Kurt-Werner Wichmann (8 July 1949 – 25 April 1993) was a German serial killer who was possibly linked to the Göhrde Murders.
[1] At the age of 14, Wichmann was sent to a young offenders' institution after threatening a tenant in his parents' house with a knife and trying to strangle her.
[citation needed] In 1968, 38-year-old Ilse G. was shot four times in the back with a small-calibre rifle while riding a bicycle in a forest near Lüneburg.
[2] He grew up in that house, had a German shepherd, and leaned toward fascist political attitudes – on his property he occasionally hoisted the Reichskriegsflagge.
Investigators found two small-calibre rifles, a converted sharp gas pistol, stun guns, mufflers, handcuffs, sedatives and sleeping pills, as well as a secret torture room with a soundproof door, which only he and his brother were allowed to enter.
[citation needed] Wichmann fled and was arrested in Heilbronn when he was involved in a traffic accident; weapons were found in his vehicle.
[citation needed] Birgit Meier's remains were recovered in 2017 under the concrete floor of a garage of a house on the outskirts of Lüneburg that Wichmann had previously occupied.
As a result, analysts from the State Criminal Police Office of Lower Saxony filtered out 24 unsolved cases, in particular homicides and missing persons.
The success of the police investigation was due in part to policeman Wolfgang Sielaff, the brother of the murdered Birgit Meier, who began with private research in 2002 and found his sister's body in 2017.
[citation needed] In February 2018, the case was featured on the television show Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst, as the investigators suspected that there was a helper, accomplice or a confidant.
The essential clue for a second person involved in the case derives from the fact that Wichmann had driven his motor vehicle into the Göhrde but had returned with that of the victim.