Murder of Peggy Knobloch

Peggy Knobloch was born on 6 April 1992. At the time of her disappearance, she lived with her mother, sister, and Turkish stepfather in Lichtenberg, Bavaria.[3]

On 7 May 2001, Knobloch disappeared while walking home from school. She was last seen just 50 yards from her home.[4] After she was reported missing, the police and the military began searching for her. Army officers used military aircraft to aid in the search for her. Initially, the search only involved Lichtenberg and the area around it. It later spread beyond Germany's borders to the Czech Republic and Turkey.[5]

In 2001, an intellectually disabled man was caught fondling a seven-year-old boy. When the man's mother interrogated him about it, he admitted to molesting Knobloch. She then attempted to get him to receive inpatient therapy. He said he molested her four days before her disappearance. The man then stated that he approached her to apologize for his earlier actions but then suffocated her after she attempted to run from him.[6] He was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital on 6 September 2001, in response to his confession before inpatient therapy could begin.[7] After numerous police interrogations, he was arrested at the hospital in October 2002. In 2004, the man was convicted of Knobloch's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment despite recanting his confession.[8] In 2014, his conviction was overturned after a retrial determined that his confession was coerced. He had also been repeatedly interrogated without assistance from an attorney.[4][9]

In early July 2016, a mushroom forager found Peggy's body in a wooded area less than ten miles from her home after wild animals dug up her remains.[4]

In October 2016, police reported that DNA found near Knobloch's body was linked to the German neo-Nazi Uwe Böhnhardt. However, it was discovered that this was a false track. The DNA accidentally had been transferred to the crime scene by an unspecified piece of police equipment.[10][11]

In 2018, a man was arrested after he told the police that another man led him to Knobloch's body at a bus stop, though he denied having caused her death. The man claimed to have hidden her body in the forest after failing to resuscitate her.[12] He was later released after he retracted his confession.[13]

Prosecutors shelved their investigation of Knobloch's disappearance in 2020.[13]