July 8, 2026
398: The Death of Frauke Leibs
One of Germany's most bizarre mysteries unfolds in 2006.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am still alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is Ghost Town.
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[SPEAKER_00]: June 20, 2006 was a warm summer night in Paderborn, a northwestern city in Central Germany.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the FIFA World Cup, and the streets were crowded, beer was flowing, and the local Germans cheered on their favorite teams.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do I sound like a sports fan?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean to say that this small city was a buzz with activity, and among them a 21-year-old named Frouca Leaves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca, a nursing student, was out and about with some of her friends at an Irish pub to watch a match between Sweden and England.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But in just a matter of hours, the night would turn quickly, igniting a confounding mystery stoked by many ominous calls from the victim herself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: calls with seemingly no motivation, no reason, but perhaps we're laid in with hidden clues, cries, and turns of phrases that would haunt pattern-born for decades to come.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Dan Ghost town, the death of Frauka, leaves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing unusual about Fracolib's evening, really.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a gaggle of young, early, 20-something-limin' enjoying the world cup.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At a certain point, Fracobaro, to friends mobile phone battery, as her own phone was dying, like, again, also not unusual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: again, also not unusual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But around 11pm, she returned the phone battery and wrapped the night up, saying goodbye to her friends and presumably walking to her home, which was less than a mile away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca lived with a roommate while training as a nurse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She trained at the local St. Vincent's hospital.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was known to friends and colleagues as being kind, friendly, and dependable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At 1249 AM, her roommate received a text message from Frogless Phone, coming home later it said.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, nothing unusual really at all, and yet there were already some red flags.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If she left at 11pm, the text came in nearly two hours later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, again, the roommate didn't know about this per se, but what happened in that window of time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hours after that, Fraucca's roommate woke up again, and found that she still wasn't home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He called her phone, but it was off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He thought perhaps Fraucca's phone battery had died, but of course at this point, concern was growing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca leaves did not return home that night, and when she also failed to appear at the hospital the day after her mother reported her missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The police first looked at the ominous text to her roommate, the last point of contact between Fruca and the outside world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Looking into Fruca's phone communications, they discovered that the text message had been sent not from somewhere local, but from Nyheim, a small city about 20 miles north east of
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the phone at Frouca Leap's house rang.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a call from Frouca's cell phone number.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her roommate answered, and for a moment, there was a sense of relief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fine, she said calmly, don't worry, I'll be home soon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you, her roommate asked?
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[SPEAKER_00]: In a calm tone she responded, I'm in patternborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then the line went dead.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As you might imagine, the call that began as Colming had the opposite effect by its conclusion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Two minutes after that call, Frouca's brother called her number.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She picked up but no information was exchanged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On June 24th, 2006 at 222pm, Frouca's roommate got yet another call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca said, I'm back home today afternoon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still in powderborne.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, you'll have to realize two that these are translations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, something might be lost in translation, but we'll get the touch points of how people debate these calls and dissect them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In any case, the terrified roommate responded, are you hurt?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca replied, no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next day at 11.25 pm, Fralka called her roommate yet again, and these are on landline calls as far as my research reveals it was that interesting time in 2006 where people had landlines, but they also had cell phones, people were communicating in both ways, and it was kind of harder to record these calls as they came in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca said, on that call, I will be back home today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her roommate, still alarmed, asked, are you in any danger?
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[SPEAKER_00]: She replied, no, her roommate asked another question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who is with you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca responded, I will explain it to you later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The tone of these calls were calm and controlled, almost robotic or rehearsed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the background, there is nothing to discern where a fracomite bee, no ambient sounds, no voices, nothing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just in eerie silence, as if she were maybe in some kind of enclosed or isolated space.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Police traced each call to different industrial sites around Paderborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody reported seeing anything unusual around these areas.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A couple days later, on June 28th, 2006, it's almost midnight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca lives calls her home yet again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This time, Frouca's sister is there and contributes to the conversation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a transcript that I will be reading a transcript and a translation I should again add of the conversation posted on the Facebook group, True Crime Missing Murdered and Unsolved, between these three individuals, Frouca, her sister, and her roommate.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Chrissy, I'm fine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why isn't that possible?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you being held against your will?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you scared?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who is with you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you tired?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Very tired.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know police are searching for you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you know this from?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I am missing for one week now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you missing?
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know why Chris?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No I do not.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did you meet some new guy?
