Jonas says he doesn't remember exactly which day his sister disappeared. It was sometime in early September 2015, he says, when Michele grabbed her suitcase and left. She didn’t say where she was going or how long she'd be away, "but that was normal." Michele, 22 at the time, was always on the move, and she rarely told her family where she was headed. "That's why I didn't think anything of it," says Jonas, whose name has been changed for this story. Michele would turn up again – in a week, two at the most. That, he says, is always what happened when she left on a trip.
Not this time.
DER SPIEGEL relies on support from its readers. To enjoy the rest of this story, please consider signing up for a subscription to The German View, our English-language channel on Substack. The article can be found here and our Substack channel can be found here . Alternatively, you can sign up for a SPIEGEL+ subscription below.
A month passed. Michele's family went to the police and reported her missing, but the officers said there was little they could do. Michele was an adult, they said, free to go wherever she pleased; an active search was only possible if there were indications that a crime may have been committed. The fact that she hadn't been in touch for weeks, even though she had always checked in before, wasn't enough.
