Body Found on South Tyrolean Highway Identified After 17 Years

Authorities have made significant progress in a 17-year-old cold case involving the remains of a young man discovered along the South Tyrolean Brennerautobahn (A22) near Klausen. The lead prosecutor in Bolzano, Axel Bisignano, announced that the victim has been identified as a Turkish family man.

The body, which was found in 2008 wrapped in a blue work overall and placed inside a cardboard box by highway maintenance workers, remained a mystery until now. Recent developments have linked the case to a series of murders committed in Germany, which led to a breakthrough in the investigation.

According to prosecutor Bisignano, the victim was murdered by his father-in-law in the German town of Sontheim an der Brenz. The accused reportedly strangled and decapitated the victim before transporting the body to Klausen.

In the years since the body was found, investigations had stalled due to a lack of evidence. However, new information has emerged, connecting the case to a German citizen and his two sons, who were convicted of multiple murders several years ago and are currently serving prison sentences.

Media reports indicate that German investigators made a crucial connection that suggested the remains found in Klausen were related to their ongoing investigations into the murder series. The Italian national responsible for the murder had confessed to the crime during an interrogation six years ago, stating that he felt the victim did not fit into his Italian family.

Despite this confession, he later recanted his statements in court. Initially, the case was classified as manslaughter due to the absence of a body, but following the discovery of body parts in the suspect's garden, the legal proceedings took a new direction. In 2019 and 2020, the suspect was sentenced to life imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention for two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter. His sons also received sentences for their involvement in the other murders.

Recent DNA analysis confirmed that the remains found in Klausen belonged to the first victim of this murder series from Sontheim in the Heidenheim district of Baden-Württemberg. The wife of the deceased, who is also the daughter of the perpetrator, was able to identify the remains conclusively. However, the head of the victim has yet to be located.

The perpetrator, identified as a devout Catholic, employed similar methods in all three murders: he first strangled the victims, dismembered them with a chainsaw, and disposed of two of the bodies in Italy. In one of the more recent cases, he and his sons murdered the new partner of his daughter in 2014, followed by the killing of a garage owner in 2019, motivated by greed.

Despite the substantial evidence collected over the years, the prosecutor's office has stated that a new indictment against the perpetrator for the murder of his son-in-law is not possible since he cannot be tried twice for the same crime.