Helmut Weidenbroeker

Case record: Helmut Weidenbroeker

Background

Helmut Weidenbroeker was a German chemist who was born in 1964. He lived in Broichweiden while serving his apprenticeship in nearby Aachen.

As a student, he dressed up in his sister's clothes before assaulting elderly women and stealing their purses.

After he was arrested for the earlier offending, he confessed but gave no motive for his crimes, and he received a sentence of two years in prison.

The offence

After the two-year sentence was imposed and while the verdict was under appeal, Helmut Weidenbroeker was still on the street when a two-year series of sex-murders began terrorizing the vicinity.

Murder of Marta Habermann (Aachen)

On May 4, 1982, 19-year-old Marta Habermann disappeared from a bus stop in Aachen. Her body was discovered at another stop along the line. She was found nude and had been raped and sexually abused with a beer bottle, then stabbed 17 times in the chest and abdomen.

Murder of Karen Fink (Wu erselen)

Eleven months later, on April 19, 1983, 16-year-old Karen Fink disappeared on her way home from school in Wuerselen. It took a week for searchers to retrieve her body from a nearby pond, where she had been dumped after being raped and beaten. She was strangled and stabbed nine times, and her vagina was torn by penetration of a foreign object.

Murder of Doris Schroeder (Breinig)

On August 30, 1983, 18-year-old Doris Schroeder stepped off a bus in the village of Breinig and promptly vanished. Her body was recovered from a manmade lake near the Belgian border. She was raped, stabbed 19 times, and violated with a foreign object. The official cause of death was drowning, indicating she was alive when thrown into the water.

Murder of Elke Braun (Rott)

Elke Braun, age 17, was abducted from the town of Rott—two miles from Breinig—on June 3, 1984. She was beaten, raped, and stabbed. She was sexually abused with a foreign object, and she was still alive when her attacker threw her off a 40-foot cliff. She was killed by the fall to a stone quarry below.

Murder of Beate Goertz (Broichweiden; Deuren; Rur River)

On March 6, 1986, 18-year-old Beate Goertz disappeared after leaving her bus in Broichweiden. She was fished out of the Rur River near Deuren on March 18. She had been raped and stabbed. Her skull was fractured by stomping before she was drowned.

Bus passengers recalled that Helmut Weidenbroeker had disembarked at the same stop on March 6, and he was pulled in for questioning, swiftly confessing to Goertz's murder.

Investigation

Bus passengers recalled that Helmut Weidenbroeker had disembarked at the same stop on March 6. He was pulled in for questioning and swiftly confessed to Beate Goertz's murder.

Authorities later considered him responsible for the entire set of killings.

Trial

Helmut Weidenbroeker was charged in only one case, but authorities were satisfied of his guilt in all five slayings.

Sentencing

He was sentenced to life imprisonment on April 10, 1987.

Outcome

The serial slayings ended abruptly with his arrest.

Other details

Michael Newton. An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans contained the case details.