Suspected murder in the Fabian case Arrested woman maintains her innocence: "Loved him like my own child"

Almost four weeks after the violent death of eight-year-old Fabian from Güstrow in north-eastern Germany, the police have arrested a suspect. The suspect is said to be the father's ex-girlfriend.

Keystone-SDA

07.11.2025, 09:23

07.11.2025, 13:25

SDA

Almost four weeks after the violent death of eight-year-old Fabian from Güstrow in north-east Germany, a warrant has been issued for the arrest of a woman on urgent suspicion of murder.

This has already been executed, public prosecutor Harald Nowack announced on Thursday in Rostock. The woman is suspected of having killed the boy. Nowack did not give any further details about the suspect.

According to "RTL", however, the arrested suspect is the ex-girlfriend of Fabian's father. It was announced on Thursday that her house had been searched by the police and her SUV had been towed away.

The woman is now in custody. The accused has not provided any information about the case and will now be sent to a prison, said public prosecutor Nowack on Friday after the investigating judge at Rostock District Court (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) had issued the arrest warrant.

"I don't understand why I'm in the spotlight now"

The woman's car had already been examined for evidence in the weeks before. At the time, she said in an interview with "RTL": "I don't understand why I'm now the focus of attention. I handed in my cell phone to the police, my car was examined, I did everything voluntarily and cooperated. I probably wouldn't do that if I had anything to do with it."

According to the woman, she had found the boy's body by chance in the forest. The 29-year-old explained at the time: "I was out walking in the woods with my friend because she wasn't feeling well. I had nothing to do with it." Fabian was like her own child: "I was his 'foster mother', so to speak, for four years. I loved him like my own child and would never have done anything to the little man."

However, Fabian's mother publicly expressed her doubts at the time: "I can't imagine that she was walking there purely by chance - why there? She has a forest on her doorstep. Why would she of all people find my child? There must be something wrong." After all, the place where the body was found is around 15 kilometers from her home.

The investigation is still ongoing. The presumption of innocence applies.

Numerous searches on Thursday

The body of the missing child was discovered in mid-October after several days of searching around 15 kilometers south of Güstrow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) in a pond near Klein Upahl. According to the public prosecutor's office, the autopsy revealed that the boy had been the victim of a violent crime. According to the investigation, Fabian was killed on the day of his disappearance, October 10.

After weeks of investigation without any tangible results, the ZDF television program "Aktenzeichen XY... unsolved" also reported on the case. According to the program, 33 tips were received, the value of which is still being examined. "The search measures and the arrest today had nothing to do with the program yesterday," Nowack said in his brief statement in Rostock.

Early Thursday morning, police officers searched several properties in the region. These included properties belonging to several people in Reimershagen in the district of Rostock and a property in neighboring Rum Kogel, a police spokeswoman said. Searches had already been carried out in Reimershagen in connection with the boy's death, on the premises of a farm.