On the afternoon of Nov. 3, 2026, a 27-year-old Gambian male migrant walked into a Hamburg police station claiming he wanted to report a woman with a bodily injury. Minutes later he guided officers to a nearby apartment building, where they found the body of a woman with her head cut off. He was arrested on the spot on suspicion of a homicide offense.
The Hamburg police report stated that the Gambian national appeared at a police station on Troplowitz Straße around 3:30 p.m.
He first said he wished to report for bodily harm. As officers accompanied him the short distance to a multi-family building on Grandweg in the Lokstedt district, he suddenly stated that a dead person was in one of the apartments.
Inside the second-floor unit of the seven-story building, officers discovered the woman’s body. The police report claimed that the officers found the woman with “injuries incompatible with life,” a convoluted way to describe the woman missing her head, which other news outlets reported on.
The 27-year-old African man was taken into provisional custody for suspected homicide and transported back to the station. Homicide detectives and a public prosecutor took over the investigation.
Police spokesman Sören Zimbal confirmed the core sequence to reporters. In comments cited by Bild, he stated: “A dead woman was discovered in an apartment. A homicide commission is on its way to the scene.”
Several German media outlets reported more graphic details based on their own information. Hamburger Morgenpost wrote that the body showed “signs of extreme violent impacts.” The paper added that the head had been cut off.
T-online also confirmed that the woman’s head had been separated from her body and a crime scene full of blood.
Media reports stated that there is no indication the man suffers from mental illness.
So far, the victim has not been named and it is unclear what her nationality is.
