Sagsmappe
The Murder of Hanne With
Cold case får nyt liv efter 35 år
BEVIS
Hanne With was found murdered in her home in Randers in 1989 — a killing that was never solved, and that spent decades sitting quietly in police archives as one of East Jutland's most baffling cold cases. Now, more than 35 years after her death, the case has attracted renewed attention thanks to new technological capabilities and a fresh investigative push by Danish police.
A woman, a murder and no conviction
Hanne With was an ordinary Danish woman living in Randers when she lost her life in 1989 under circumstances that were never fully explained. Police opened an investigation at the time, interviewed witnesses and examined leads — but no one was ever charged, indicted or convicted of her murder. The case went cold, and Hanne With's family was left to live on with an open wound and unanswered questions about who killed her and why.
Timeline
1 January 1989
Hanne With findes dræbt
Hanne With bliver fundet dræbt i sit hjem i Randers. Politiet indleder efterforskning.
1 June 1989
Efterforskning indstilles
Politiet har afhørt vidner og undersøgt spor, men ingen mistænkte kan identificeres. Sagen lægges på is.
1 January 2010
Sagen gennemgås internt
Østjyllands Politi foretager en intern gennemgang af det foreliggende bevismateriale uden at nå et gennembrud.
1 January 2020
Ny DNA-teknologi tages i brug
Rigspolitiet etablerer kapacitet til avanceret retsgenetisk analyse, som åbner mulighed for at bearbejde gammelt bevismateriale fra sager som Hanne Withs.
1 March 2024
Sagen genoptages officielt
Østjyllands Politi bekræfter, at drabet på Hanne With er genoptaget som aktiv efterforskning. Offentligheden opfordres til at henvende sig med oplysninger.
Cases like this one — where the perpetrator is never identified — rank among the most devastating for those left behind. The absence of justice can in many instances compound grief and make it difficult to move forward. For Hanne With's family, the past several decades have been defined by precisely that uncertainty.
What reopens a cold case?
Resuming an old murder investigation requires, as a starting point, either new witness information, new technological capabilities or both. In Hanne With's case, a combination of advanced DNA analysis and a systematic review of old physical evidence has opened up possibilities that simply did not exist in 1989.
Modern forensic genetics can now extract and analyse DNA profiles from extremely small and degraded biological samples — traces that would have been unusable 35 years ago. Investigators can also draw on genealogical DNA databases, where volunteer family history researchers have submitted their profiles, a tool that has proven effective in solving unsolved murder cases around the world.