German police officers suspected of receiving stolen goods

The Munich police headquarters is investigating a possible connection between a sensational murder of a young woman in North Rhine-Westphalia and investigations against Bavarian LKA officers suspected of handling a stolen gun, reported dpa.

In the bloody crime on 26 April 2019 in Neuss, the perpetrator shot his victim with a revolver that came from a Bavarian State Criminal Police Office storage facility for confiscated weapons and should actually have been melted down in 2018.

This was stated by a spokesperson for the police headquarters in the Bavarian capital, as previously reported by several media outlets.

Allegations against three police officers

On Friday, the police headquarters publicised the investigation into two active officers and one retired officer who worked in the LKA's central weapons recycling centre. They are accused of misappropriating and selling items stored there.

The criminal charge is suspicion of breach of custody - Section 133 of the Criminal Code. Two other suspects are also under investigation for allegedly buying and reselling weapons.

One of these weapons was a registered revolver that had disappeared without a trace from the Munich LKA depository.

The weapon was supposed to have been melted down in a steelworks in Meitingen in 2018, according to the spokesperson for the Munich police headquarters.

In order to ensure the neutrality of the proceedings, it is not the LKA itself that is investigating this case, but the police headquarters.

Young woman shot dead in flower shop

The Munich police did not provide any information on the identity of the murderer in NRW, but the case had made headlines in 2019.

At the time, a former contestant on the talent show ‘Deutschland sucht den Superstar’ had pursued his ex-girlfriend, who was fleeing from him, to a flower shop in Neuss and killed her with four shots.

The 27-year-old made an emergency call to the police before she died: ‘My ex-boyfriend has a gun’.

The man then lay down on a railway track to take his own life - but only lost both legs and survived seriously injured. In December 2019, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and denied the charges until the end.

How did the murderer get hold of the revolver?

Investigators are now looking into how the revolver found its way from the Munich LKA custody centre to the murderer.

The Munich I public prosecutor's office had already been investigating who might have taken the gun from 2019 to 2021, but was unable to identify a suspect. The case was reopened in 2023 after new leads were received.

LKA President Norbert Radmacher regretted the incidents. The LKA's weapons utilisation department was subsequently closed for the time being, and the team responsible for this area is to be completely rebuilt.