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know I wouldn't go missing for this long just because of a guy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Karen is with me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're all very worried.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our mom and dad with you too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were but left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tell them I do really love them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When will you come back?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why aren't you coming back if you told me you were coming back today?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I will explain it to you later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Should I get you somewhere?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, this is not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mama.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When do you call again?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know yet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please, just call once a day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did that the other days before, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was really sad that you didn't call yesterday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've been sad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can you give care on the phone?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't ask me questions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you afraid of coming home?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We will leave your house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one will ask you anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am still alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with one single person or more?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask me, please.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I miss you a lot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could be with you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Call once a day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I will.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I've heard in some different places that the roommate was a male.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Other places that it was female.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In this transcript, the roommate is Karen and the sister's Chrissy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the two people that are asking questions of Frouca, which you can probably discern from the conversation itself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, her voice was weak, sounding tired.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After the call ended, it was and would be dissected a million times over in all of its mystery and alarm and nuance.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This call was truly a turning point because after it, nobody would hear from Frouca lives again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I should say the case was far from over, more after this break.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On October 4th, 2006, four months after 21-year-old Frouca Labs went missing and began mysteriously calling her roommate and family, a hunter stumbled upon skeletal remains in a wooded area near the small town of Lichtenau, about 12 miles from Patterborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca was found wearing the clothes she went missing in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Jeans, a red top, and white sneakers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, her purse cell phone watch and wallet were missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The medical examiner could not determine a clear cause of death because of the advanced decomposition, but evidence suggested she had stayed alive for several days, which of course was corroborated by the phone calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A case analysis by the police came to the conclusion that Lebes was probably held captive in the area, but there was no clear motive for why this was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Over 900 people who are connected to Lebes were questioned by the police and the investigation produced a list of five initial suspects.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yet all five of these suspects were eventually cleared and their alibi as their alibi is checked out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After that, the case went cold.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But even today there is much theorizing and conversation, of course, surrounding frauca leaves search for justice, surrounding frauca leaves case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Most people believe frauca was abducted and held for about a week.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her captor or captors were likely familiar with the area, and knew enough to move her
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[SPEAKER_00]: The phone calls of course corroborate this and the information that we're getting from her tech and where she was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's the matter of how she died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Forensic experts have discussed that the 21 year old may have been left to starve in one of the spaces.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her body moved out after her death.
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[SPEAKER_00]: or this is also heartbreaking as if all of this wasn't right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She may have been released shortly before her death or abandoned in a new place where her captors knew that she wouldn't be able to survive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Disoriented, dehydrated and weakened in the woods or on a country road, it would explain whether there's no clear crime scene where she was found.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, the how is the why?
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[SPEAKER_00]: For the why, why someone would do this and ultimate motive, we have to look towards the calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our only real window into what was going on in her around her to her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps Frouca leaves was drugged or sedated to make her movable, compliant, and eerily calm on these calls, traces of such substances would have been undetectable months later because of the body's state of decay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The calls, also, hopefully, might give us clues as to who her captors were.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did they allow her to make calls to toy with her loved ones?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a calculated attempt to also mess with the police, a kind of cat and mouse game?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the perpetrator enjoyed torturing her, deciding when she could call and what exactly she could say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was no talk of ransom as calls like this would usually point to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They usually have a purpose of some sort.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a stalker, a serial killer?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Many people wonder if Fralco was leaving small clues in her calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of the crux of the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What people sink their
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what people flag about her calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They flagged the longer a mark on her last call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The, no, you know I wouldn't stay away from home for a week for a guy, again, rough translation, as pointing to her capter, not being a man, but a woman, or at least led by a woman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of some people think a clue on her behalf to point people in a direction where they could get at least some details about who had her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as you've experienced, the rest of the calls are really cryptic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't get that much from them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is another detail that I'll talk about a little bit later because it became a break in the case, a very recent break in the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, most people believed that she was
