the week.
- [73:16]
Morgan Absher
The case we're highlighting this week is that of Dulce Maria alvarez. Dulce was 5 and was last seen on Monday, September 16, 2019. She was playing at Bridgeton City park behind Bridgeton High School in Bridgeton, New Jersey. She was last seen playing near the playground while her mother was nearby. Abduction is being suspected as the primary theory. She was last seen wearing a yellow shirt with a koala on the front, black and white pants with butterflies and flowers on them, and white dress sandals. She had long brown hair, brown eyes, was approximately 3ft tall, female Hispanic. Some witnesses say that Dulce was reportedly seen walking towards a red van with a man. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to the whereabouts of Dulce Maria Alvarez. Additional reward money may be available. If you have any information concerning this case, Please contact the FBI's toll free tip line at 1-800- call FBI and select option 4 then option 8. You can also text your information to tip411 subtext Bridgeton and that is all we have for this episode of Clues.
- [74:27]
Kaylin Moore
Now we turn it over to you guys. Thoughts, theories, all of that. The comments is what makes this community so special. And if you're interested in a missing person's case, a child where I really think it's going to be solved very soon, I think in the next few years we're going to know what happened. Check out our episode that we did on Asha degree because it's a really twisty one. It's a very mysterious disappearance. But I think we're really close.
- [74:50]
Morgan Absher
I think we're so close. New ancestry DNA evidence coming and kind of breaking this one open.
- [74:55]
Kaylin Moore
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [74:57]
Morgan Absher
We're going to get some answers soon.
- [74:58]
Kaylin Moore
Definitely.
- [74:59]
Morgan Absher
Yeah. Let us know where you ended up on the botched board. We have nine, including a miracle dog handler, Andrea. But again, let us know your thoughts. Let us know if you'd like to get into the case of Madeline McCann a bit more deeply, see how Bruckner is involved in that case. And again, at Crime House, we really value your support. So share your thoughts on social Remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And until next time, bye guys.
- [75:27]
Kaylin Moore
Bye. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, cases in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes available now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [75:47]
Morgan Absher
When someone goes missing, the headlines focus on what happened.
- [75:51]
Kaylin Moore
But the truth often lives in the smallest details.
- [75:55]
Morgan Absher
I'm Sarah Turney. After my sister disappeared, I learned how
- [75:59]
Kaylin Moore
those final hours, the last conversations, the
- [76:02]
Morgan Absher
last decisions, can haunt families and forever.
- [76:05]
Kaylin Moore
And I'm Courtney Nicole. After seeing crime impact my own family, I've learned how overlooked moments, missed red flags and unanswered questions can change everything.
- [76:15]
Morgan Absher
Together, we're bringing those lived experiences into the work. This is the Final Hours. A Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. A podcast that puts the moments before
- [76:26]
Kaylin Moore
a disappearance under a microscope. Listen to an Follow the final hours wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday.