The kidnapping of Ursula Herrmann was a notorious child kidnapping which occurred in Germany on 15 September 1981 in which a 10-year-old girl disappeared while riding a bicycle to her home. The child was subsequently found dead in a rectangular wooden box buried in woodland.
The circumstances surrounding Herrmann's kidnapping, confinement and death led to her being known as the Girl in the Box.
Disappearance
Hermann was making the trip between her cousin's house and her home on Tuesday, 15 September 1981. This was a bicycle ride which typically took the child ten minutes. En route, Herrmann disappeared. Her disappearance triggered an immediate search, which yielded nothing.
After two days, cryptic calls were made to her home, consisting only of a radio jingle. After three days a ransom note arrived, apparently later than the kidnappers had intended, demanding DM 2 million, and explaining that the jingle was meant to elicit a yes-or-no response concerning payment of the ransom. On the next call, Ursula's mother affirmed that the ransom would be paid, but received no communication from the kidnappers. Instead, a letter arrived on Monday, 21 September, with ransom payment instructions for an unstated location. The ransom sum was raised, but no further instructions arrived.
Discovery and investigation
Two weeks after Ursula's disappearance, a grid search was undertaken in the forest where Ursula disappeared. After four days of searching, police found Ursula Herrmann's dead body in a box buried in the woods.
It was established that Hermann was kidnapped and placed in a prepared hiding place in the Weingarten forest. She was buried in the forest floor in a box measuring 72 cm × 60 cm × 139 cm (2.4 ft × 2.0 ft × 4.6 ft), which had lights, blankets, food, reading material, a radio tuned to Bayern 3 and a toilet bucket. A system of pipes was provided for ventilation, covered with leaves. However, with wet leaves and no forced air movement, it did not provide sufficient exchange of air, so that the girl suffocated between 30 minutes and five hours after she was placed in the box. Autopsy results indicated that she had not struggled or moved during her time in the box, and that she may have been drugged.
The perpetrators made coded telephone calls to Ursula's family on 17 September, playing the distinctive Bayern 3 radio jingle in an attempt to elicit a response concerning a ransom payment. However, the letter demanding the ransom, composed from cut-out letters, was not received until 18 September, a day after the calls started. The note explained that the jingle should be answered with an affirmation that the ransom would be delivered. Denial, or an attempt to call the police, would result in the girl's death. Police had been called as soon as Ursula had disappeared, but the initial search had only found her bicycle.
On 21 September, another letter arrived with detailed instructions to hand over the money, but without stating a location for the delivery. After that, no further communications were received. Two weeks after Ursula's disappearance, the forest was searched by officers with metal rods, probing for disturbances, and after four days the box was found.
The box was too large for one person to have transported to the site, weighing 60 kg, and police assumed that more than one person was involved. Tips led to Werner Mazurek, a 31-year-old television repairman, who was a neighbor of the Herrmann family and known to be in debt. After a day without recalling his whereabouts, Mazurek eventually offered as his alibi that he had been playing Risk with his wife and two friends. Nevertheless, Mazurek was arrested in January 1982 and questioned for several days before being released. In February, Mazurek's acquaintance Klaus Pfaffinger stated during questioning that Mazurek had asked him to dig a hole in the forest, and that he had seen a box in the hole. However, Pfaffinger could not lead police to the burial location and recanted his admission. No further progress was made in the investigation, apart from the discovery of a wire in the forest, apparently used to provide an alert during the kidnapping.
In 2005, DNA analysis was used to examine evidence found in the box, but no useful matches were found. By then, the thirty year statute of limitations for kidnapping with fatal consequences was approaching, and the prime suspects were re-examined. Pfaffinger had died, but Mazurek was placed under surveillance, and in October 2007 his house was searched and Mazurek provided a saliva sample. No match was obtained between evidence and Mazurek.