Police Hunted Her Across 3 Countries for 2 Years. She Never Existed

For almost two years, police in Germany, Austria and France hunted a woman whose DNA was found at about forty crime scenes, including the patrol car of a 22-year-old police officer in Heilbronn. Then a test in March 2009 showed where her DNA really came from. The 2007 killing of police officer Michèle Kiesewetter in Heilbronn, Germany, and the hunt for the "Phantom of Heilbronn", the "woman without a face" whose DNA turned up at about forty crime scenes until it was traced to contaminated cotton swabs. Told from the Bundestag and Baden-Württemberg inquiry reports, Munich and Karlsruhe court releases, and reporting by Spiegel, TIME and The Local. 0:00 Cold open 1:20 Michèle 1:58 The break 3:40 The woman without a face 5:40 The hunt 7:01 The swab 8:11 Sterile is not clean 8:58 Back to zero 9:30 The camper 11:18 The verdict 12:04 What is still open 12:45 The residue SOURCES • Full source list in the pinned comment. IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION Information about the Heilbronn attack can be given to any police station in Germany or to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). ARCHIVAL MATERIAL • Drucksache 17/14600, printed p. 1 (render) (cropped passage) — https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/17/146/17... • Drucksache 17/14600, printed p. 642: 'IV. Suche nach einer unbekannten weiblichen Person (uwP)' (cropped pa… — https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/17/146/17... • The Reichstag building, seat of the Bundestag, Berlin — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Macro photograph of a cotton swab tip (focus stack) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Cotton swabs in a round container (top view) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Eisenach: the Margarethengang parapet at Wartburg castle — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Church of St. Kilian, Heilbronn — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • First memorial plaque for Michèle Kiesewetter at the Theresienwiese, Heilbronn — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Memorial plaque at the Theresienwiese, Heilbronn, for the victims of the neo-Nazi murders (April 2012) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Otto-Konz bridge in Heilbronn seen from Böckingen; the tower on the Theresienwiese behind — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Theresienwiese in Heilbronn — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Theresienwiese in Heilbronn, looking south, with the Theresienturm — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Parking lot of the Unterland fair 2010, photographed from a Ferris wheel — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Felsenkirche (rock church), Idar-Oberstein — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Karlsruhe, Federal Court of Justice, west and north buildings seen from Kriegsstraße — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Prielmayerstraße, Munich: former extension of the Justizpalast, now the Bavarian Constitutional Court and t… — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Landeskriminalamt (LKA) Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A... • Landtag BW Drucksache 15/8000, p. 896: '4.9 UwP-Spur (Wattestäbchenspur)' (render) (cropped passage) — https://www.landtag-bw.de/files/live/sites... VISUAL CREDITS • Fair use (published photo, documentary commentary): dapd, via t-online • Stock footage: Pixabay contributors (Pixabay Content License) • Document and headline graphics are reconstructions for illustration. ABOUT THIS VIDEO Last Known Hours is an original documentary series. Every line of narration is written from the public record and checked against the sources listed here before publication. Published photos are used for commentary and news reporting with credit. Allegations are attributed; anyone not convicted of a crime is presumed innocent. Theories are labeled as theories. Corrections are pinned in the comments. MORE CASES ▶ The Killing: real murder cases:    • The Killing: Real Murder Cases   ▶ Last Seen: disappearances:    • Last Seen: Disappearances   #truecrime #germany #documentary