Dieter Zurwehme

Wanted poster for the capture of ZurwehmeDieter Zurwehme (2 July 1942 – 2020) was a German fugitive, rapist, and mass murderer. He was responsible for the murder of five people and numerous other serious crimes and gained nationwide attention in the first half of 1999 following a several-month escape from custody. The escapes were followed closely by the media and announced an arrest reward of 10,000 Deutsche Mark.

Early life Zurwehme was born in Bochum, the son of a German woman and a Polish forced labourer. He was put up for adoption at four weeks old, after the woman's husband realised that the baby was the result of an affair. He grew up with adoptive parents in Ottbergen, a district of Höxter in the Weser Uplands. His father, a Reichsbahn conductor, was reportedly overly strict and forbade his son from playing with other children to keep it quiet in the house.

First crimes Zurwehme committed his first criminal act at the age of 12, when he tried to rob a 15-year-old girl using a rock. Passersby interrupted the assault, but Zurwehme was not prosecuted due to being underage. Later in the year, he attacked a 20-year-old woman, beating her severely with a wooden pole before stealing her bicycle. State authorities removed Zurwehme from the custody of his parents and placed him in a government-run reform school. In 1959, aged 16, Zurwehme made his first rape attempt and that same year, he was given his first juvenile sentence for theft and embezzlement, receiving six-to-thirty months to be served at a youth detention center. He escaped and evaded police by sleeping in caverns, gardens and empty vacation homes. Zurwehme was able to cross the border into France and while in Metz, he attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion with false documents stating he was 21, but was denied and returned to Germany when the age discrepancy was discovered. He ultimately served nine years in prison and was released at age 26.

First murder and imprisonment On 16 November 1972, Zurwehme robbed a real estate agency in Düren, where he killed a 51-year-old employee by stabbing her five times in the neck after she screamed for help.

Zurwehme continued his escape through Germany, largely by riding night trains, and kept afloat with money from robberies and temporary jobs. In addition, he committed a rape, and fled to several places. The only certain locations were Remagen, Stadthagen, Cuxhaven, Hespe, Frankfurt, Waren, and Greifswald. Credible sightings or suspected hideouts were in Lindau, Calw, Baden-Baden, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Dessau. On 11 May 1999, police suspected Zurwehme in the Allgäu and zeroed in on a potential hiding place in Lindau after a young girl turned in a wallet with forged documents, but the target had left town by this point. At around 23:00, four plainclothed police officers arrived at the business and were led to the room of the hotel guest, 62-year-old Friedhelm Beate from Cologne. A hotel employee asked Beate to come to the door, where he was received by two of the officers with their guns out. Beate reflexively shut the door and held it shut, ending with the officers shooting him dead on the assumption that he was the fugitive. They were unaware of Zurwehme's appearance and conducted the operation in an unlit hallway. The officers were tried, but claimed that the gunshots were fired accidentally. Both were found not guilty in December 1999.

Other crimes and sightings On 30 June, a locally known street painter was arrested in Dresden after being mistaken for Zurwehme.

On 27 July, he was tracked to a maize field in Hespe, but escaped a large-scale police operation. Two more high-effort searches, one held by local police between Wunstorf and Barsinghausen and another by state police in Berlin and large swaths of Westphalia, fail to locate any trace of the suspect. In the two following weeks, false reports of Zurwehme reached an all-time high, with reports on 31 July including Berlin, Bochum, Hanover, Cologne, Lehrte und even Mallorca.

On 1 August, another false arrest was made, this time a farmhand in Göttingen. Three days later, another innocent man was held on suspicion of being Zurwehme in Gersfeld.

Another fourfold murder of Dutch holidaymakers which occurred in a country house in Southern France during Zurwehme's escape on 22 May 1999, was also initially associated with him. However, a local construction worker was arrested for the crime and this suspicion was later excluded.

Press articles

Peter Brock: "The last process" in www.berliner-zeitung.de (Berliner Zeitung). Accessed on February 20, 2010 (in German) "The trace is lost and lost again" in spiegel.de (Spiegel Online). Accessed on February 20, 2010 (in German) "Zurwehme got married in prison" in www.berliner-zeitung.de (Berliner Zeitung). Accessed on February 20, 2010 (in German) Detlef Sieverdingbeck, Thomas van Zütphen: "Trust in a killer" in focus.de (Focus). Accessed on February 20, 2010 (in German) "Clearance despite warnings" in spiegel.de (Spiegel Online). Accessed on February 20, 2010 (in German)