‘Murdered’ student comes back from the dead 31 years after she vanished

Petra Pazsitka was 24 when she disappeared one day in Germany – a man later admitted killing her, but her body was never found and chance burglary years later revealed the truth

A woman who was apparently murdered suddenly reappeared more than three decades after she vanished without a trace.

Petra Pazsitka, from Braunschweig in northern Germany, was 24 when she was last seen on July 26, 1984.

That day, the computer science student went for a dentist appointment before catching the bus at around 3pm to visit her parents in nearby Wolfsburg.

However, she never arrived and Petra’s case subsequently appeared on ‘Aktenzeichen XY’ – the German equivalent of ‘Crimewatch’ – that reenacted the young woman’s last steps before her disappearance.

Yet nobody stepped forward after the show with any details of where she might be.

The following year, a 19-year-old carpenter’s apprentice called Günter K, admitted to raping and murdering of a 14-year-old girl in the same area where Petra was last seen. Two years later, he ‘confessed’ to also killing the university student.

But her body was never discovered and in 1989 she was officially pronounced dead and the case closed.

Then, in September 2015, police in Düsseldorf investigated a robbery that took place inside a 55-year-old woman’s home.

The authorities soon found the victim’s original ID in the property, prompting her to admit that she’d been living a lie for more than 30 years and was in fact Petra Pazsitka.

A police spokesperson said at the time: “She said only a little about the background of her disappearance and why she left back then. She said that she had prepared for it and that she wanted it.”

Police revealed the missing student had secretly saved up 4,000 Deutschmarks (£1,500) to fund her plan and gave a student neighbour her apartment keys to take care of her pet birds.

Petra’s first stop was a flat in Gelsenkirchen, around 150 miles from Braunschweig, where she slipped under the radar and started a brand-new life.

Neighbours in Düsseldorf said she kept herself to herself and had minimal contact with others. Officials believed that she earned a living by carrying out work on the black market but didn’t go into any more detail.

“Her family is devastated. We are trying to arrange a reunion, but Petra P is adamant that she does not want any contact with them,” a spokesman added.

Last year, Petra spoke with German news outlet Bild, accusing her mum of beating and abusing her as a child. “I was 24, a computer science student in Braunschweig. Smart, quiet, compliant. I didn’t know why I was leaving. I only knew: I had to go,” she said.

A psychiatrist reportedly diagnosed sexual abuse in her childhood, allegations she can’t prove. But she added: “My body knows. I was sold to men too.”

After beginning a new life, Petra went under the ordinay name of ‘Susanne Schneider’. She said her jobs consited of cleaning, teaching and illegal cash work – she always paid for things in money and never went to the doctors or on holiday, for fear of being found out.

These days she once more lives under her real name and still works as a cleaner, with no pension. Her only contact with the outside world is a coffee once a week with a nieghbour, adding: “I know how this ends. At the food bank.”