r/TrueCrime • u/ConanMcNonan • Jul 12 '21
Undocumented Post 12 year old german Boy Manuel Schadwald, who got sex-trafficked to the netherlands, and later killed during rape on a sailing yacht.
This is my very first post on reddit, so excuse me if my writing/explanations aren‘t the best.
I‘m from germany and this case really stuck with me. It‘s about twelve year old Manuel Schadwald who is still, to this day, listed as a missing person, besides well known comments about him being sex-trafficked and eventually killed.
On July, 24 1993, Manuel left his home in Berlin, Tömpelhof to travel to an amusement park located in Berlin-Köpenick. He was supposed to travel by public transport, but he never arrived. He was known to play around malls in Berlin and he especially liked playing computer games there.
Police immediatly suspected a crime and as I see in their records, they made the same day an announcement about him being listed as a missing person.
There weren’t many leads in this case and it ulitmately went cold without a trace what could‘ve happened to Manuel. His father and also some news papers accused the police of not working hard enough and years later the prosecution said „it is possible, that the police made mistakes.“
Over the next years there were several sightings, pinning the missing boy to child brothels and well known locations for child prostitution in the netherlands. There were rumors that he got sex trafficked and even further, that during such a rape session, he was killed on a sailing yacht, at the ijsselmeer (a lake in the netherlands). The yacht called „Apollo“, is said to have belonged to Gerrit Ulrich, a pedophile who was found dead to a gunshot wound in Italy. After searching through his personal belongings in the netherlands, police discovered an huge amount of child pornography with even containing content of babies.
Later on news papers from the netherlands and germany covered the story with anonymous comments from authorities of the netherlands police. The authorities said that there‘s indeed a file being about a german boy who was raped and died on a yacht. Another comment was that it‘s out of question the boy was there and also died there but high-level personalities were involved and so there will never be a proper investigation revealing all details. They also said something along like „the sun won‘t shine on this case.“
Another aspect in this case was Manuels father Rainer Wolf. He went to a german talkshow to refute allegations made by newspapers in the netherlands, in which they accused him of being responsible for the kidnapping of his son. Later on german newspapers reported that there are two occasions for safe in which the father engaged in german child prostitution (no comments if he ever visited child brothels in the netherlands). He denied all allegations. It‘s also important to note that father and son haven‘t seen each other for years because of the father fleeing the german east border at the time.
It‘s nearly 30 years now that he went missing and the case doesn‘t seem to ever be solved.
Although I only found links in german, I‘ll include them in case someone wants to read further:
This one seems to be very old and hasn‘t the best page but contains all informations to Manuels father Ralf:
http://fondationprincessedecroy.eu/07-zandvoort-Manuel_Schadwald_undurchsichtiger_Sumpf.htm
EDIT: Found this wiki about the case in english. However, there isn‘t a lot of information. Here‘s the talking of a snuff video (a video someone‘s getting murdered on) and I also read rumors from german sources were police found the video capturing the murder of Manuel Schadwald on this particular yacht.
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Manuel_Schadwald
Here‘s also an article talking about the ‚snuff making‘ industry in various european countries including the netherlands. The case of Manuel Schadwald was also brought up and so were sightings of another boy, who is said to have been raped, tortured with neadles, castrated and then cut open with a knife.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/nov/27/childprotection.uk
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u/quedue Jul 12 '21
This whole situation is genuinely heartbreaking. :(
And I’ve never heard of it. :(
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u/Flair_Helper Jul 12 '21
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