The Cold Case Files (9 page)

One entry records
‘the day after tomorrow I’m going on to Ireland. I’m looking forward to that the best.’
Inga-Maria’s last diary entries are on 6 April 1988
and record her travel up to and including being on the ferry:
‘Going to Glasgow now. Snowy mountains, wild landscape ... Went from Glasgow to Ayr and then to Stranraer to get over to
Ireland. Saw the sea, beautiful and mysterious. Wonder where I stay tonight, need more money.’

Inga-Maria arrived in Northern Ireland at 9.40 p.m. on 6 April 1988 when the ferry,
MV
Galloway Princess
, docked at Larne, having left the Scottish port of
Stranraer just over two hours previously. Inga-Maria was dressed as a typical backpacker. She carried a large blue rucksack on her back and also had a distinctive canvas bag on top of the rucksack.
The canvas bag was green but had a lot of prominent red, blue and yellow colouring with stars and circles motifs and the letters ‘
USAF
’. She also carried a green
shoulder bag and had a pair of white runners hanging by the laces from her rucksack.

A total of 422 people are believed to have travelled on the ferry from Stranraer to Larne that evening. Many of those people were located back in 1988 or have been identified since then, but
there are still a number of passengers who were on the same ferry as Inga-Maria who have never made themselves known. There were around 100 vehicles on the ferry, both cars and lorries. Some of
those vehicles and their drivers have never been positively identified. Inga-Maria boarded the ferry in Scotland as a foot passenger and one assumption is that she similarly walked off the vessel
when it docked in Larne. This is the logical conclusion, given the fact that the train station was just a short distance away within the port. This is where Inga-Maria would have planned to get a
train to Belfast. Despite the late hour she might have planned to stay in a hostel in Belfast and maybe travel to Dublin the next day, or perhaps the day after that. But something happened to stop
Inga-Maria even making it to the train station in Larne. She was either abducted or accepted a lift from someone, perhaps someone who told her they would drop her in Belfast. If she accepted a lift
it’s possible she sat into a vehicle as the ferry docked. While there are reported sightings of Inga-Maria during the two-hour ferry crossing, it’s still not clear whether she left the
docked vessel by foot or in a car or lorry.

While it’s logical to assume that Inga-Maria’s plan was to travel to Belfast and then to Dublin, perhaps she changed her mind and willingly accepted a lift from someone she knew was
driving further north from Larne. Inga-Maria had seen some stunning scenery in Scotland and perhaps she made a decision to find a hostel in north-east Antrim and then do some sightseeing the
following morning. Maybe Inga-Maria had heard about the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge or Rathlin Island or the many other scenic spots on Ireland’s most north-east edge, where you can see across
to Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre. Perhaps Inga-Maria fell into conversation with someone on the ferry who told her of all the tourist spots she could visit in this corner of the island of
Ireland, and maybe they offered to drive her to a hostel.

Inga-Maria either willingly took a lift or she was abducted. If she was abducted, it would appear that it happened in Larne at the same time as other passengers were leaving the port for their
onward journeys. If Inga-Maria willingly took a lift, the person or persons into whose vehicle she entered may have either told her they were taking her further north, or they may have lied to
Inga-Maria and told her they were bringing her to Belfast, but instead of heading south from Larne, they turned north. It was now dark outside, and Inga-Maria may not have even known which way she
was being brought, and may not have suspected anything until it was too late.

Inga-Maria was not a hitch-hiker, she was self-sufficient and confident, but she used public transport to get around. From the ferry terminal exit, it was less than a minute walk to Larne train
station. She had an InterRail Pass and she loved travelling that way. Detectives have long considered what might have happened to divert Inga-Maria from her intention to get the train. Is it
possible that Inga-Maria was abducted either before the ferry had docked, or as she disembarked, or as she walked towards the train station? There are so many possibilities which police have
considered. Is it possible that Inga-Maria felt ill and had to sit down and accidentally missed her train before a predator killer struck?

