Eckert confessed to only six murders, five of whom were sex workers, but is believed to have killed at least nine women, and is also accused of committing additional murders of women in several European countries including Italy and the Czech Republic,[1][2] but investigations were closed after Eckert committed suicide during his criminal proceedings on 2 July 2007.
He continued to explore his sexual interest in hair with his sister's dolls and some of his mother's wigs stored in their attic.
Eventually, he would target women with the long, luxuriant hair he began to fetishize with dolls and wigs in childhood.
During the 1973–1974 school year, Volker Eckert stalked several of his long-haired classmates, in order to strangle them and stroke their hair afterwards.
On 7 May 1974, Volker Eckert (14 years old) lured a classmate Silvia Unterdörfel into her attic and strangled her with a curtain cord.
Once his victim was dead, Eckert stroked her hair and disguised her murder as suicide by hanging a cord around her neck and on the doorknob.
He also confessed to Dr Norbert Nedopil that, knowing that the police had his DNA, Eckert said he was relieved to be arrested in the event of a repeat offence.
When the composite portrait was distributed, Dr Nedopil formally recognized the face of a man he has examined in the past: Volker Eckert, aged 28.
He used his truck to attract prostitutes and thus rediscover his "childish fantasy"[9] His victims worked as sex workers in these countries between 2001 and 2006:[10][11] In most cases, Eckert strangled the women, performed amateur post mortems on them, and finally photographed them.
[citation needed] Eckert is believed to have committed at least seven additional murders across Europe, including:[11] Following the murder on 2 November 2006, footage caught by a surveillance camera showing Eckert's truck next to the naked corpse of his victim, which was located beside the parking lot, was reported to the Catalan police (Mossos d'Esquadra).
During the interrogations, Eckert acknowledged committing six murders,[8] the five sex workers in France and Spain, and that of his classmate in Germany.
He was found dead in his cell in Bayreuth, Bavaria, having hanged himself using a drape as a make-shift noose and tying it around a TV mounting bracket.
His crimes were also theme of the German podcast "Vebrechen von Nebenan" in episode 98 "Der LKW Killer.