On Feb. 13, 2024, James Patrick Dempsey was arrested in New York for the murder of Bärbel Gansau in 1978 in the German city of Ludwigsburg which is just north of Stuttgart where American soldiers are stationed.
The scene discovered by Gansau's friends when they entered her apartment on June 11, 1978, was horrific. Her body was prone on her bed, with pools of blood on the bedsheets and pillow. Blood and discharge were also found by police during a search, who also discovered her underwear beneath her remains, which had been cut off.
A publicly filed extradition document lays out the details of the case.
German police determined that she had been stabbed 37 times, after having been caught by surprise and was unable to defend herself. Three unique fingerprints were lifted from the scene at that time, but none of them matched her known associates. Friends and neighbors said that she used to frequent the American NCO club, and was known to the soldiers there.
She also would leave her bathroom window open so that her cats could come and go as they pleased. The first-floor window was visible from the sidewalk. With the front door found double locked, and a unique fingerprint found on the window frame it was clear that this was how the killer entered the premises.
Despite the evidence collected, the police had no leads to suspects and the case rested dormant until 2020 when he was reopened due to advances in forensic technology.
German police asked their FBI liaison in Berlin to run the fingerprint found on the window frame. It returned a match from an American law enforcement database. The print belonged to James Dempsey, who had served in the U.S. Army in Germany in the 34th Battalion when the murder occurred.
In 2021, FBI agents collected trash put out in front of Dempsey's residence in New York to gather DNA that could then be compared to skin and sperm samples recovered at the 1978 crime scene. The DNA matched.
United States Magistrate Judge Miroslav Lovric issued an arrest warrant for Dempsey in February of 2024, and he was taken into custody days later. He is currently awaiting extradition to Germany and is being held without bail.