Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A sex murder that remained unsolved for 20 years became one of the greatest mysteries in German criminal history. In the early morning of July 13, 1983, a firefighter discovered the body of 25-year-old Karen Oehme, the daughter of Wolfgang Oehme, CEO of Esso AG in Germany, in a cornfield along the L 600 near Dülmen-Merfeld. Karen Oehme had been strangled and raped at least twice. Her white VW Beetle was found a few meters away on a farm road. Only the car keys were missing. Homicide detectives recovered a large amount of semen from the young woman’s vagina as well as a bloody handprint on the back of her T-shirt. In addition to denim fibers, reddish-blonde hairs were also found that clearly did not belong to the brunette Karen Oehme. The police also found vomit at the crime scene. It consisted of potatoes, onions, meatballs, and a kernel of corn. Since the perpetrator had left behind many clues, the police were certain they would find him quickly. But the detectives were to be sorely mistaken. Karen Oehme had studied veterinary medicine in Berlin and had come to the Hochmoor Veterinary Clinic in the summer of 1983 to work as a resident for six weeks. Young Karen was considered popular and helpful. She was dedicated, loved horses, and was a passionate swimmer who, shortly before her death, had been seen by a witness at the outdoor pool with a man in his mid-twenties with straw-blond hair. On the night of July 12–13, two drivers had spotted a vehicle with Gelsenkirchen license plates on the country road where Karen Oehme’s body was found. On July 12, a barbecue party took place in the garden of the Hochmoor Clinic, which Karen left between 8 and 9 p.m. She then stopped at a restaurant with a colleague to eat a salad. Around 10:30 p.m., she returned to the veterinary clinic, where she assisted with emergency surgery on a horse until 11 p.m. She then drove her white VW to Dülmen and bought two portions of meatballs with potato salad at a tavern. She was presumably meeting someone. Since she had parked her car in a hospital driveway, she was warned by two police officers at 11:47 p.m. This was the last time Karen was seen alive. On July 21, 1983, she was buried at the Waldfriedhof cemetery in Wohldorf near Hamburg. Following the brutal sexual murder, detectives examined over 600 pieces of evidence, but to no avail. The murder of Karen Oehme particularly haunted forensic pathologist Bernd Brinkmann, a professor of pathology at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Münster. He had the victim’s pubic hair preserved, which contained tiny traces of dried semen that ended up in a glass tube labeled with evidence number 23/83. He was certain that he would eventually be able to convict Karen Oehme’s killer using this evidence. He made his first attempt to analyze the available evidence using DNA analysis in March 1992. But at that time, the sperm from the perpetrator was insufficient to establish a genetic fingerprint. A second attempt in 1996 also failed. In December 2000, Brinkmann made a third attempt, as a single sperm was now sufficient to identify the perpetrator. This time, Brinkmann succeeded in determining the genetic fingerprint with a probability of 1 in 250,000,000. This identified DNA profile of the perpetrator was entered into the Federal Criminal Police Office’s database, and on March 23, 2002, the Federal Criminal Police Office indeed reported a match. There was a match between the trace found at the crime scene and a saliva sample that had been submitted. This led to Ulrich M., a father of two, who lived with his wife and two children in a semi-detached house in the small Lower Rhine town of Kevelaer and worked as a television technician. On June 5, 2002, Ulrich M. was arrested. At the time he raped and murdered Karen Oehme, he was running a gym in Recklinghausen together with his brother. He was taking anabolic steroids at the time to build muscle mass. Standing 1.80 meters tall, Ulrich M. weighed 105 kilograms and enjoyed driving to the Dülmen quarry pond in the evenings, where he met Karen Oehme. Ulrich M. had already been sentenced by the Essen Regional Court to a prison term for rape, which was suspended on probation. That rape had been his first sexual intercourse. Ulrich M. was the second of four sons of a master electrician who was very conservative and Catholic. Ulrich