Detailed forensic work sees garda solve 8 year old mystery

Gardaí have solved a mystery that began in Galway eight years ago, when a body was found in the woods at Lough Inagh in Connemara.

The remains of the man have been identified as those of German national, Arno Schmitz, who is believed to have died around a year prior to the discovery of his remains.

According to gardaí, the identification of Mr Schmitz’s remains – found on December 8 2006 – involved significant investigative work by Gardai in Galway in colloboration with national and international agencies and experts.

On December 10 2006 a Post Mortem Examination took place and no evidence of trauma or injury was found.  The remains were identified as male. The man was believed to be aged between 44 and 66 years, 5 foot 7.5 inches, of stocky build.  He wore a "Bush Sports” yellow hooded jacket.

Among the items found beside the body and contained in a small holdall bag were:

- A Tropicana Pink Grapefruit flavour fruit juice carton with a best before date of 24/12/2005.

- A spectacle case contained within was a pair of Rayban sunglasses and a cleaning cloth with the name and address as follows printed "Mückenheim-Optik” with an address at Neumünster, Germany.  Enquiries conducted there did not reveal any information.  (The sunglasses were non prescription).

On the January 19 2007 the services of a forensic anthropologist were sought.  

The Garda Missing Persons Bureau and Interpol were also contacted and all particulars were circulated.  This information also included a DNA profile.

The Coroner for West Galway Dr Ciaran McLoughlin had been notified of the discovery of the body in December 2006. As time passed with no identification of the remains forthcoming, Dr McLoughlin made contact with Dr Caroline Wilkinson, a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee in Scotland. The advice of Dr Wilkinson was sought with a view to reconstructing a facial reconstruction. In 2009 the image was released to the media.

All enquiries such as house to house, and the canvassing of local hotels and guesthouses in and around Clifden and the Lough Inagh area had all proven fruitless.  

In December 2009 with still no information available to aid the investigation a review was begun. The case featured on Crimecall in late 2009 and again in June 2013.  Still no progress was made.

In mid December 2013 a further review was undertaken by the Gardai. This resulted in over 60 lines of enquiry being generated.

Further emphasis was brought to bear on items as found with the remains in December 2006. It was established that the fruit juice drink had been produced on or about the 03/11/2005 with a shelf life of approximately 52 days.  Giving a week from manufacture to distribution, the product could only have been on sale in retail outlets sometime after the 10/11/2005.

Everything so far led Gardai to believe that this person died sometime in late 2005.

It was also the belief of the review team that the deceased may have had a connection to Germany and in particular to the Neumünster area of Germany.

Lines of communication were continued with Interpol and liaison was made with the German Embassy. German authorities were in a position to confirm that no missing person with a similar DNA profile existed on their Missing Persons Database.

In April 2014 the Gardai requested through the offices of Interpol that a press release be circulated to the media in Germany, particularly in the area of Neumünster.

In July 2014 articles on the matter and the picture of the facial reconstruction were published in the press in the City of Kiel, which is the major city near Neumünster.  As a result of these articles two persons made contact with the German Police.

One of the people who came forward was a man who told police that the facial reconstruction was very much like that of his brother Arno Schmitz.

He outlined to the police that his brother Arno had immigrated to Ireland in the end of September 2005 and prior to going to Ireland had lived in the Neumunster area of Germany.

Bernd Schmitz’s last contact with his brother Arno was before Christmas 2005 by phone.  His brother at that time was in Ireland and was working here.  That was the last he had heard from his brother.  He had not reported him as a missing person.

The other person who came forward told police that the article and its reconstructed image of the unidentified male was identical to a person whom they named and who they had lived beside as neighbours in 2004 in Neumünster. 

The Gardai further requested any dental records be provided to the Irish authorities.

On the weekend of the September 7 2014 those dental charts were provided to Paul V Keogh, a forensic dentist in Kerry.On September 8 2014 Mr Keogh contacted the Gardai at the Incident Room at Galway and informed them that he had found that the charts as provided from German to the Gardai matched identically to the charting he had done from the remains as found in December 2006.

On the September 12 2014 Dr Clifford contacted the Gardai and informed them that the DNA profiles from Germany and from the body strongly supported the probability that Arno and Bernd were related to one another as brothers.

This week the German Authorities through the assistance of Interpol  informed Bernd Schmitz that the remains of his brother had been found.

 "With little evidence to work with and no missing persons report this was always going to a difficult case to solve. But thanks to the determination of the local Garda investigators and the co-operation of agencies and individual experts we have helped ensure that Mr Schmitz's family have some closure on this tragic matter," said Chief Superintendent Thomas Curley, Galway.