James Patrick Dempsey, 66, of Oneida, Madison County, New York, United States is a U.S. Army veteran. Between 1977 and 1978, he was stationed at a U.S. Army base in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
In 1978, Dempsey was discharged from the U.S. Army because of his alcohol problem and aggressive behavior. His fingerprints were taken and added in a database in the U.S. after he returned to the country and was arrested for driving under the influence and unauthorized use of a vehicle.
James Patrick Dempsey
Between June 8, 1978 and June 11, 1978, Dempsey allegedly sexually assaulted and fatally stabbed Bärbel Gansau in her apartment in Ludwigsburg. She had 37 stab wounds. She was 35.
Gansau frequently went to clubs for soldiers stationed at the U.S. Army base in Ludwigsburg where Dempsey was stationed. He was not among the soldiers who were investigated after she was found dead.
Investigators collected fingerprints from the soldiers whom Gansau knew. All of them had an alibi. No suspect was identified. The case went cold.
In 2020, the investigation was reopened. Fingerprints collected from the crime scene were compared with a database in the U.S. A match was found in Dempsey.
In 2021, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents pulled trash from Dempsey’s residence in Oneida and found material to test for a deoxyribonucleic acid match. The DNA matched a semen sample found on Gansau and on her bed sheets, German investigators confirmed in 2022.
On February 13, 2024, Dempsey was arrested. While waiting for his extradition to Germany, he is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Oneida, New York
Home to roughly 10,000 residents, Oneida covers approximately 22 square miles. The city derives its name from the Indigenous Oneida people (Onyota’a:ka, meaning “People of the Standing Stone”), one of the founding nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy whose ancestral homelands surrounded nearby Oneida Lake.
In the mid-19th century, the area gained national prominence as the site of the Oneida Community, a perfectionist commune established in 1848. The group practiced communal living and manufacturing, producing silk, canned goods, and silverware. Facing internal and external pressures, the community voted to abandon its communal lifestyle in late 1880, formally reorganizing its assets into a joint-stock corporation on January 1, 1881. This enterprise, known as Oneida Community, Limited (later Oneida Limited), grew into a world-famous flatware manufacturer.
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