Semen traces discovered on the clothing of a 40-year-old school teacher who was raped and murdered in Amager Fælled in 1990 is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, Marcel Lychau Hansen’s, said prosecutor Anne Birgitte Stürup in Copenhagen City Court last week on Thursday.
Hansen, who has been identified as the ‘Amager Attacker’, is charged with two murders and multiple violent rapes and attempted rapes that took place around Copenhagen between 1987 and 2010.
On Thursday last week the prosecutor told the court that DNA found on the clothing on Rasmussen’s murdered body was a 99.99999 match to Hansen – it just took investigators 20 years to realise it.
Hansen showed few emotions as the prosecutor showed the court pictures of RasmussenÂ’s body, her autopsy, and the murder scene. Bruises on her neck, head, and body indicated that she had fought desperately for her life.
On the afternoon of 29 August 1990, Rasmussen, an avid bird watcher, left a note for her boyfriend that she was cycling out to Amager Fælled to look for an eagle she had seen there a few days earlier. The note said she would be back around 6pm.
When that time came and went and Rasmussen failed to return, her boyfriend took some friends and went out to look for her. They could not find her and alerted police that she was missing. An intense search with helicopters and dogs ensued for days, until helicopters spotted her abandoned bicycle.
On September 3, RasmussenÂ’s bruised and strangled body was found hidden in some thick bushes and covered with branches in Fasanskoven, just 50 metres from where her bicycle was discovered. Her sweater had been tied around her neck and pulled over her face.
Medical examiners found traces of semen on Rasmussen’s clothing, but were unable to match it to a suspect for more than 20 years. Then, in 2010, a 17-year-old girl was violently raped in an allotment in Amager. Near the scene of her rape, police found a used condom. DNA from the semen in the condom matched the DNA from the semen on Rasmussen’s clothing. And both DNA samples are a 1:1,000,000 match for Hansen, Stürup told the court.
The prosecutor also presented evidence on Thursday showing a handprint found in the apartment of a young woman who was raped for over two hours in her college dormitory in Amager in 2005. The handprint matches HansenÂ’s hand, said the prosecutor.
On December 9, a DNA expert will testify regarding all the DNA evidence.
HansenÂ’s trial began on November 2 will continue until late December at Copenhagen City Court. More than 50 witnesses, including several of HansenÂ’s alleged rape victims, are scheduled to testify.
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