Investigators Probing Whether Accused Killer Had German Victims With AM-Body Parts, Bjt

BONN, Germany (AP) _ Police across Germany on Friday reopened files of unsolved murders and disappearances, seeking possible links to an accused mass killer in Milwaukee who served with the U.S. Army here.

Jeffrey L. Dahmer, 31, was an Army medic in Germany more than 10 years ago. He has been charged with four counts of first-degree homicide in the mutilations of male victims in his Milwaukee apartment. But authorities believe he is responsible for killing a total of 17 men and boys over the past 10 years and say more charges are likely.

Police in Milwaukee said many of the male victims had been sexually assaulted. Severed heads and limbs were found throughout Dahmer’s apartment.

Dahmer was stationed from July 1979 to March 1981 with the 68th Armored Regiment in Baumholder in central Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state, where officials say five unsolved murder cases were being re-examined to seek any connection to Dahmer.

But four of the five murder victims were women, and no links to Dahmer have been made, said Christiana Kleinschmidt, a federal police spokeswoman in Wiesbaden.

In addition, federal authorities said they were reviewing all cases of unidentified male murder victims or missing men during the time Dahmer was in Germany.

″We have no concrete information for the time being,″ said Willi Fundermann, the federal police spokesman. ″But we are investigating.″

U.S. military criminal investigators, meanwhile, are reviewing unsolved killings during the time Dahmer was in the army, said Millie Waters, an army spokeswoman in Heidelberg.

Dahmer had no previous military criminal record in Germany, she said.

Dahmer joined the Army in 1978 after dropping out of Ohio State University. He was discharged from service early because of alcohol problems, said his stepmother, Shari Dahmer.

Hermann Hillebrand, chief prosecutor in Bad Kreuznach, about 50 miles east of Baumholder, said his office was investigating one of the five unsolved murders - the 1980 slaying of a 22-year-old female hitchhiker.

The body of Erika Handschuh was found in a nearby forest on Nov. 30, 1980, Hillebrand said. She had been strangled and stabbed once, but her body was not mutilated, he added.

″There are big differences in modus operandi, but that doesn’t exclude″ Dahmer, he said.