Petra Pazsitka, the supposed murder victim in a well-publicized German missing person's case in 1984, has been found alive in Düsseldorf. She confessed her real identity to police after reporting a home burglary.
Pazsitka's case sparked a manhunt and resulted in a man who already confessed to killing a teenager in the area to say that he also killed Pazsitka, then 24, according to the
BBC News.
Her body, though, was never found and in 1985 investigators went public asking for clues on the popular German crime show "Aktenzeichen XY," according to
NBC News. The case became cold and in 1989 was closed by German authorities who declared Pazsitka dead.
That all changed two weeks ago when a woman who identified herself as Mrs. Schneider contacted Düsseldorf authorities about a burglary at her home. When the 55-year-old woman could not produce any identification during the police investigation, she confessed that she was Pazsitka.
Joachim Grande, a spokesman for the Braunschweig. Germany police, told NBC News that Pazsitka had been living without any official documents and under a false name in several German cities for the more than 30 years.
BBC News said Pazsitka's brother and mother were "absolutely shocked" to learn she was still alive.
Pazsitka reportedly told German officials that she had no interest in seeing them.
"She did not even have a bank account and paid all her bills cash," said Grande, adding that she had been living off of a small income through illegal work.
"She said only a little about the background of her disappearance and why she left back then," said Grande. "She said that she had prepared for it and that she wanted it."
Pazsitka had planned for her disappearance by withdrawing money from her bank before her disappearance and giving a student neighbor keys to her apartment to take care of the her pet birds.
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