He had a 19-year-old daughter, Maria Ladenburger, who studied medicine at Freiburg University.Maria shared her father’s social conscience.She was a member of an ecumenical Christian group, "Towards a new solidarity", that actively supports refugees. Together with another group, she helped to collect money specifically for refugees in Freiburg.
On October 19, 2016, Maria was raped and drowned in the Dreisam River.
Her parents asked the mourners not to bring flowers to the funeral.True to the family's social conscience, they requested that the mourners instead donate money to a church project in Bangladesh and to a student organization that agitates against the deportation of failed asylum seekers.
The police have now caught the murderer, who has confessed.He was a 17 year old Afghan refugee who had arrived in Germany in 2015 and was living with a Freiburg guest family.
In the majority of cases in Germany, an asylum seeker’s age is based on physical appearance and an interview. I presume they will now be allowed to carry out physical tests to ascertain his age.They suspect he may also be responsible for another rape and murder.
Rapists are usually found through the use of DNA.Not in Germany, as there are many restrictions on its use during an investigation. For example, the police are not allowed to ask for the DNA results for gender, skin colour or ethnicity. In practice, DNA can only be used at the end of an investigation to check if you have the right person.
The police found some partly dyed hair at the crime scene where she was murdered. Then they searched the security videos to see if they could find anybody with the same partly dyed hair colours. That is how they found the suspect.Their suspicions were confirmed by a DNA match.
When Dr. Landenburger and his colleagues were formulating the 2015 open borders policies, they knew there would be "incidents". There were going to be crimes committed, including rape and murder.This, they would say, is the unfortunate price that must inevitably be paid for "helping millions of people".
What they did not presume, is that they would have to pay the price themselves. That one of their daughters would be the victims of rape and murder.Rest in peace Maria Landenburger. You tried to do some good in this world.May your memory be a blessing.