German prostitute serial killer found dead 02/07/2007 00:00

2 July 2007

BERLIN (AP) _ A German truck driver being held over the deaths of five prostitutes in Spain and France was found dead in his prison cell Monday after apparently committing suicide, prosecutors said.

The 48-year-old was found hanged at a prison in Bayreuth, prosecutors in nearby Hof said. ''The external circumstances point to suicide,'' said spokesman Gerhard Schmitt.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was arrested in November in Cologne on a warrant issued by Spanish authorities investigating the killing of a prostitute near Barcelona.

Prosecutors then said the man had confessed to killing five prostitutes _ three in Spain and two in France _ between 1999 and 2006.

He also told investigators that in 1974, at the age of 15, he killed a young woman in Plauen, just across Germany's former east-west border from Hof.

At the time, the case was registered in East Germany as a suicide.

DPA

Subject: German news