Volker Eckert

Volker Eckert
Volker Eckert
Born	Volker Eckert; 1 July 1959; Plauen, East Germany
Died	2 July 2007 (aged 48); Bayreuth, Germany
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Conviction(s)	Assault
Criminal penalty	Committed suicide before sentencing
Details
Victims	6-19+
Span of crimes	7 May 1974–2 November 2006
Country	Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain
State(s)	Saxony
Date apprehended	17 November 2006

Volker Eckert (1 July 1959 – 2 July 2007) was a German serial killer, who killed six women in East Germany, France, and Spain, between 1974 and 2006. Eckert confessed to only six murders, five of whom were sex workers, but is known to have killed at least nine women, and is also accused of committing additional murders of women in several European countries including Italy and the Czech Republic,[1][2] but investigations were closed after Eckert committed suicide during his criminal proceedings on July 2, 2007.[3]

Murders

Eckert committed his first murder in 1974, aged fifteen, in his hometown of Plauen, East Germany, when he strangled a 14-year-old girl to death.[4] The girl had been a schoolmate, and Eckert succeeded in making the murder appear as a suicide. In 1987, Eckert was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for attempted murder for two nearly-fatal attacks against women.[5] In 1994, Eckert was released from custody and lived in Hof, where he began work as a truck driver, a job which required travelling to several European countries. According to police in France and Spain, Eckert is believed to have killed at least five women[6] working as sex workers in these countries between 2001 and 2006:

June 25, 2001, a Kenyan sex worker near Chermignac, near the city of Bordeaux in western France.
October 9, 2001, a 24-year-old sex worker in Maçanet de la Selva.
March 1, 2005, a Russian sex worker in Sant Sadurní d'Osormort, both in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain.
October 2, 2006, a 28-year-old Polish sex worker at Reims, France.
November 2, 2006, a 20-year-old Bulgarian sex worker in Hostalric, in Catalonia, Spain.[7]

In most cases, Eckert strangled the women, performed amateur post mortems on them, and finally photographed them. In addition, he cut off the hair or dressed the dead bodies, and kept them in the cab of his truck or in his apartment.

Unconfirmed murders

Eckert is believed to have at least seven additional murders across Europe, including:

April 1987, an 18-year-old in Plauen, East Germany.
August 2002: a 23-year-old sex worker from Sierra Leone in Troyes, France.
September 5, 2004: a 25-year-old Ghanaian sex worker in Rezzato, Italy.
Four other women, three of them in the Czech Republic and one in France, according to the police in these countries.

Arrest

Following the murder on November 2, 2006, footage caught by a surveillance camera showing Eckert's truck next to the naked corpse of his victim, which was located beside the parking lot, was reported to the Spanish police. Eckert could be identified via the truck, and a few weeks later German police detained him in Wesseling, near Cologne, on November 17, 2006. The police found tufts of hair and pictures of his victims subjected to various tortures in Eckert's truck and in his house. During the interrogations, Eckert acknowledged committing six murders,[8] the five sex workers in France and Spain, and that of his classmate in Germany.

Death

Eckert committed suicide on July 2, 2007, in the middle of criminal proceedings against him, and was found dead in his cell in Bayreuth. After his death, the police found evidence that Eckert had killed nine women across Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Furthermore, there are strong indications that he killed another four women. In December 2007, five months after Eckert's death, the German police ceased investigations and closed the file.

References

"Imputado por 19 crímenes el camionero asesino de prostitutas" [Truck driver implicated in the murder of 19 women] (in Spanish). El Periodico de Aragon. Archived from the original on 20 May 2016. Retrieved 7 October 2018.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
Garcia, Jesus (7 August 2015). "Un estrangulador a l'autopista" [A Strangler on the highway]. El País (in Catalan). Retrieved 7 October 2018.
"Prostitute killer found dead in his cell in Germany". Typically Spanish. Archived from the original on 3 January 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2018.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
Tremlett, Giles (December 1, 2006). "German lorry driver confesses to six murders over 30 years, say police". Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
Tremlett, Giles (December 1, 2006). "German lorry driver confesses to six murders over 30 years, say police". Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
Tremlett, Giles (November 23, 2006). "Police arrest truck driver after six-year murder hunt". Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
"Bulgarian Victim of German Sex Killer was Pregnant". Sofia News Agency. November 27, 2006. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
Tremlett, Giles (December 1, 2006). "German lorry driver confesses to six murders over 30 years, say police". Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2018.