U.S. Soldier Arrested in German Woman’s Mysterious 1978 Murder
When 35-year-old Bärbel Gansau was murdered in her sleep in June 1978, police were stumped.
The killer entered Gansau’s ground-floor apartment in Ludwigsburg, Germany, about 10 miles north of Stuttgart, through the bathroom window, which witnesses told police she often left open to allow her cats to come and go as they pleased.
Gansau, taken by surprise and unable to fight back, was stabbed 37 times, sustaining injuries to her neck, arm, and legs. She died, however, from a stab wound to the center of her chest, which pierced her pericardium, investigators determined. The gruesome scene was discovered by Gansau’s neighbor, Hugo Rehberg, and a friend’s husband, a U.S. Army soldier named Robert Burright.