Police catch suspected serial killer

The violent death of several elderly people has unsettled people in the Schwäbisch Hall region, now the investigators seem to have succeeded in their search: A suspect is said to have been arrested. The "Bild" newspaper reported about it first.

In a press conference on Wednesday morning, the police and the public prosecutor announced that the suspect was a 31-year-old Serbian national. He traveled to Germany with his wife and two children at the beginning of December. So far there is no knowledge of the motive – the suspect has not yet given any information.

The acts of violence had unsettled the elderly in the Schwäbisch Hall region in particular. Last week, an 89-year-old woman was found dead in her apartment in Michelbach an der Bilz. In this context, the police also checked the death of a 77-year-old in December last year. The woman's body was found in her apartment in Schwäbisch Hall. Police believe both women were killed.

The death of a 94-year-old senior whose body was found in Schwäbisch Hall in October 2020 and very close to the apartment of the dead 77-year-old was also unclear until the very end. Here, too, the police are assuming a homicide. In September 2021, the public prosecutor initially closed the investigation file because there was no further information.

The investigators found parallels in the three cases and became suspicious because the three victims were older women from the same region and had been killed on Wednesdays. Until Tuesday, they had called the investigation and the review "routine" and "automatism".

According to the "Stuttgarter Zeitung", a block of flats in the Tullauerhöhe district of Schwäbisch Hall was searched on Tuesday. There are also two of the three crime scenes. Around a dozen civil servants had therefore shielded the building from passers-by and, among other things, secured traces in a garbage container.

The "Stuttgarter Zeitung" also quotes witnesses who said they had seen a man in handcuffs. According to the police headquarters in Aalen, the operation is related to the special commission "height", which was determined in the three murders of senior citizens and has now been increased to 75 officers.