The Discovery of Human Remains at Zeißstraße was the turning point that exposed the killings hidden at Zeißstraße 74. During firefighting on July 17, 1975, firefighters found body parts in a side space beneath the attic roof; what they uncovered pointed to homicide and quickly focused suspicion on night watchman Fritz Honka.

Discovery during firefighting

The remains came to light in the course of firefighting, not during a search for a suspected killer. Their location in the attic’s side space transformed an otherwise practical operation into the discovery of evidence of a violent crime. The finding established that the matter was not an accident or an unexplained disappearance: the body parts indicated a homicide.

Suspicion and confession

Suspicion soon centered on the forty-year-old Fritz Honka, a night watchman. He initially remained silent for days. On July 29, 1975, in questioning by criminal investigators Peter Seeler and Hans-Peter Untermann, he finally confessed to the murders. The interval between discovery and confession marks the event’s immediate investigative course: physical evidence first exposed the crime, and questioning then brought Honka’s admission.

From hidden crime to public case

The discovery made the killings a matter of investigation and, ultimately, of criminal proceedings. Its consequences extended beyond identifying a suspect. In the legal context that followed, Honka’s defense became part of a wider dispute about whether a sexually deviant offender should be treated as criminally responsible or as ill and in need of psychiatric care. The prominent defense attorney Rolf Bossi, who had previously helped provoke that debate through his defense of Jürgen Bartsch, took on Honka’s case only three weeks before the trial began. The remains found during firefighting thus mark the point at which concealed violence entered both the investigative record and a contested public discussion of criminal responsibility.