Missed for 25 years: the mysterious autumn Sonja Engelbrecht
Munich / Kipfenberg – It was April 10, 1995 when her family saw Sonja Engelbrecht for the last time. Just a few days earlier, she had celebrated her 19th birthday. The black trousers she wore that evening she had bought with her birthday money, the new leather jacket her grandma had given her. The young woman left to meet a friend – and disappeared without a trace.
What happened that evening is still a great mystery today – more than a quarter of a century later. But now there is a sad certainty: Sonja Engelbrecht is dead.
Police keep looking for clues
In 2020, a forest worker found a thigh bone in a forest near Kipfenberg in the Upper Bavarian district of Eichstätt, the DNA of which was assigned to the missing person in November of this year. Since then, the police have been looking for further clues to the dying young woman and how she died. 100 riot police were on the lookout in the forest about 100 kilometers north of Munich. They also had search dogs with them. So far, “nothing relevant to the crime” has been found, said a police spokesman shortly before Christmas.
No statement could currently be made about the cause of death, said a police spokesman after the discovery became known. One suspects, however, that Sonja Engelbrecht fell victim to a violent crime.
Friend last saw Sonja Engelbrecht at Stiglmaierplatz
According to the police, Engelbrecht’s friend last saw her alive at the tram stop on Stiglmaierplatz in Munich at night. Thereafter there was speculation that the young woman might have been kidnapped and killed or sold to human traffickers. A homepage dealing with the disappearance of the young woman lists various theories as to what might have happened to her that April night.
For years, the Sonja Engelbrecht case was one of the best-known missing persons cases in Bavaria – but only one of very many. According to the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA), more than 1,600 people are currently missing in Bavaria – including almost 1,050 underage children and adolescents.
More than 8,000 people missing nationwide
Of these 1,619 missing persons (as of December 1, 2021) there are specifically 360 children under the age of 14 and 688 young people between the ages of 14 and 17. Of a total of 571 missing adults, 438 are said to be under 60 years old and 133 over 60 years old.
According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), more than 8,000 people are missing nationwide in Wiesbaden (as of March 2021). This figure includes both cases of missing persons who cleared up within a few days and those missing over many years or even decades. According to the BKA, about 200 to 300 searches are recorded every day – and about the same number deleted because they are being dealt with.
Half of the missing persons in Germany are children and young people
“Experience has shown that around 50 percent of missing persons cases are fulfilled within the first week,” says the BKA. One month after the disappearance, the “completion rate” is already over 80 percent. Only three percent of missing people are missing for more than a year.
According to the BKA, more than two thirds of all missing persons are male and around half of all missing persons are children and adolescents. There are various reasons for their disappearance, writes the BKA: “Problems at school or with parents, lovesickness.”
The rarest cases are as spectacular as the years of searching for Peggy from Upper Franconia. Some cases have puzzled investigators for years or even decades – like the Sonja Engelbrecht case.