M. completed an apprenticeship as a radio and television electronics technician. Afterward, he joined the German Armed Forces. Just nine months after the murder of Karen Oehme, on April 1, 1984, Ulrich M. raped a 29-year-old woman twice on a secluded dirt road. During oral and anal intercourse, he threatened to kill her by wrapping pantyhose around her neck. He held the woman captive for a total of 10 hours before driving her home. Later, in November 1985, he choked and raped a 20-year-old woman twice. She managed to memorize his car’s license plate number, leading to Ulrich M.’s arrest the next day. However, the court released him on the same day under certain conditions. Ulrich M. fled by train to London, where, after moving around several times, he founded a computer repair company in Swindon. He bought a house with a garden and even got engaged. When Ulrich M. was stopped at a police checkpoint in 1993, the officers discovered that his passport had expired and that the German authorities were searching for him. In July 1993, Ulrich M. was extradited to the Federal Republic of Germany. His fiancée broke off contact with him. In October 1993, Ulrich M. was sentenced by the Düsseldorf Regional Court to three and a half years in prison for two counts of rape. He was released from prison early in April 1995. Shortly after his release, he met a 20-year-old woman at a nightclub. Despite his criminal history, the two made plans for the future. In 1996, their first child, a son, was born. Ulrich M. purchased a semi-detached house in a suburban neighborhood in Kevelaer. In the summer of 2001, the police asked him to provide a saliva sample. This was because the Bundestag had passed a law in 1998 allowing for the collection of a genetic fingerprint from convicted sex offenders and its storage in a database. Ulrich M. provided two saliva samples. These incriminated him, leading to his arrest on June 5, 2002. In December 2002, the trial against Ulrich M. began at the Münster Regional Court; he claimed he had not killed Karen Oehme. Ulrich M. testified that on the day of the murder, he had a date with Karen Oehme, who told him that this would be their last meeting. Ulrich M.’s world came crashing down. Both of them cried, and Ulrich M. had to vomit. Afterward, they slept together. However, Ulrich M. was experiencing erectile dysfunction, so Karen M. massaged him with a painful grip. He struck her in the face to make her stop. To prevent her from grabbing him again, he grabbed her by the neck. He claimed he knew nothing of Karen Oehme’s death until his arrest. He claimed that he had begged her to stay with him. When she refused, he grabbed her from the front with both hands around her neck, squeezed hard, and shook her. Afterward, she collapsed. He then carried her into the oat field, undressed her, and raped her, believing she was unconscious. On the final day of the trial, forensic pathologist Brinkmann presented his findings. These revealed that Karen Oehme had been strangled twice, with an interval of 30 to 90 minutes between the two incidents. Only the second attack was fatal. Therefore, it was not assault resulting in death, but murder. Presumably, a fight had broken out between Karen Oehme and Ulrich M. on the night of July 12–13. Karen did not want to have sex with Ulrich M., who struck her and then squeezed her neck with his hands. He thus forced her to perform oral sex. This was explained by the signs of a struggle that the police had found on the grassy strip along the road. Ulrich M. dragged the unconscious Karen Oehme into the oat field, undressed her, and raped her. When Karen regained consciousness, another argument ensued, during which Ulrich M. strangled Karen to stop her from screaming. Only then did Ulrich M. vomit. Ulrich M. was sentenced to 22 years in prison followed by preventive detention for the sexual murder of Karen Oehme. This finally solved the mystery surrounding Karen Oehme’s murderer. In 2005, it emerged that in 1989, Ulrich M. had raped, tortured, and strangled 24-year-old student Sylvie in her home in Avallon. Once again, Ulrich M. was convicted based on a match of DNA evidence found at the crime scene. This evidence matched Ulrich M.’s genetic profile. Ulrich M. was sentenced to life in prison for the sexual murder of Sylvie by a court in Dijon, eastern France. Thus, this sexual murder case was finally solved after 22 years.
