The 1981 Crossword Puzzle Murder - How a Puzzle Led to the Murderer's Conviction
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The 1981 crossword puzzle murder went down in East German history as one of the most sensational criminal cases. On January 15, 1981, 7-year-old Lars Bense disappeared without a trace on his way to the cinema in Halle-Neustadt. Two weeks later, his body was found in a suitcase near a railway line. The boy had been sexually abused and brutally murdered.
Old newspapers with completed crossword puzzles as the only clue
At first, the investigators were faced with a puzzle. The only clue was old newspapers with completed crossword puzzles found next to the body in the suitcase. The officers meticulously collected handwriting samples from the 90,000 inhabitants of Halle-Neustadt to compare them with the handwriting from the puzzles.
After 9 months and the evaluation of over 500,000 handwriting samples, the breakthrough was achieved: A woman's handwriting matched the crossword puzzles. Her boyfriend, Matthias S., came under the investigators' scrutiny and eventually confessed to the crime. He had abused the boy, beaten him to death out of fear of being discovered, and thrown the body in a suitcase from a train.
In 1982, the Halle District Court sentenced him to death. After reunification, the sentence was commuted to ten years of juvenile detention. Matthias S. was released in 1999.
Fate struck several times
Fate struck several more times: The perpetrator's father took his own life a few years after the crime. The victim's father died on the 13th anniversary of the murder. The murderer Matthias S. died in 2013 - exactly 32 years to the day after the crime.
Conclusion: A crossword puzzle brought a a perpetrator to justice
The crossword puzzle murder went down in criminal history due to the meticulous investigative work and innovative methods of solving the case. It showed that even the smallest clues, such as crossword puzzles, can make a crucial contribution to bringing a perpetrator to justice.