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[SPEAKER_00]: and who that is, we might never know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that they were present.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were present while she was making those calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was on edge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was perhaps drugged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was conscious of someone around her who she could not cross.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or she was pushing the line of crossing perhaps and getting reprimanded for it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, also a very dark idea to think about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In December 2019, the Bella Field Criminal Police, the Regional Investigative Unit Responsible for Patterborn, confirmed that the case would be added to a new cold case database being developed by the State Criminal Police Office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This statewide database collects all unsolved homicides in the region, so investigators can search for patterns and re-examine evidence, using updated forensic methods like modern DNA.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a hopeful aspect that might
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there was a reward offered initially of 7,500 euros, that's about 8,000 US dollars and in July 2020 authorities raised the public reward for information leading to the killer's arrest from that to a total of 30,000 euros, roughly 32,000 US dollars probably more.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The increase was made possible through a private donation from an anonymous support person.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This donor also helped create an official website dedicated to the case where citizens could safely submit tips or information.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This added resource revitalized the case in a way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and the site noted that part of the reward, the portion offered by the Libes family and their close supporters, I'm not sure exactly what portion that was, would remain valid only until October 4th, 2023, the anniversary of the discovery of Frauca's remains.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now it was open and on October 4th, 2023 it did, unfortunately, close.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it spurred new searches, conducted around Patterborn, and looked to now to know a veil, but people were at least doing some work to try to further any information in the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in 2025, new information emerged, at least knew to us the public.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please share that Frauka's phone last pinged off a cell tower in an industrial area of Patterborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right near the tower is a company called Inginhag Auto Vermittong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Inga is a short form, a nickname for Ingrid, and Frauka's mom is named Ingrid.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, again, I don't know if they had this information before, that was just released or they had the technology and made the connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But basically, the theory is that maybe when Frauka ominously repeated mama three times, she was actually hinting at this company, or perhaps her killer held or transported her in one of their cars.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no proof of this of course, but at this point, online sleuths are grasping at any new connections that could, or
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[SPEAKER_00]: A new theory also emerged, some wondered if there was actually a captor at all, that maybe Fruity Leaves had a nervous breakdown causing her tragic end.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This would account for the kind of non-descript movement from place to place, the isolation, the calls that shared some information that didn't quite make sense, but not a ton, and perhaps even the sound of her voice.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly 20 years later, the murder of frauca leaves remains one of Germany's most puzzling and haunting unsolved cases, a cold case that thankfully continues to get attention from the public and area investigators, along with the remote, but still present hope that the case might get some closure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every June around the date of her disappearance, Candles are lit in downtown
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca leaves photo hangs in police stations, and in homes of those who knew her, a reminder of young woman whose final days are not only tragic, but eerily confounding, cryptic, and of course, yet unexplained.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am still alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jason Horton.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Rebecca Leib.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is Ghost Town.
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[SPEAKER_00]: June 20, 2006 was a warm summer night in Paderborn, a northwestern city in Central Germany.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the FIFA World Cup, and the streets were crowded, beer was flowing, and the local Germans cheered on their favorite teams.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do I sound like a sports fan?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean to say that this small city was a buzz with activity, and among them a 21-year-old named Frouca Leaves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca, a nursing student, was out and about with some of her friends at an Irish pub to watch a match between Sweden and England.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But in just a matter of hours, the night would turn quickly, igniting a confounding mystery stoked by many ominous calls from the victim herself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: calls with seemingly no motivation, no reason, but perhaps we're laid in with hidden clues, cries, and turns of phrases that would haunt pattern-born for decades to come.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Dan Ghost town, the death of Frauka, leaves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing unusual about Fracolib's evening, really.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a gaggle of young, early, 20-something-limin' enjoying the world cup.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At a certain point, Fracobaro, to friends mobile phone battery, as her own phone was dying, like, again, also not unusual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: again, also not unusual.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But around 11pm, she returned the phone battery and wrapped the night up, saying goodbye to her friends and presumably walking to her home, which was less than a mile away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca lived with a roommate while training as a nurse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She trained at the local St. Vincent's hospital.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was known to friends and colleagues as being kind, friendly, and dependable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At 1249 AM, her roommate received a text message from Frogless Phone, coming home later it said.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, nothing unusual really at all, and yet there were already some red flags.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If she left at 11pm, the text came in nearly two hours later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, again, the roommate didn't know about this per se, but what happened in that window of time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hours after that, Fraucca's roommate woke up again, and found that she still wasn't home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He called her phone, but it was off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He thought perhaps Fraucca's phone battery had died, but of course at this point, concern was growing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca leaves did not return home that night, and when she also failed to appear at the hospital the day after her mother reported her missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The police first looked at the ominous text to her roommate, the last point of contact between Fruca and the outside world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Looking into Fruca's phone communications, they discovered that the text message had been sent not from somewhere local, but from Nyheim, a small city about 20 miles north east of
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the phone at Frouca Leap's house rang.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a call from Frouca's cell phone number.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her roommate answered, and for a moment, there was a sense of relief.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fine, she said calmly, don't worry, I'll be home soon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you, her roommate asked?
