The Canal Killer

A series of gruesome murders of seven male youths aged between 11 and 18 shook the Rhine-Main area in the 1980s. Between 1976 and 1983, seven male prostitutes from the Frankfurt and Offenbach train station milieu were tied up, sexually abused, mistreated, and then disposed of in the sewer system, which is why the media dubbed the killer the Canal Killer. The first body was found on September 7, 1976, during the “Gordon Shield” military maneuvers, not far from a footpath in a wooded area between Atzenhain and Lehnheim. The cause of death of the heavily mummified and skeletonized corpse, whose identity could never be determined, was assumed to be a skull fracture. The second body was found on May 23, 1982, in Dreieich behind the Schnecken tributary. It was a 17-year-old male adolescent whose body showed significant injuries. Just four months later, on September 19, 1982, the body of 17-year-old Bernd Michel was found in a sewage treatment plant in Erzhausen near Darmstadt. He was still alive when he was thrown into the sewer shaft and drowned in agony. A year later, on July 2, 1983, the body of 17-year-old Markus Hildebrandt was discovered in the pump sump of the Dreieich-Buchschlag sewage treatment plant. Just two months later, the body of 14-year-old Moroccan boy Fuad Rahou was found in the Niederrad sewage treatment plant. A month later, on October 11, 1983, the body of 11-year-old Oliver Tupikas was also found in the Niederrad sewage treatment plant. The seventh body was that of 14-year-old Daniel Schaub. It was found on June 21, 1989, in a side canal of the drainage network in Offenbach-Rosenhöhe. The investigations by the special investigation unit and Working Group 229 were in full swing to find the sadistic murderer of the seven male youths. According to criminal psychologist Rudolf Egg, the perpetrator was a 50-year-old, single man who had little or no social contacts or family ties. The killer had a penchant for sadistic bondage games and was probably himself a victim of sexual violence. He also had a “deep-rooted hatred of humanity.” Based on the discovery of the bodies, investigators concluded that the serial killer had probably moved from Giessen to Frankfurt am Main in the late 1970s. For a long time, a 50-year-old warehouse worker from Offenbach with a criminal record was under urgent suspicion of having lured homeless male youths to his garden shed in Frankfurt-Riederwald to engage in sadistic sex games with them. Since he paid them well afterwards, they kept quiet. However, the bloodstains in the garden shed did not match the serological blood test of the victim Markus Hildebrandt, who, like the suspect, frequented the same gay bars. Although the suspect knew three of the victims and a gas pistol, several knives, and handcuffs were found in his apartment, there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. To this day, the Canal Killer has not been caught or, more accurately, convicted. Whether this will ever be the case remains to be seen.