“She was a mysterious serial killer known as the “The Woman Without a Face” and detectives across Europe spent more than 15…

stml:

“She was a mysterious serial killer known as the “The Woman Without a Face” and detectives across Europe spent more than 15 years doing their utmost to bring her to justice for at least six brutal murders and a string of break-ins. Yesterday, however, they were forced to admit that she probably didn’t exist. The only clues that “The Woman Without a Face” left behind at 40 different crime scenes were DNA traces. These were collected on cotton swabs, supplied to the police in a number of European countries. Now police investigators have established that in all probability the DNA had not been left by their quarry but by a woman working for the German medical company supplying the swabs, who had inadvertently contaminated them. German police who had been leading the hunt said they had probably been involved in one of the longest and most perplexing wild goose chases in criminal history. “This is a very embarrassing story,” admitted police spokesman Josef Schneider.”

— DNA blunder creates phantom serial killer | The Independent [ 2009]