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[SPEAKER_00]: In a calm tone she responded, I'm in patternborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then the line went dead.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As you might imagine, the call that began as Colming had the opposite effect by its conclusion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Two minutes after that call, Frouca's brother called her number.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She picked up but no information was exchanged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On June 24th, 2006 at 222pm, Frouca's roommate got yet another call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca said, I'm back home today afternoon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still in powderborne.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, you'll have to realize two that these are translations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, something might be lost in translation, but we'll get the touch points of how people debate these calls and dissect them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In any case, the terrified roommate responded, are you hurt?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca replied, no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The next day at 11.25 pm, Fralka called her roommate yet again, and these are on landline calls as far as my research reveals it was that interesting time in 2006 where people had landlines, but they also had cell phones, people were communicating in both ways, and it was kind of harder to record these calls as they came in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca said, on that call, I will be back home today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her roommate, still alarmed, asked, are you in any danger?
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[SPEAKER_00]: She replied, no, her roommate asked another question.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who is with you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca responded, I will explain it to you later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The tone of these calls were calm and controlled, almost robotic or rehearsed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the background, there is nothing to discern where a fracomite bee, no ambient sounds, no voices, nothing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just in eerie silence, as if she were maybe in some kind of enclosed or isolated space.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Police traced each call to different industrial sites around Paderborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody reported seeing anything unusual around these areas.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A couple days later, on June 28th, 2006, it's almost midnight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca lives calls her home yet again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This time, Frouca's sister is there and contributes to the conversation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is a transcript that I will be reading a transcript and a translation I should again add of the conversation posted on the Facebook group, True Crime Missing Murdered and Unsolved, between these three individuals, Frouca, her sister, and her roommate.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello Chrissy, I'm fine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why isn't that possible?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you being held against your will?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you scared?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who is with you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you tired?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Very tired.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know police are searching for you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you know this from?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I am missing for one week now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you missing?
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know why Chris?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No I do not.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did you meet some new guy?
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know I wouldn't go missing for this long just because of a guy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Karen is with me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're all very worried.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our mom and dad with you too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were but left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Tell them I do really love them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When will you come back?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why aren't you coming back if you told me you were coming back today?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I will explain it to you later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Should I get you somewhere?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, this is not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mama.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When do you call again?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know yet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please, just call once a day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did that the other days before, too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was really sad that you didn't call yesterday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know you've been sad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can you give care on the phone?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't ask me questions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you afraid of coming home?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We will leave your house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one will ask you anything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just come home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is not possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am still alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with one single person or more?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Don't ask me, please.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I miss you a lot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could be with you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Call once a day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I will.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I've heard in some different places that the roommate was a male.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Other places that it was female.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In this transcript, the roommate is Karen and the sister's Chrissy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the two people that are asking questions of Frouca, which you can probably discern from the conversation itself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, her voice was weak, sounding tired.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After the call ended, it was and would be dissected a million times over in all of its mystery and alarm and nuance.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This call was truly a turning point because after it, nobody would hear from Frouca lives again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I should say the case was far from over, more after this break.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On October 4th, 2006, four months after 21-year-old Frouca Labs went missing and began mysteriously calling her roommate and family, a hunter stumbled upon skeletal remains in a wooded area near the small town of Lichtenau, about 12 miles from Patterborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Frouca was found wearing the clothes she went missing in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Jeans, a red top, and white sneakers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, her purse cell phone watch and wallet were missing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The medical examiner could not determine a clear cause of death because of the advanced decomposition, but evidence suggested she had stayed alive for several days, which of course was corroborated by the phone calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A case analysis by the police came to the conclusion that Lebes was probably held captive in the area, but there was no clear motive for why this was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Over 900 people who are connected to Lebes were questioned by the police and the investigation produced a list of five initial suspects.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yet all five of these suspects were eventually cleared and their alibi as their alibi is checked out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After that, the case went cold.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But even today there is much theorizing and conversation, of course, surrounding frauca leaves search for justice, surrounding frauca leaves case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Most people believe frauca was abducted and held for about a week.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her captor or captors were likely familiar with the area, and knew enough to move her
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[SPEAKER_00]: The phone calls of course corroborate this and the information that we're getting from her tech and where she was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's the matter of how she died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Forensic experts have discussed that the 21 year old may have been left to starve in one of the spaces.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her body moved out after her death.
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[SPEAKER_00]: or this is also heartbreaking as if all of this wasn't right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She may have been released shortly before her death or abandoned in a new place where her captors knew that she wouldn't be able to survive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Disoriented, dehydrated and weakened in the woods or on a country road, it would explain whether there's no clear crime scene where she was found.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, the how is the why?
