Scots trip clues ‘key to finding tourist’s killer’
POLICE investigating the brutal murder of a teenage backpacker have said the key to helping solve the 30-year-old case could lie in a two-day sightseeing rail trip she took to Scotland.
Detectives said yesterday they now have a suspect in mind and are ‘very close’ to solving the killing of German holidaymaker Inga Maria Hauser in April 1988.
On the 30th anniversary of her disappearance Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray, of Police Service of Northern Ireland, said he believes details of Miss Hauser’s journey through London, Inverness, Glasgow and Ayr in the days before her death will play a vital role in helping bring charges against her killer.
The Munich-born tourist was last seen boarding a ferry from Stranraer, Wigtownshire, to Larne, County Antrim, on April 6, 1988. Her body was found two weeks later in Ballypatrick Forest, 40 miles north of Larne.
The 18-year-old’s neck was broken after she suffered what police described as a ‘vicious and ruthless sexually motivated’ attack on the day of her disappearance.
Mr Murray said: ‘What we don’t have is good detail of her travels to Scotland. There is potential vital information in the Scottish line of the investigation. Who did she speak to on that train, who did she come into contact with? What were her plans?
‘We have some indication of her plans from her notebooks but the best indication we could get would be from someone who spoke to her either during that journey up from England to Inverness or down from Inverness back towards Stranraer.’
Police said Miss Hauser travelled from London to Inverness on April 5, 1988. She spent the following day sightseeing before using her Interrail card to travel to Glasgow then taking a train to Ayr and Stranraer where she boarded a ferry as a foot passenger before 7pm.
However, rather than continue on her intended journey south to Belfast, Miss Hauser instead ended up travelling north. Police believe she made the journey in a motor vehicle after she failed to board a train following her arrival at the ferry terminal shortly after 9pm.
Mr Murray added: ‘There was some encounter somewhere and potential on the ferry that caused her to reverse her plans.’