'DNA bungle' haunts German police

Police in Germany have admitted that a woman they have been hunting for more than 15 years never in fact existed.

Dubbed the "phantom of Heilbronn", the woman was described by police as the country's most dangerous woman.

Investigators had connected her to six murders and an unsolved death based on DNA traces found at the scene.

Police now acknowledge swabs used to collect DNA samples were contaminated by an innocent woman working in a factory in Bavaria.

'Serial killer'

Police suspected the unnamed woman of being a serial killer who over 16 years carried out a string of six murders, including strangling a pensioner.

She was alternatively called the "woman without a face" and the "phantom of Heilbronn" after the city in southern Germany where she allegedly killed a policewoman.

Police suspicions were based on traces of identical female DNA they found at 40 crime scenes across southern Germany and Austria.

After finding her DNA at the scene of the murder of a 22-year policewoman from Heilbronn in 2007, police offered a 300,000 euro reward for information leading to...