Police have the killer’s DNA profile but no match in 1986 murder

Police know the DNA profile of the person who murdered 17-year-old Martina Posch in 1986, but searches of police databases have found no match, ORF reported.

Posch left her home in Vöcklabruck after breakfast on November 12, 1986, reportedly to go to work. The calendar at work showed she was on leave that day. She was strangled that morning. Fire brigade divers found her body ten days later on the southern shore of Lake Mondsee, wrapped in a green plastic tarpaulin. Investigators believe it may have been kept in a shed before being thrown into the lake days later.

Manfred Schmidbauer, who led the gendarmerie operation, said investigators questioned 2,000 people but made no breakthrough. He said they believed the killer was not a stranger and was likely in Posch’s circle of friends or nearby community.

Forensic psychiatrist Heidi Kastner was asked to develop theories about who might have killed Posch and why. She said the two likely knew each other, and that the killing appeared to have followed an escalating situation rather than being planned.

The case remains unsolved. Evidence collected at the time has been examined repeatedly, and police continue to review cold cases for new leads. Austria’s Federal Criminal Police Office has had a unit for unsolved serious crimes and missing-person cases since 2010. Murder does not become time-barred.