Ahhh so you want to know who “Mrs X” is. Who is the supposed “Phantom” who is one among the deadliest killers the world has ever seen? They tracked her down to be a factory worker. But there’s more to the story….

Looking back , there were a lot of red flags. She was a suspect in an array of crimes from theft to murder, but what would be the motive to do such random crimes? What’s more, in a few cases where her DNA was found, her supposed “accomplices” completely and genuinely denied her very existence. Furthermore, witnesses often claimed she looked like a man.

Finally, in 2009, they realised something was just not right. In order to identify a burned corpse, investigators had to check already recorded fingerprints. When they re-examined a male asylum seekers’s fingerprint, they found Her DNA again. Considering that the asylum seeker was a man, and Mrs. X was a female, they knew this was impossible. They repeated the test; this time with a different cotton swab. The result? No trace of Mrs. X’s DNA.

So what explains all of this? Mrs. X’s DNA might be traced to a single innocent factory worker, where the cotton swabs were made and packaged. While the sterilisation process of the cotton swabs removes bacteria and fungi, the DNA remains. And so while forensic scientist were finding Mrs. X’s DNa, what they didn’t realise was that it came from the cotton swab itself, not the crime scene.

While knowing this killer didn’t exist was a relief, it also meant that many cases were now back at square one, with hundreds of hours wasted on finding this Phantom. Not only did this mixup raise questions about the competence of the German Police force, but also the existing judicial system, where perhaps DNA evidence unfairly incriminates innocent people.

So The World’s Best Killer or a Phenomenal Blunder? – Now you know the answer.

🙂