Amid all the uncertainty about what happened to Inga-Maria once the
Galloway Princess
docked in Larne, one thing is now apparent. Detectives believe that Inga-Maria met her violent death
within minutes or hours of arriving in Northern Ireland. Although her body was not found in Ballypatrick Forest until 20 April, developments in pathology and other tests have now led the
PSNI
to the view that Inga-Maria was murdered soon after arriving at the port in Larne. This would tie in with the fact that Inga-Maria’s last diary entry was on 6
April 1988 as she travelled across the Irish Sea on the ferry. She did not send any more postcards after this date and her camera, which was later found close to her body, showed that she never
took any photos in Northern Ireland.

An examination of the crime scene at the most western part of Ballypatrick Forest Park, which is forty miles from Larne, indicates Inga-Maria’s neck was broken where her body was found. It
is possible that the full attack occurred at the forest, that Inga-Maria was sexually assaulted and beaten at this location before being murdered. But it is also possible that there is another
crime scene or crime scenes. If Inga-Maria was abducted, the vehicle in which she was driven from Larne to Ballypatrick Forest might well have held forensic evidence. It is also possible that she
was taken to another location before being brought to her death in the forest. There is nothing to firmly indicate this, but in the absence of much of the detail, police must keep their minds open
to all possibilities.

Almut Hauser and her husband Josef became very concerned when Inga-Maria stopped ringing home after 6 April. It just wasn’t like her not to be in contact. On the first week of her trip
abroad she had been phoning every day, describing all the places she was visiting. When she failed to meet up with her friend as arranged in Wales on 9 April, it was very clear that something was
terribly wrong. And then, on her mother’s birthday, 20 April, the worst fears of Inga-Maria’s family and friends were realised.

A sheep farmer out on his rounds made the shocking discovery. It was Wednesday evening, 20 April 1988, and as the man walked in an isolated part of Ballypatrick Forest he discovered
Inga-Maria’s body. The teenager was lying face down, and her clothing had been disturbed by her attacker. Her body lay in a grassy area close to tall trees at the end of a dirt-track in the
deepest part of the forest. Inga-Maria’s backpack, and her two smaller bags and her shoes were all strewn nearby. She had suffered blunt force injuries to her face and head, and a pathologist
would later determine that her neck was broken. It was possible that a weapon had been used to inflict the head and face injuries, or Inga-Maria may have been punched or kicked.

Police were quickly able to identify Inga-Maria from her diary and travel documents, which were found with her body. Within a short time detectives had established that Inga-Maria had arrived in
Larne on the night of 6 April. A medical opinion was initially given that Inga-Maria had died close to the date her body was found on 20 April and this meant she might have been held hostage
somewhere for almost two weeks before being murdered. However, as part of a cold-case review sparked by the discovery in 2005 of a full
DNA
profile from the crime scene,
police carried out a fresh assessment of Inga-Maria’s most likely date of death. The
PSNI
studied the footage of the crime scene from April 1988, and they conducted
tests in Ballypatrick Forest in April 2007. Inga-Maria’s body had been remarkably intact when it was found; it had not been subject to any animal interference and this had led to some people
thinking she might only have been dead some hours or days before she was found on 20 April. Establishing a precise date of death was essential in prioritising which people would be asked to give
DNA
samples to compare to the full profile which police now had. Some people might have been in Co. Antrim on 6 April but not later in the month, and vice-versa. In an
effort to get a definitive conclusion on the most likely date of Inga-Maria’s murder, the
PSNI
asked a botanist to study the growth of nettles at the crime scene and
compare crime scene images with the nettle growth of April 2007. Detectives also asked an entomologist from Queens University in Belfast to assist in studying fly activity and animal activity in
the forest. Over the course of the month of April 2007 it was established that the location where Inga-Maria’s body was found was a particularly cool environment with very little fly activity
and no animals. On comparing the topography of the area with how it appeared in April 1988, it was clear the appearance of Inga-Maria’s body was consistent with it having been in the forest
since the earlier part of that month. From the pathology report, detectives knew that Inga-Maria’s hair was clean when her body was found, and again this was consistent with her having been
murdered shortly after arriving in Northern Ireland, rather than her having been held captive anywhere. The logical assumption, and what all the scientific and general evidence now points to, is
that Inga-Maria was driven to her death at Ballypatrick Forest Park on the night of 6 April or early hours of 7 April 1988.

