Crime suspected Child's body found in Germany - Is it the missing Fabian (8)?
For days, numerous emergency services searched feverishly for eight-year-old Fabian.
Image: dpa
Investigators currently assume that a child's body found in a wooded area near Güstrow is the missing eight-year-old Fabian.
Image: dpa
The police have been searching for the boy with great effort.
Image: dpa
For days, numerous emergency services searched feverishly for eight-year-old Fabian.
Image: dpa
Investigators currently assume that a child's body found in a wooded area near Güstrow is the missing eight-year-old Fabian.
Image: dpa
The police have been searching for the boy with great effort.
Image: dpa
Emergency services have been searching for eight-year-old Fabian in northern Germany for days. Now a child's body has been discovered in a forest. Investigators assume that something bad has happened to the child.
14.10.2025, 17:17
14.10.2025, 17:18
dpa
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- The eight-year-old who has been missing in northern Germany since Friday is most likely dead, according to police.
- A child's body found in a forest near Güstrow (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) is probably the boy.
- The police assume that the child was the victim of a crime.
Depressed tension prevails in the small Mecklenburg village of Klein Upahl. Police cars are parked in a parking lot. Riot police check the access road. A forensic scientist drives his car across the square and on towards a forest. A gruesome discovery has been made there: a child's body. According to the police, the body is that of eight-year-old Fabian from nearby Güstrow , who has been missing for days.
According to a police spokesperson, a forensic medical examination should provide certainty about the identity. "According to the current state of the investigation, it must be assumed, subject to the forensic medical examination, that it is the eight-year-old boy from Güstrow who has been missing since Friday," the Rostock public prosecutor's office and the police announced.
The forensics team was already working in the rough terrain south of Rostock on Tuesday. The investigators are assuming a criminal offense. "According to the current state of the investigation, it can be assumed that someone else was responsible," the police and public prosecutor's office jointly announced.
Days of searching for a "needle in a haystack"
The search for the boy in and around Güstrow lasted for days. According to the police, the primary school pupil had left school early on Thursday last week. On Friday, he was allowed to stay at home due to feeling unwell. According to the police, he was alone there and his mother was at work.
Fabian therefore had permission to go out. It had been generally agreed with his mother what time he had to be home in the evening. When he was not at home at this time, the mother initially tried to find the boy herself. She finally reported him missing at around 8.30 pm. According to the police, the boy was considered reliable and not a runaway.
It was initially assumed that the boy had wanted to go to his father's house on the day he disappeared. According to the police, sniffer dogs had tracked the boy to the Güstrow bus station. At a bus stop near Zehna, where the father lives, the dog started up again, it was reported at the weekend. The dog found a scent there, which then got lost in the nearby forest.
What the police did
Numerous emergency services searched for Fabian by helicopter, with dogs and boats. Police officers had gone from door to door, searching demolished houses and commercial premises in Güstrow and the surrounding area.
On Monday alone, 200 officers were deployed. A police spokeswoman spoke of a "needle in a haystack". The police lacked concrete evidence. The search was partly based on the principle of exclusion.
On Monday evening, several sniffer dogs independently searched the island lake south of Güstrow. After that, all eyes turned to the water.
The search, which was interrupted in the evening due to darkness, was continued on Tuesday morning by the Rostock fire department and divers. The firefighters searched hundreds of meters, sometimes densely overgrown and with a wide belt of reeds, with a sonar device, from the shore in waders and under water - with no results.
Stroller finds the body of a child
Then came the shocking news: according to a police spokesman, a walker who had found the child's body in a forest near Klein Upahl, southwest of Güstrow, came forward this morning. The police and several media representatives gathered there on Tuesday. However, access to the discovery site was cordoned off - also because special dogs were to be used.
How the boy presumably got into the forest, why he didn't have his cell phone with him - many questions remain unanswered. "We are at the very beginning," said Harald Nowack, press spokesman for the Rostock public prosecutor's office, to the German Press Agency.
Funeral service planned
After the disappearance, the mother made a video appeal to her son. "Mom just wants you to come home," the audibly distraught woman said in the recording shared on Facebook. According to the police and public prosecutor's office, she is now being cared for by specially trained medical staff - as is the father.
The mayor of Güstrow expressed his dismay at the discovery of the body. "The people of Güstrow are horrified, stunned and saddened," Sascha Zimmermann (FDP) was quoted as saying in a statement. His thoughts are with the family and relatives. "I would like to thank the emergency services and all the helpers for their tireless search. Güstrow must now stick together!"
According to him, a funeral service was planned for Tuesday evening in Güstrow's St. Mary's parish church.
