New York Army Veteran Stabbed German Woman to Death in 1978, Prosecutors Say

James Patrick Dempsey is a former U.S. Army soldier who is accused of stabbing a German woman to death while stationed in that country in 1978.

An extradition request was filed February 13 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. It outlined the accusations against Dempsey, which say that DNA analysis connected him to the crime scene.

“Between June 8, 1978, and June 11, 1978, a 35-year-old woman named Bärbel Gansau . . . was murdered in her apartment in Ludwigsburg, Germany,” the court documents say. “She lived on the ground floor of her apartment building.”

The memo says that Dempsey was a soldier in the U.S. Army between November 1976 and December 1978. “He was stationed in Germany from late 1977 to late 1978 in Ludwigsburg as part of the 34th Battalion,” the memo says.

Today Dempsey is 66 years old and lives in Oneida, New York, according to Syracuse.com.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. The Court Documents Accuse James Patrick Dempsey, Who Became Aggressive When He Drank, of Stabbing Barbel Gansau 37 Times While She Was Asleep in Her Bed

GettyLudwigsburg, Germany.

According to the court memorandum, the victim’s apartment’s windows “were visible from a nearby sidewalk. The ledge of the window into the victim’s bathroom in the apartment was only 100 centimeters high (approximately 39 inches above the ground outside).”

Witnesses told investigators that Gansau “had a habit of leaving her bathroom window open to allow her cats to enter and leave the apartment freely.”

Forensic analysis “reflects that while Gansau was asleep in her bed, a perpetrator attacked her with a knife. The intruder stabbed the victim 37 times. The victim sustained injuries to her neck, left arm, right thumb, left leg, and right upper leg. The intruder also stabbed Gansau in the center of her chest, piercing her pericardium, which investigators regarded as the main cause of death. The nature of the wounds reflected that Gansau did not expect the attack and was unable to mount a defense against it.”

According to the memo, Army records “reflect that during his time in the Army, Dempsey developed a drinking problem and became aggressive under the influence of alcohol, resulting in alcohol rehabilitation for six days, beginning June 1, 1978, in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Dempsey was discharged from the Army in 1978. He continued to have problems with alcohol, including a
charge in the United States in 1979, for driving under the influence and unauthorized use of a vehicle.”
time.

2. Investigators Believe James Patrick Dempsey Entered the Victim’s Apartment Through a Bathroom Window

GettyLudwigsburg, Germany.

In 1978, a key piece of evidence was a fingerprint on the victim’s window frame, the memo says. It’s believed that the suspect entered the victim’s apartment through a bathroom window.

“Gansau’s neighbor in Ludwigsburg, Hugo Rehberg, together with the victim’s friend’s husband, Robert Burright, discovered the victim’s body,” the memo says. “The body was naked and prone diagonally on her bed, toward the foot of the bed,” it says.

According to the memo, the victim’s arms were “raised above her head and bent slightly so the hands touched. The bedspread covered the majority of the stab wounds she sustained, as most of the wounds were on her upper body and the covered portions of her legs.”

The bed cover was stained with blood, and there was blood on the pillow case. Her underwear were “cut through,” the memo says.

The victim’s handbag was emptied, and clothing and other objects were emptied from closets. Investigators found “three unique fingerprints” in her apartment, the memo says.

3. The Victim Frequented Officers’ Clubs for American Soldiers

GettyA sign marks the entrance to US Army facility Fort Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas, on May 16, 2017.

According to the memo, Gansau “was known to frequent non-commissioned officers’ clubs for American soldiers stationed at a U.S. Army base in Ludwigsburg. A close friend, Rosemarie Baumann, stated that she had accompanied Gansau, on occasion, and that the victim was attracted to American men.”

The victim “had maintained acquaintances with American soldiers, as well as sexual relationships with some. Investigators identified several soldiers with whom she had been intimate; authorities obtained their fingerprints for comparison to the ones found in the victim’s apartment, however, all the soldiers identified had alibis, and ultimately investigators could not
identify a suspect at that time,” the memo says.

“Investigators found no evidence that the victim had prior consensual sexual contact with Dempsey, and he was not fingerprinted as part of the investigation in 1978,” it says.

4. The Court Documents Say That Authorities Conducted a ‘Trash Pull’ at James Patrick Dempsey’s House

The memo says that “changes in forensic technology” allowed investigators to identify Dempsey as “the alleged perpetrator.”

In 2020, investigators reopened the case and “sent the fingerprint evidence, due to their continuing suspicion that the murderer was an American soldier, to an FBI liaison officer in Berlin, to compare” with a U.S. database.

On January 29, 2021, the FBI “notified the German investigators that the fingerprints corresponding from the victim’s bathroom window frame matched Dempsey’s fingerprints in the U.S. database,” the memo says.

“The FBI provided Germany with information about Dempsey’s current address and background,” it says.

On April 14, 2021, the FBI “conducted a trash pull at Dempsey’s residence in the United States to assist the German investigation. The FBI provided evidence obtained through the trash pull to German investigators,” the release says.

The investigators used DNA trace analysis to match Dempsey’s DNA to the crime scene samples, the memo says.

5. James Patrick Dempsey’s Wife Says She ‘Didn’t Even Know Him Them’

According to the Daily Beast, in small town New York, Dempsey “lived a quiet life in a mobile home, with no discernible work history, and a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing in 2005.”

Daily Beast spoke with Dempsey’s wife.

“I don’t have any idea what is going on with Jim at this point,” Sharon Scott Dempsey said to the publication. “That was back in the ’70s, and I didn’t even know him then… I have no idea [about what happened] other than, he was in a situation, and then I found out about what was coming down later. I don’t even know the specifics to tell you any more than that.”

Daily Beast reported that Dempsey faces only 10 years in prison if convicted because he would be tried as a “young adult” since he was 20 at the time of the murder.

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