Manfred Seel | |
|---|---|
| Born | Manfred Adolf Seel 30 October 1946 |
| Died | 26 August 2014 (aged 67) Schwalbach am Taunus, Hesse, Germany |
| Other names | The Hesse Ripper Jack the Ripper of Schwalbach Alaska |
| Conviction(s) | Died before he could be arrested |
| Details | |
| Victims | 5–10+ |
Span of crimes | 1971–2004 |
| Country | Germany |
Date apprehended | Never apprehended |
Manfred Adolf Seel (30 October 1946 – 26 August 2014), also known as the Hesse Ripper, Jack the Ripper of Schwalbach and Alaska, was a suspected serial killer believed to have committed five murders in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main area of Germany between 1971 and 2004, and is currently under investigation for other unresolved deaths.[1] Seel died of esophageal cancer before his alleged crimes were uncovered.
Seel was born on 30 October 1946, and grew up as an only child in Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse, West Germany. After attending secondary school in Oberursel in 1957, he completed an apprenticeship for chemography in the Georg Stritt printing company on Mainzer Landstraße in Frankfurt. Between 1967 and 1969, Seel began his two years of compulsory military service, serving in the Raketenartilleriebatallion 52 at the Steuben kaserne in Giessen. In 1973, after receiving his abitur, he studied art and social history at the Goethe University Frankfurt but did not graduate.[2] Seel married in 1973; his wife died in 2013. His only child, a daughter, was born in 1979.
Seel was described by neighbours as a friendly and inconspicuous man who occasionally had angry outbursts. According to eyewitness testimony, he regularly visited local prostitutes in the early 1990s. One prostitute contacted a helpline for local sex workers and reported being abused by Seel, warning other women about his violent behaviour.[3][4][5] In 1996, Seel checked into a rehab clinic in Erbach im Odenwald to treat alcoholism.
Seel died in 2014, one year after he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. A few weeks after his death, Seel's daughter and her partner discovered human remains in a rented garage near his household. Since September 2015, the LKA Working Group Alaska has cited Seel as a prime suspect in several murders which are currently being investigated.[6] Alaska was a nickname of Seel's, as he was known to often wear fur clothing in warm seasons and because Alaska was one of his preferred travel destinations.[7] Seel was previously considered a "blameless citizen".[8] The investigation led into Frankfurt's red-light district and several cold cases concerning the murders of prostitutes.
The murders attributed to Seel were brutal and exhibited sexual sadism. The victims were killed by "harsh violence in sexually relevant zones".[9] The killer would gather certain organs or body parts such as genitals, arms or legs, which he later kept in hidden places as trophies. He also probably returned to the crime scenes for sexual gratification.
The victims always had different parts removed. Investigator Frank Hermann said at a press conference: "Sometimes it's a right leg, sometimes a left arm – if you put it together, you could actually make a new body by doing that". The police acknowledge that Seel may have had an accomplice, citing forensic trace evidence and the extreme injury pattern on a corpse which only could have been possible by the interaction of two perpetrators. The State Office of Criminal Investigation is currently appealing to the public for further information about Seel and his victims. Also, they are looking for any surviving victims, with the help of whom conclusions could be drawn for the perpetrator, his motive or the course of events.[10]
Yes, this is definitely the most extraordinary case I've ever worked on. The violence is so despicable and unfathomable, it eclipses everything else I've experienced.
— Detective Chief Superintendent Holger Thomsen, "Alaska" special commission[11]
The police saw Seel as a misogynist or a misanthrope.[12] On the hard drives of several PCs in his basement, investigators found five terabytes of violent pornography, in both photo and video format. According to criminal psychologist Lydia Benecke, Seel saw his victims as objects for the satisfaction of his sadistic fantasies and low self-esteem. The humiliation, dehumanization and control over the victims, along with a greatly diminished sense of empathy, probably played a major role in the murders.[13] The "trophy hunting" and the storage of body parts may have served another desire as well.[14]
According to the criminal psychologist Helmut Kury, Seel felt "lust for violence and aggression" and most likely lacked "emotional vibration ability".[15] He assumes that the "social aide" of his personality and the construction of a bourgeois facade served to conceal his perverse inclinations. The offender was capable of acting intelligently. He had not acted spontaneously and in the effect, but his deeds (selection of the victims and the course of action) were planned. The cause of his sadistic tendencies could have been early childhood developments. Seel's killing instinct, according to the investigators, probably expired between 1971 and 1991, as he had been in a psychologically stable phase due to changing circumstances such as marriage and family formation.
The police assume that between 1971 and 2004, Seel murdered at least five women. He mostly targeted drug-addicted sex workers from the street, who are classified as a high-risk group because they can be easily addressed and their disappearance is usually not noticed immediately. The murders show large behavioural matches, including a recognizable "signature" of the perpetrator.[16] The commonality of the ritualistic murder series was that all victims were killed by strangulation. In addition, the victims' breasts and pubic areas were defaced, and all body parts or organs were removed. Seel is associated with the unsolved murders of the following women:
At the time, Seel's participation in the murder of Tristan Brübach was not excluded. The 13-year-old student was killed in 1998 in an underpass of the Liederbach Canal near Höchst by an unknown person. Since the murder was committed in the vicinity of the Höchst station, in a relatively busy area, the perpetrator had to act very quickly and functionally. The police considered based on a similar modus operandi (paralleled the Singh murder case: the shoes of the killed were arranged in a specific pattern in pairs next to the body). A dactyloscopic analysis of fingerprints on the victim's exercise book was negative. In October 2017, the head of the press office of the Frankfurt police said that Seel had been excluded as a suspect.[33] The public search for Tristan's murderer will be resumed "soon".[34]
With no evidence of fingerprints on his clarinet, the 2017 investigation focused on, among other things, potential corpse deposits and DNA testing on garments worn by the victim. Since these are old cases, with correspondingly poor quality of the evidence, the analysis will probably last even longer in order to rule out any traces of deception.[35] Also, it is still to be determined if there is a second offender. This hypothesis could neither be verified nor ruled out. The police exclude a possible victim circle, the exact number is not known, and outside the Rhine-Main area according to current knowledge largely from.[36] So far no concrete results have been achieved.[37] For the deeds of Seel, so far there are only indictments.[38] The latest findings (as of December 2017) of the investigation state that Seel as probably active only in the Rhine-Main area and that there were no comparable cases in the Federal Republic and in Europe during this period.[39] The special commission and working was meanwhile dissolved, and only the homicide commission can determine anything further.
The true crime thriller Wolfswut, written by German bestselling author Andreas Gößling, which plays in Berlin instead of Frankfurt, is based on Seel's crimes.[40] The well-known German author Nele Neuhaus has also announced that she was inspired by the crimes of the "Hesse Ripper" Manfred Seel in one of her Taunus thrillers, which will be published in November 2018.[41]