Times Online
She robs, she injects herself with heroin, she seems to kill with almost professional precision – and, as far as German detectives are concerned, she has no identity. The hunt for the woman known as the Phantom of Heilbronn has been stepped up after the discovery of new traces of her DNA in a blood-stained white Ford Escort. “The noose is tightening,” Erwin Hetger, the chief of police in Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany, said. For 15 years a mysterious woman has been leaving traces of her DNA at crime scenes across Europe, suggesting her involvement in at least six murders and scores of break-ins. Rarely are there witnesses. Instead, police in the countries where she has been roaming – Germany, France and Austria – have had to piece together a profile from saliva left on biscuits nibbled at the site of a murder, a discarded cigarette packet and a spot of blood. She may flit across borders like a ghost but she has been leaving a trail behind her. A human being loses on average four hairs in an hour and sheds a million dead cells in 40 minutes: that forensic scence harvest is all the police have to go on. More
Also See: Junkie’s needle may lead to woman serial killer they call the Phantom
Germany hunts phantom killer

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Posted by markw, filed under Crime/Psychology. Date: July 21, 2008, 2:41 pm | No Comments »