Interpol issues first public Black Notices to identify female murder victims

Police tell The National of determination to identify more than 20 women and children found dead across Europe

Interpol has launched Operation Identify Me to discover the identities of more than 20 murder victims. Photo: Interpol

Interpol has made its Black Notices public for the first time as part of an international campaign to identify more than 20 murdered women and children.

Operation Identify Me is a public appeal to identify 22 female victims, believed to have been murdered in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands, but whose identity was never established.

The international crime agency has taken the unusual step of making public the Black Notices – to which access was previously granted only to police forces – because they believe the victims have a global connection.

The victims were women and girls whose bodies were found in bogs, wells and rivers – some of the deaths date back more than 40 years.

The oldest cold case involves a girl, believed to be 13, who was found in a parking lot by hikers in The Netherlands in 1976 and thought by police to have come from Germany.

Another one is a woman found in Belgium almost 32 years ago. Her body was discovered in 1991 in a rainwater well in the town of Holsbeek, about 40km from Brussels. Her body might have been in the well for up to two years, police believe.

The girl in the parking lot. Operation Identify Me. Photo: Interpol

Francois-Xavier Laurent, manager of Interpol’s DNA database, told The National that the agency cannot rule out that the 22 unsolved murders of women and children across Europe are not linked.

"Looking at the context they do not seem to be linked apart from that they are all females and all victims of a crime. But we can never reject the hypothesis some of the women were part of a human trafficking network," he said.

Francois-Xavier Laurent, manager of Interpol's DNA database investigation, Operation Identify Me. Photo: Interpol

"We have launched this because every victim has the chance to be identified and so the families know what happened to their loved ones.

"The difficulty in these cases is that there are no names and no identity documents. The bodies were highly degraded and we cannot rule out that they were visitors to the countries where they were found and they could have come from the other side of the globe.

The woman with the bracelet. Operation Identify Me. Photo: Interpol

“This campaign is a first, it is the first time Interpol has given information out from the Black Notices, in the hope the public can give us potential tips to help solve the cases."

A facial reconstruction has been created for each of the victims as well as information about the place and time they were discovered, personal items found on the bodies and their clothing and jewellery.

A printed T-shirt, a silver bracelet and a rose tattoo are among images posted to Interpol's website and social media accounts.

The woman with the flower tattoo. Operation Identify Me. Photo: Interpol

The police fear the bodies may have been left in different countries "to impede criminal investigations".

"Every avenue we could think of to solve these cold cases has been explored," he said.

"The investigations have reached a dead end and we're hoping public attention will allow us to move them forward. We believe there may be some international context to the case."

Interpol believes that some of the women may have come from various regions of eastern Europe.

"These could be women who decided to take a tourist trip, but also potential victims of human trafficking," he said.

"As this is the first launch we decided to keep it small, but it is already proving successful and other states have already asked us to help them too."

The woman in the suitcase. Operation Identify Me. Photo: Interpol

Susan Hitchin, who co-ordinates Interpol's DNA unit, said identifying the women could help bring closure to their family members.

“It's horrendous to go all these years without having any news, not knowing what's happened. And however dreadful it may be to get that confirmation that their loved one has died, it is part of an important process in order to grieve and to move forward," she said in a phone interview.

“Hopefully a member of the public will be able to bring some new elements that the police can use that will ultimately provide the identity of these victims and ideally help lead to the perpetrator, if there is one."