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Dresden (dpa / sn) - Only after almost three decades did a DNA trace lead to Heike Wunderlich's murderer.

The 18-year-old had ridden her moped through a forest near Plauen in April 1987 and never returned home.

Her killer first brutally raped her and then strangled her.

The man, 32 years old at the time of the crime, lived only about three kilometers as the crow flies from the crime scene.

In the summer of 2017, the then 62-year-old was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The following year the Federal Court of Justice upheld the judgment.

Experts from the forensic institute at the State Criminal Police Office of Saxony (LKA) could have extracted a previously undetected DNA trace, LKA spokeswoman Kathlen Zink said: "After a comparison with the nationwide DNA file, there was a hit."

Trace analysis has made revolutionary progress over the past ten years: "DNA analysis is of particular importance here."

Even if the method had not fundamentally changed, the smallest amounts are now sufficient for successful detection.

Cases like this give hope that no murderer will get away with impunity in the end.

The Chemnitz journalist Gabi Thieme is now investigating spectacular cases from Saxony in her book “Mord im Regionalexpress”.

The title refers to the murder of the 20-year-old x-ray assistant Andrea Dittrich.

Two days before Christmas 1995 she was on the train from Dresden to Zwickau, was raped, suffocated and thrown from the moving train by her tormentor.

A man who was already in prison for the murder of a prostitute in Karlsruhe had to answer for the crime.

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"The renewed assessment of traces from old cases with the new forensic means and methods can lead to investigative approaches in order to clear up criminal offenses retrospectively," reported Zink.

The murder investigation commissions in the Saxon police headquarters are responsible for unexplained homicides.

This ensures that the cases can be processed further when the occasion arises, for example when a new trace appears or a new investigation method is used.

The LKA supports the work through special service activities.

However, the investigators have so far been unsuccessful in some cases.

According to statistics published at the beginning of January for the period from 1990 to the end of 2019, 73 of a total of 565 murders had not yet been resolved.

A total of 1766 homicides were recorded for this period, 217 of which have yet to be clarified.

The same applies to 104 of 1044 attempted homicides.