Whoever murdered Inga-Maria had very detailed knowledge of Ballypatrick Forest. The location where Inga-Maria was found is remote, it is in the western part of the forest, the furthest point
from entrances, all located off the
A
2, which links the coastal town of Ballycastle with the villages of Cushendall and Glenariff further down the coast. By day Ballypatrick
Forest Park is a beautiful mix of mature forests, wildlife trails and picnic sites. To the north is Glenmakeeran River and to the west are low-lying mountains. By day the forest is a popular spot
for tourists and locals alike but by night, it can be a dark and lonely place, and not somewhere anyone might venture alone. Police who have studied the crime scene, and profilers who have been
asked to give their assessment, have both come to the conclusion that the killer of Inga-Maria Hauser knew the forest very well. Or if there was more than one killer, at least one of them knew the
location almost like the back of his hand. Assuming Inga-Maria was brought to the forest under cover of darkness, the killer or killers would have had just their vehicle’s headlights and the
light of the moon to manoeuvre their vehicle down a rough track, then attack and murder Inga-Maria, and later drive their vehicle safely away. There were other isolated locations closer to the main
road where the killer could have brought Inga-Maria, but he (or they) chose to go to the furthest point within the forest. This indicates a confidence of someone who knew the area and who went to
the extra trouble of driving a further distance into the forest. Where Inga-Maria’s body was found was not somewhere a roaming killer with no links to Co. Antrim might choose to commit a
crime; it was more likely the attacker had some close link not only to Antrim, but specifically to Ballypatrick Forest Park.

In March 2011 the
PSNI
issued another major public appeal for assistance and disclosed more details about their ongoing enquiries, saying they were ‘tantalisingly
close’ to making significant progress in solving Inga-Maria’s murder. The detectives involved in the current investigation have lived the case for the last few years. Knowing they have
a full
DNA
profile from the crime scene which, despite massive efforts, they have been unable to match, has left them both frustrated and enthused. They haven’t made
the breakthrough yet, but they feel they are so very close. It has been one of the largest
DNA
screening processes in the history of policing but still the ‘crime
scene donor’ has not been identified. In March 2011 the
PSNI
focused their appeal on Co. Antrim, in particular the rural area east of Ballymoney. “I cannot rule
out the possibility that more than one person was involved in Inga-Maria’s death,” said Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray.

In the year that Inga-Maria Hauser was murdered, 106 people lost their lives as a result of ‘the Troubles’. Nineteen-eighty-eight was one of the most violent years in Northern
Ireland and it was a year which also saw Troubles-related deaths in the Republic of Ireland, Gibraltar, Holland, Belgium and England. However, 95 of the 106 deaths that year due to ‘the
Troubles’ occurred in Northern Ireland. On the very day that Inga-Maria Hauser arrived in Larne on the ferry from Scotland, an
IRA
bomb had exploded under a car in Co.
Fermanagh close to the Cavan border. A 51-year-old father of five who was a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was killed. Less than a week after Inga’s body was found in
Ballypatrick Forest the
IRA
killed two more people. A 23-year-old man was shot dead as he collected dustbins in Co. Tyrone on 26 April. The father of one was also a
part-time member of the
UDR
. On the same day a 20-year-old British soldier was killed in an
IRA
booby trap bomb while he was on patrol in Co. Tyrone.
The previous month had been one of the most violent and bizarre in the history of the Troubles. On 6 March the
SAS
shot dead three
IRA
members in
Gibraltar. Their funerals were being held on 16 March at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast when a
UFF
gunman launched an attack and killed three men. Two of those shot dead were
civilians while the other man was an
IRA
member. His funeral was being held three days later when two British soldiers in plainclothes drove into the cortège in west
Belfast. The car was surrounded and the two men were pulled from the vehicle and taken to waste-ground a short distance away and shot dead. The moments leading up to the deaths of the two soldiers
had been captured by television crews who had been filming the funeral of the
IRA
member. The harrowing scenes were broadcast on television screens around the world and
Northern Ireland was at one of its lowest of many low ebbs.