On her 2nd birthday, she went missing in a store.  For over 40 years it is not known how it happened

On her 2nd birthday, she went missing in a store. For over 40 years it is not known how it happened

Katrice Lee disappeared from the store on November 28, 1981. She is suspected of being kidnapped. Although more than 40 years have passed, the circumstances of the incident have not yet been clarified and the girl has not been found. Her father, however, still hopes that Katrice is alive and lives somewhere in Europe.

Katrice Lee was born in 1979 and lived with her in Paderborn, Germany. On her 2nd birthday, her mother and aunt took her to the shopping complex. In one of the stores, Katrice’s mother, already in the checkout line, remembered that she had forgotten to take some snacks. So she came back, but her daughter wanted to accompany her very much. She asked her aunt’s permission and ran to catch up with her. Mom returned to the cash register alone, and little Katrice was gone. Family members never saw her again.

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The Disappearance of Katrice Lee. The girl disappeared on her 2nd birthday

In the 80s, the disappearance and potential kidnapping of little Katrice Lee was very loud. Although more than 40 years have passed, the matter has not been solved to this day. Everything happened on November 28, 1981. Next to the building where the mother and aunt saw the girl for the last time, there was a British military base where the girl’s father worked. Witnesses near the shopping complex that day later testified that they saw a green car and a strange man, accompanied by a girl similar to two-year-old Katrice. The next day, the same car was to be seen near the Alma River.

When Katrice’s mother and aunt realized that the girl was missing or kidnapped, they immediately contacted the police. About 100 people took part in the search for the 2-year-old. The area around the shopping complex was thoroughly searched with heavy equipment, but no results were found. On the day she disappeared, Katrice was wearing red rubber boots, a greenish jacket, a green and blue checkered dress with frills, a white blouse and tights. She had brown eyes, light brown curly hair, and a pink birthmark on the right side of her spine that looked like a rash. She also had a squint in her left eye. For years, no point of reference for the girl’s disappearance could be found. Katrice’s father still hopes that his daughter is alive and living somewhere in Europe.

Hypotheses about Katrice’s disappearance. Attention is drawn primarily to 3 possible scenarios

Katrice’s parents believed from the beginning of the girl’s disappearance that she had been kidnapped in a store. However, the assumptions of the German police are different. The officers believe that the girl fell into the nearby river and, unable to get out of it, drowned. However, her body was never found, so this is only a guess. The second hypothesis is the murder of the child at the hands of a man who at that time worked in the same regiment as Katrice’s father. A woman who was seeing him at the time allegedly testified that the partner in the conversation confessed to her that he had killed the two-year-old. A man was interviewed who denied everything, and his partner soon died and the case stalled.

A series of omissions in the investigation. The mistakes came to light years later

In 2012, the investigators admitted that during the first investigation there had been a number of omissions on their part that could have had a negative impact on the search for the child. Initially, the employees of the store where Katrice disappeared were not questioned and the border guards were not informed about the situation. It was also not made public that the girl had vision problems. If the initial reactions of the services had been different, it is possible that the girl would have been found.

Source: Gazeta

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