German police say a woman who disappeared in 1984, sparking a murder hunt, has been found alive and well and living in Duesseldorf. Because a year earlier a 14-year-old girl was murdered close to the stop where she was supposed to catch the bus, the police believed the killer had struck again.

Petra Pazsitka’s 1984 disappearance triggered a massive police search when the then-24-year-old student in Braunschweig was reported missing after failing to show up at her brother’s birthday. However, after being asked for identification, she later confessed her true identity.

A spokesperson for Braunschweig and Wolfsburg Police said she claimed she had lived in several cities in western Germany for the past three decades, under false names and without official documents. She now admits she plotted her disappearance.

But it emerged this week that the now 55-year-old woman’s disappearance was an elaborate plan she had concocted, involving moving into an apartment she had been secretly renting.

Ms Pazsitka, who was studying computer science and had finished writing her university thesis on computer languages, was last seen going to the dentist on July 26, 1984.

When she failed to arrive, a manhunt began and then a murder enquiry.

At the end of March 1985 Günter K., 19, a carpenter’s apprentice, was arrested and confessed to the murder of the teenager.

Petra featured on a German Crimewatch show called “Case Files XY…Unsolved” but no-one came forward with any information about her whereabouts.

However, Grande said Pazsitka has stated she does not want contact with her family or the public.

“She did not even have a bank account and paid all her bills cash”, Grande said, adding that Pazsitka appeared to have been making a small income through illicit work. Although the police are not treating her disappearance as a crime, Pazsitka will now be required to register formally with the German authorities.