Unknown woman found in Wassenaar identified after 21 years
After more than 21 years, a deceased woman whose identity had so far been unknown was finally identified. The woman in question is Eva Maria Pommer from Germany, who was 35 years old when she died. She was found on 4 July 2004 in the dunes near Wassenaar (the Netherlands) and was finally given her name back. Eva Maria Pommer is the fourth woman who could be identified thanks to the Identify Me campaign. Stichting Coldcasezaken, a private foundation that aims to solve cold cases, played an important role in discovering her identity. The golden tip-off came in through this foundation.
Since her body was found in the dunes near Wassenaar on 4 July 2004, local police, later joined by the Cold Case and Missing Persons Team of the The Hague Police Unit, have been trying to establish her identity. These efforts included investigating the site where the body was found, investigating the victim’s body itself, showing her clothing on investigation TV programmes, conducting isotope analysis, and checking all potential traces. Early on in the investigation, strong indications were found pointing in the direction of Germany. For example, she was wearing clothes that were mainly sold there. In addition, one of the keys in a bunch of keys that was found near the woman could be linked to the German city of Bottrop, not far from the Dutch border. As an archive had been lost in a fire, however, it was impossible to link the key to a specific address.
Identify Me
In October 2024, the Netherlands Police, in cooperation with Interpol and five neighbouring countries, organized the second Identify Me campaign. (*) The campaign featured the publication of a list of cases in which the victim’s identity is unknown. As part of the campaign, well-known women from the participating countries stood up for the victims. Identify Me allows people from all over the world to think along about the identity of women whose names are unknown and who lost their lives as a result of crime or who were found under suspect circumstances. In the campaign, the case was referred to as “The woman with the German keys”. The campaign generated a lot of attention for the case in the Dutch Opsporing Verzocht investigation TV programme and last January also in its German counterpart Aktenzeichen XY Ungelöst. The link to Bottrop was emphasized in both programmes.
Tip-offs
Hundreds of tip-offs about the case came in. Thanks to these new leads and subsequent police investigations, the key could finally be linked to a number of potential addresses in the Bottrop region. While German and Dutch police were checking this information, the Dutch cold case foundation received a very interesting lead about a German woman who was said to have been missing for some twenty years. After conducting its own investigation, the foundation shared their information with the police. This information matched the lead the police were already following up in Bottrop, which caused the investigation to accelerate. DNA tests performed by the Netherlands Forensic Institute have now established that the woman is indeed Eva Maria Pommer from Germany.
New questions to the public
Now the victim has been given her name back, police in the Netherlands and Germany also want to find out how the woman ended up dead in the dunes near Wassenaar on 4 July 2004. That is why the police request everybody to think back to the summer of 2004 in conjunction with the name Eva Maria Pommer. The woman may have stayed at a hotel or a recreation park at the time, she may have been in contact with people in the region or beyond in the period before her death. If you have any information, please contact the police using the contact details below.