Peggy case – mother demands 75,000 euros in damages

Almost 22 years after the disappearance of the girl Peggy Knobloch, the mother is now demanding compensation. She has filed a civil suit before the Hof District Court – against the man who admitted in 2018 that he had taken the girl's body to a wooded area in May 2001 and later retracted this confession. A corresponding procedure is pending before the regional court, said a spokesman for the court on Monday in Hof. The media had previously reported about it.

It is not yet clear when an appointment will take place in this matter, the spokesman said. In the room there is a claim for damages of at least 75,000 euros. The man's defense attorney, Jörg Meringer, confirmed receipt of the lawsuit. You will reply "with factual arguments", said the lawyer on request.

During the initial investigation, even Peggy's mother herself was suspected of having killed her daughter. As a result of the psychological stress, she was treated in a therapeutic facility. After her release, she was spat on and attacked on the street, as reported, among other things, by the newspaper "Bild".

Something kept reminding her of her daughter's death, whether it was the election notification for Peggy's 18th birthday or the mail from the health insurance company, according to the mother. Her lawyer, Ramona Hoyer, told "BILD": "The defendant knew all these years where Peggy's remains were, he could have given the plaintiff the certainty that her child had died." Therefore, the mother wanted every year of the trauma suffered, compensation for pain and suffering in the amount of 5,000 euros from Manuel S.

The lawsuit may bring movement to the criminal case, which is one of the most spectacular in recent decades. A number of errors and theories accompanied the investigation. A perpetrator has not been convicted to this day.

The girl Peggy, then nine years old, disappeared in May 2001 on her way home from school in Lichtenberg in Upper Franconia. Large-scale searches were unsuccessful. The police followed a number of leads to the Czech Republic and Turkey. But the girl remained missing.

In 2004, a mentally handicapped man from Lichtenberg was convicted of killing Peggy. In a retrial, however, he was released ten years later. Only 15 years after the disappearance did a mushroom picker find Peggy's body in a forest on the border between Bavaria and Thuringia.

But even that did not bring any breakthrough in the investigation. On the contrary, at times the confusion became even greater: a DNA trace at the site where the corpse was found even briefly linked the case to the crimes of the right-wing extremist terrorist cell NSU, which then turned out to be a forensic technology glitch. The DNA of NSU terrorist Uwe Böhnhardt had reached Peggy's location through a contaminated folding rule.

The man from whom Peggy's mother is now demanding compensation for pain and suffering was initially held in custody in 2018, but was then released. In October 2020, the police and prosecutors closed the "Peggy" file. The case has been a "cold case" ever since.