THE LONG SEARCH FOR THE MISSING DOROTA
Aachener Zeitung,
February 16, 2017
http://www.aachener-zeitung.de/loka...uche-nach-der-verschwundenen-dorota-1.1557241
Selfkant / Aachen. From one day to the next, the young Eastern European woman was no longer there, her husband said she had simply left and had not come back. She had left her child at home, her mobile phone, her jewelry, and she had not taken other personal belongings with her, she had simply abandoned her life in the west of the Heinsberg district, not far from the Dutch border.
The husband filed a missing report, the police searched, but the woman had disappeared. Even her friends and family did not hear of the woman, no sign of life was found anywhere. It was not long before Klaus Thevis had doubts about the husband's version. Had the woman really left? Or had he killed her?
The problem was that there was no corpse. And without a corpse, there is no murder.
Thevis, the head of the murder commission, continued the searches for weeks on until the crucial tip came from a neighbor: the husband had an unusually high amount of concrete delivered to his home shortly after the disappearance of the woman. Thevis got a second search warrant, cadaver dogs ran through the house, in the basement one dog struck, right in front of a walled-in and concrete-filled cavity. The Technical Relief Unit chiselled the concrete away, until the corpse of the woman appeared.
It was September 11, 2001, more than 15 years ago.
Because two planes flew to the World Trade Center in New York on that day, the case did not surface in the public perception of that time, although Thevis and his men had solved one of the most unusual murders of the past decades in the region. The man, who lived in Waldfeucht-Hontem, had killed his wife in the room of her sleeping child on July 12, 2001 and then hidden in concreted It had taken almost two months before the body of the woman from Latvia was found.
15 years later: Is this case being repeated in the west of Heinsberg? Some clues speak in favour of this.
On the evening of 18 October 2016, a young Eastern European woman disappeared, her husband said she had simply left and had not come back. She had left her child at home, her mobile phone, her jewelry, and she had not taken other personal belongings with her, she had simply abandoned her life in the Selfkant-Süsterseel, not far from the Dutch border.
The husband filed a missing report, the police searched, but the woman had disappeared. Even her friends and family did not hear of Dorota Galuszka-Granieczny (29), no sign of life was found anywhere. It was not long before the investigators had doubts about the husband's versionl. Had Dorota really left? Or did her husband kill her? Or someone else?
The Aachen prosecutor's office was looking for witnesses who might say something about what happened on 18 October in Selfkant-Süsterseel or might have happened. The investigators found out that Dorota had a friend near Utrecht, a Polish man, like as she and her husband were Polish. Dorota wanted to separate from her husband and move to Bavaria with her boyfriend. Her husband suspected something and hid a GPS transmitter in Dorotas handbag to find out where Dorota's friend lived.
On the evening when she revealed her plans to her husband, she disappeared, that is what her husband told the investigators. In the end, nobody believes that Dorota Galuszka-Granieczny is still alive, but the problem is the same as in the case of the missing woman from Latvia from Waldfeucht-Hontem 15 years ago:
There is no corpse. And without a corpse, there is no murder.
Three months have passed since Dorota's disappearance, and the Aachen prosecutor's office no longer knows what to do. With hundreds of policemen they scoured several parts of the forest in the district of Heinsberg and across the border in Holland, dived into lakes, searched the home of the Galuszka-Granieczny family. Cadaver dogs have searched for her, but every trace of Dorota remains missing. The investigators are now dependent on a coincidence, there are no new investigative approaches at the moment.
Albert Balke says that this is "a real
scheiss situation" for the investigators. Until his retirement in 2012, Balke was head of the department for capital offenses at the Aachen prosecutor's office and one of the best murder investigators in the region. He knows what it is like to have a murder suspicion, but not a corpse, he is immediately reminded of the case M.
M., then 38 years old, was a car dealer and real estate broker and lived with his life companion in the south of Aachen. In the middle of September 1988, the partner disappeared, M. filed a missing report. It was like in the case of Dorota, it was like the woman from Latvia, the life companion was searched and not found. Also in this case, the investigators had the suspicion that the husband might be behind the disappearance of the young woman.
