Overview
- Sandra Wißmann, then 12, left home in Berlin-Kreuzberg on 28 November 2000 to buy a gift and was last seen between about 16:30 and 17:00 on Kottbusser Damm before her trail ended toward Planufer and Admiralbrücke.
- Police formally re-raised the case in a national campaign and featured it on ZDF’s Aktenzeichen XY on Wednesday, August 19, 2026 to solicit new eyewitness accounts from people who were in the area at the time.
- Investigators are pressing a specific lead: an unknown man described as in his late 30s, about 1.60 m tall, stocky, with short dark hair and a brown leather jacket who reportedly tried to engage a girl near Kottbusser Damm by asking her to hold a spirit level.
- The LKA Berlin and the Bundeskriminalamt have offered a €5,000 reward for information and ask anyone who was a child or adolescent in Kreuzberg in late 2000 to report memories or similar encounters to the fifth homicide commission.
- Police note the original probe was limited by the lack of mobile phones and few camera recordings in 2000 and say modern forensic tools plus nationwide publicity have in other cases produced actionable tips that could finally give Sandra’s family clarity.