Abduction and murder of Ylenia Lenhard

Ylenia Lenhard (18 November 2001 – 31 July 2007) was a five-year-old girl from Appenzell, Switzerland who was abducted while riding her bike to the local pool on 31 July 2007. Her body was found more than a month later in Bürerwald, a wooded area outside of Oberbüren, approximately away from Appenzell. The suspect was identified by DNA as Urs Hans von Aesch (11 November 1940 – 31 July 2007), a Swiss man living in Benimantell, Spain. He was found dead from suicide by firearm the day after the abduction. Ylenia's mother, a nurse, met midwife Gabriela Allenspach, another unmarried woman who wanted to start a family. They decided to move in and raise their children together.

Urs Hans von Aesch Urs Hans von Aesch completed a pen-making apprenticeship in 1959 and subsequently started a business selling pens using loans from his family. He began to neglect his business and, in an attempt to bring in money, von Aesch sent an anonymous ransom note to a Swiss coal tycoon threatening to kidnap his son. The businessman hired a private investigator and involved the police, and von Aesch was brought in front of the Zurich High Court in 1961 and sentenced to 15 months in jail. The court psychiatrist concluded that he was a "poorly developed, infantile psychopath." Von Aesch moved to Iselisberg in Thurgau, Switzerland with his wife around 1976.

Disappearance On 31 July 2007, five-year-old Ylenia Lenhard left home on her bike to pick up shampoo she had forgotten at the public pool the day before. She was last seen leaving the indoor pool. The shooter, Urs Hans von Aesch, killed himself by shooting himself in the head with a handgun

St. Gallen police received more than 1,400 tips, many of them based on speculation and ultimately false. They did, however, learn that a white van like von Aesch's was seen outside the public pool prior to Lenhard's disappearance. By 6 August, the police had verified the DNA of both Lenhard and von Aesch's fingerprints on Lenhard's belongings and inside the van.

Police offered a CHF 21,500 (or €13,000) reward, financed by private funds, for information leading to Lenhard's location. Her body was eventually found in Bürerwald on 17 September, six weeks after her abduction, by Simon Kuhn, a local computer scientist. She was identified by her jewelry. The forest had been searched several times in the preceding weeks, but nothing was found. In October 2007, Lenhard's mother founded the Ylenia Foundation, which in its first ten years had raised money for projects in the Philippines to aid disadvantaged families. This included rebuilding damaged schools and providing necessary school supplies.

Blick, a local newspaper, was accused of "deliberately misinforming the public" by the St. Gallen public prosecutor's office after the publication had to issue several retractions and corrections. Lenhard's family also criticised them for publishing speculation rather than fact, which had given them false hope that additional leads had been found. For years after the case was closed, media, including Blick, speculated that von Aesch had an accomplice, as many believed he would not have been able to carry out the abduction and murder on his own. St. Gallen police refused to reopen the case since no DNA from a third person was found on the van, gun, or any of Lenhard's items, and no credible leads had been reported.

Suspected connections to other murders Circumstantial evidence created suspicion that von Aesch may have been tied to 10 missing children during his 14 years living in Iselisberg, particularly as the abductions reportedly stopped after he and his wife moved to Spain. He was not charged in any of these disappearances. In 2013, Scotland Yard officers travelled to St. Gallen to investigate possible links between the two crimes and were told by local police that no connection had been made between the two cases.