It was nearly three p.m. on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 31st, when passersby walking near the Main River in Frankfurt, Germany spotted a body floating in the water.
The dark-haired girl who was pulled from the waves looked as though she had suffered through unimaginable physical torture for years before she was finally murdered. A small young woman of about sixteen years of age, only about five feet tall and weighing approximately eighty-five pounds, she was covered with old wounds, scars, and numerous cigarette burns, she had a cauliflower ear, and her limbs were twisted and misshapen from bones that had been broken and not allowed to heal.
Her death had finally come at the hands of her tormentors, who had kicked and punched her in the chest and stomach so viciously that her ribs had broken and punctured her lungs and other internal organs. Her body, curled into a fetal position, was then wrapped in towels and a comforter, tied into a bundle, and attached to an umbrella stand, which was clearly meant to weigh the body down when it was tossed into the river between the Griesheim barrage and the Wörthspitze. The stand had not been heavy enough to achieve this purpose, however.
Because the victim was unidentified, investigators dubbed her The Girl from the Main, and the brutality of the treatment she had received throughout her short life gave authorities added incentive to try to identify the girl and bring her murderer to justice. The only clue to her identity was the belt used to wrap her body; it was a nala, a type of belt commonly worn by women in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Police speculated that the young woman might have been working as a servant in a diplomatic household, and had been abused by the residents of that household since her childhood.
German authorities distributed thousands of flyers in multiple languages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India in an attempt to discover the girl’s identity, but so far have been unsuccessful. The Girl from the Main was buried on a small hill in Heiligenstock Cemetery, at the expense of the homicide commission who was investigating her murder. The case is still open.
Crime Immemorial 