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[SPEAKER_00]: For the why, why someone would do this and ultimate motive, we have to look towards the calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Our only real window into what was going on in her around her to her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps Frouca leaves was drugged or sedated to make her movable, compliant, and eerily calm on these calls, traces of such substances would have been undetectable months later because of the body's state of decay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The calls, also, hopefully, might give us clues as to who her captors were.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did they allow her to make calls to toy with her loved ones?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a calculated attempt to also mess with the police, a kind of cat and mouse game?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the perpetrator enjoyed torturing her, deciding when she could call and what exactly she could say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was no talk of ransom as calls like this would usually point to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They usually have a purpose of some sort.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a stalker, a serial killer?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Many people wonder if Fralco was leaving small clues in her calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is kind of the crux of the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What people sink their
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what people flag about her calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They flagged the longer a mark on her last call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The, no, you know I wouldn't stay away from home for a week for a guy, again, rough translation, as pointing to her capter, not being a man, but a woman, or at least led by a woman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of some people think a clue on her behalf to point people in a direction where they could get at least some details about who had her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as you've experienced, the rest of the calls are really cryptic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We don't get that much from them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is another detail that I'll talk about a little bit later because it became a break in the case, a very recent break in the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, most people believed that she was
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[SPEAKER_00]: and who that is, we might never know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that they were present.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were present while she was making those calls.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was on edge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was perhaps drugged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was conscious of someone around her who she could not cross.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or she was pushing the line of crossing perhaps and getting reprimanded for it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Again, also a very dark idea to think about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In December 2019, the Bella Field Criminal Police, the Regional Investigative Unit Responsible for Patterborn, confirmed that the case would be added to a new cold case database being developed by the State Criminal Police Office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This statewide database collects all unsolved homicides in the region, so investigators can search for patterns and re-examine evidence, using updated forensic methods like modern DNA.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a hopeful aspect that might
13:59.315 --> 14:15.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there was a reward offered initially of 7,500 euros, that's about 8,000 US dollars and in July 2020 authorities raised the public reward for information leading to the killer's arrest from that to a total of 30,000 euros, roughly 32,000 US dollars probably more.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The increase was made possible through a private donation from an anonymous support person.
14:24.531 --> 14:31.438
[SPEAKER_00]: This donor also helped create an official website dedicated to the case where citizens could safely submit tips or information.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This added resource revitalized the case in a way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and the site noted that part of the reward, the portion offered by the Libes family and their close supporters, I'm not sure exactly what portion that was, would remain valid only until October 4th, 2023, the anniversary of the discovery of Frauca's remains.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now it was open and on October 4th, 2023 it did, unfortunately, close.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it spurred new searches, conducted around Patterborn, and looked to now to know a veil, but people were at least doing some work to try to further any information in the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in 2025, new information emerged, at least knew to us the public.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please share that Frauka's phone last pinged off a cell tower in an industrial area of Patterborn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right near the tower is a company called Inginhag Auto Vermittong.
15:26.755 --> 15:32.322
[SPEAKER_00]: Inga is a short form, a nickname for Ingrid, and Frauka's mom is named Ingrid.
15:32.782 --> 15:38.683
[SPEAKER_00]: So, again, I don't know if they had this information before, that was just released or they had the technology and made the connection.
15:39.404 --> 15:50.926
[SPEAKER_00]: But basically, the theory is that maybe when Frauka ominously repeated mama three times, she was actually hinting at this company, or perhaps her killer held or transported her in one of their cars.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no proof of this of course, but at this point, online sleuths are grasping at any new connections that could, or
16:03.550 --> 16:13.056
[SPEAKER_00]: A new theory also emerged, some wondered if there was actually a captor at all, that maybe Fruity Leaves had a nervous breakdown causing her tragic end.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This would account for the kind of non-descript movement from place to place, the isolation, the calls that shared some information that didn't quite make sense, but not a ton, and perhaps even the sound of her voice.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nearly 20 years later, the murder of frauca leaves remains one of Germany's most puzzling and haunting unsolved cases, a cold case that thankfully continues to get attention from the public and area investigators, along with the remote, but still present hope that the case might get some closure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Every June around the date of her disappearance, Candles are lit in downtown
16:53.573 --> 17:07.623
[SPEAKER_00]: Fruca leaves photo hangs in police stations, and in homes of those who knew her, a reminder of young woman whose final days are not only tragic, but eerily confounding, cryptic, and of course, yet unexplained.
