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German Cops Use Sausage To Catch Burglar Almost A Decade After The Crime

German Cops Use Sausage To Catch Burglar Almost A Decade After The Crime

DNA was taken from the sausage and it led police right to the biter burglar

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

Burgling a house must be pretty tiring work, you'd have to imagine, and it's bound to build up your appetite.

But even so, you're probably best avoid any potential snacks that might be lying around the scene of the crime, because police might use them to track you - even years later, when you think you've gotten away with the crime.

Take one criminal in Germany who has been found almost a decade after he robbed a house - all because he took a bite out of a sausage.

The piece of sausage.
Polizei Nordrhein-Westfalen/Newsflash

Back in 2012, police were called to investigate a break-in at a property in the town of Gevelsberg, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The burglar had long since vanished, but they were able to seize a sausage that had a chunk bitten out of it, which was suspected to have been eaten and then discarded by the crook.

A DNA sample was obtained from the fragment of sausage, but there was no match in the database until recently - almost a decade later, in fact, when a 30-year-old Albanian man was identified as being the person who had bitten into the sausage during the robbery.

He had been arrested after involvement in a separate violent crime, and police had taken a DNA sample that was entered into the international database.

As a result, police say they are confident that the DNA match has allowed them to catch the man responsible for the theft dating back to March 2012.

The man had a bit of the sausage back in 2012.
PA

According to the police, the DNA strand had been obtained by the forensic team in North Rhine-Westphalia, who have now re-opened the burglary case and want to have him extradited from France to Germany where the investigation continues.

Yep, DNA is pretty useful in solving crimes - even historic ones. Just ask the former police chief who believes that new DNA studies could help to solve the mystery of the 'spy in the bag'.

Back in August 2010, the decomposing body of MI6 analyst Gareth Williams was found in a locked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, London.

In 2013, the Metropolitan Police concluded that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) codebreaker's death was 'probably an accident' and closed the case, but his family have long suspected foul play.

Williams' body was found in 2010.
Metropolitan Police

Earlier this year, former Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell - who led the probe prior to retirement - has called for a new review of the case, citing DNA analysis as the key to solving the mystery.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, he said: "There may be new forensic possibilities around some of the evidence we found in the flat.

"It might be a sensible option to take another look as part of a forensic review. You can never say never in relation to forensic reviews.

"Forensics do move on. I have experience of reviews where forensics alone will bring a case forward. Not a lot else will.

"It may be that an independent forensic company could be asked to have another look at it within a proper framework. That would be a sensible and reasonable thing to do."

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Food, News, Germany, crime, Weird