The longer the search for the partner lasted, the more careless M. became. He told around town that nothing could happen to him, because without a corpse there would be no murder. The weeks passed, Albert Balke and Theo Steinröx, who directed the murder commission, kept looking for the woman, in vain.
Christmas came, then the turn of the year 88/89, there came the carnival, the spring began and nothing moved in the case M. Balke and Steinröx believed that M. had killed his life companion, but there were only a few clues, no proof.
To suspect someone was killed, to know the alleged murderer, but not to have any evidence for the act, "that gets to you, believe me," Balke says today, almost 30 years later. But it was important not to rely too much on one's gut feeling. "What if the story of the man is true and the woman suddenly appears again?" All this has happened before already.
But in the case of M. things turned out differently. At the beginning of May 1989 Balke put everything on one card and found a magistrate at the Amtsgericht Aachen, who issued him with a warrant for arrest. Both Balke and the judge were moving roughly on the border of legality. On 8 May 1989, almost eight months after the disappearance of the life companion, Balke stood at M.'s doorstep and read the arrest warrant. M. was taken into pre-charge detention, although thy had little on him.
Many people who live in regular situations, who have not been in conflict with the law, and have never been in uncomfortable contact with the police, and who have no prison experience, are greatly impressed by prisons.
After a few hours behind bars, the man collapsed and confessed that he had shot his wife on 15 September 1988 in a wooded area five kilometers from the house of the two on the passenger seat of his car, just before the Belgian border on the Liège road. He had dug a pit behind the garage and cast the body in concrete. There she was actually found shortly after M.'s confession. The case M. was solved.
Balke says that this case is similar to that of the vanished Dorota, he remembers how he had gone through the months of uncertainty: "Not very well," Balke says. Probably his successor in the department for capital crimes at the Aachen public prosecutor's office, Wilhelm Muckel, who deals with the Dorota case, is not doing not much better at the moment.
If no one knows how to go on, it sometimes helps to seek spiritual assistance. Roland Bohnen is the pastor in Selfkant, the parsonage is located a few hundred yards away from the house where Dorota lived with her family.
Bohnen also knew Dorota privately, she worked until her disappearance in the Catholic kindergarten in Süsterseel. He also knows Dorota's husband and the seven year old son and without going into detail Bohnens says that one need not worry about either, they have help and are being cared for.
The pastor knows, of course, that there are people who believe that Dorota's husband may have something to do with her disappearance. After all, he is named a suspect by the public prosecutor, at least for the moment. But Bohnen says that on the one hand, you do not even know what really happened, and that on the other hand, before God, all men are equal. "Condemning someone is a matter for the courts," according to Bohnen.
The fact that the daily life has returned to Süsterseel and most of its 1,600 inhabitants is also reflected in the fact that there are posters everywhere for upcoming carnival events. The search posters with Dorotas photo, on the other hand, have largely disappeared, even from the church. That everyday life is back, one also notices when pastor Bohnen does not immediately find the paper with the prayer for Dorota. While he is looking for it, he tells the story of prayer.
Of course, Dorota's colleagues in the kindergarten had been deeply worried about the news that she had disappeared without a trace and no one knew what to do. If you can do nothing, you can still turn to God, Bohnen suggested, and together with the female colleagues he wrote a prayer.
To ensure that the prayer was given the utmost attention, Bohnen and Dorota 's colleagues agreed to set it up as a so-called novena. For nine consecutive days, always at 9 o'clock, the short prayer was said by Dorotha' s colleagues and about 50 children in the Kindergarten, Bohnen was usually also there. So that the children could also pray with their families during the weekend, Bohnen directed a short cover letter to all parents, and includied the text of the prayer.
It read:
"Dear God, you know Dorota, you know where she is now. You take care of her. We ask you to bless her, protect her, wherever she may be. Protect the family too and all those who miss her. Amen."
BBM
Hubby hid a GPS transmitter in her handbag ...... :gaah:
