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For sixteen years, police across Europe believed they were hunting a female serial killer — a phantom whose DNA appeared at dozens of crime scenes spanning multiple countries.
She had no face. No eyewitnesses. No motive.
Only certainty.
In this cinematic, third-person documentary episode, Matt and Gavin trace the rise of the Phantom of Heilbronn — from the first trace of DNA in a quiet German town, to the murder of a police officer, to the devastating discovery that the killer never existed at all.
What unfolds is not just a failure of evidence, but a cautionary tale about belief, institutional pressure, and the human cost of trusting science without questioning it.
This is not the story of a murderer. It is the story of how one was created.
By Gavin Sowden and Matt Lepore5
88 ratings
For sixteen years, police across Europe believed they were hunting a female serial killer — a phantom whose DNA appeared at dozens of crime scenes spanning multiple countries.
She had no face. No eyewitnesses. No motive.
Only certainty.
In this cinematic, third-person documentary episode, Matt and Gavin trace the rise of the Phantom of Heilbronn — from the first trace of DNA in a quiet German town, to the murder of a police officer, to the devastating discovery that the killer never existed at all.
What unfolds is not just a failure of evidence, but a cautionary tale about belief, institutional pressure, and the human cost of trusting science without questioning it.
This is not the story of a murderer. It is the story of how one was created.