Deceased woman in Wassenaar identified after 21 years thanks to Identify Me campaign
After over 21 years, the police have managed to identify a woman found dead in the dunes near Wassenaar on 4 July 2004, thanks to information received through the Identify Me campaign. The woman was 35-year-old Eva Maria Pommer from Germany, the police reported on Friday. She is the fourth woman from the Identify Me campaign to have been successfully identified.
The police have been trying to identify Pommer since discovering her body in the dunes near Wassenaar in 2004. Investigators examined her body, combed the area where she was found, showed her clothing in investigative programs, conducted an isotope analysis, and followed every possible lead.
From early in the investigation, there was strong evidence that the victim came from Germany. She was wearing clothing primarily sold in the country, and one of a set of keys found with her body had a link to the German city of Bottrop, not far from the Dutch border. But because an archive had been lost in a fire, the police could not link the key to a specific address.
In October last year, the police included the Wassenaar woman in the second Identify Me campaign, a collaboration with neighboring countries to try and put names to unidentified women in cold cases. The Wassenaar case was named “The Woman with the German Keys” in the campaign.
Because of the campaign, the case received extensive coverage on Dutch and German investigative programs, which generated hundreds of tips. These tips helped the police to link the key to a list of possible addresses in the Bottrop region.
“While the German and Dutch police were investigating this information, the Dutch Cold Case Foundation received a very interesting tip about a German woman who had reportedly been missing for some 20 years,” the police said. “This information matched the lead the police were already following in Bottrop, accelerating the investigation. DNA testing by the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) has since confirmed that the woman is indeed Eva Maria Pommer from Germany.”
Now that Pommer has been identified, the Dutch and German police also want to determine how she ended up dead in the dunes near Wassenaar. The police are therefore asking everyone to think back to the summer of 2004 and search their memories and records for the name Eva Maria Pommer. “The woman may have been staying in a hotel or recreation park, and she may have had contact with people in the region or elsewhere in the period leading up to her death.”
