The victim, whose surname has not been released by detectives, had not been seen since leaving her parents’ house in Meissen, Saxony, last Thursday to walk her dog.
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Using the the girl’s own cellphone, the kidnappers spoke to her father not long after she went missing to demand a ransom payment of 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million), police confirmed during a press conference Tuesday.
Police found her dog alive and searched a nearby yard after they were led there by a sniffer dog, but there was no sign of the girl.
The teenager’s family received a ransom demand a short time later, police said.
“Anneli, we miss you”, the family statement said, asking the public for assistance and later addressing the kidnappers directly.
The parents said in an open letter to the abductors of their child; “The kidnappers should know that we will fulfill their demands in order to be able to take out child in our arms again soon”.
In a series of pre-dawn raids tied to the discovery, authorities arrested two men – aged 61 and 39 – in the city of Dresden and in a town in Bavaria, local media reported Tuesday, according to the Mirror.
There was no indication of a sexual assault, according to officials.
Two suspects have been arrested over the case and are being interviewed by police.
But last night came the grim news from a murder squad in Dresden that her corpse had been discovered in an abandoned farmyard in the village of Klipphausen not far from her home.
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In 2002, Magnus Gäfgen demanded €1m for the return of a banker’s son – but he had already killed the 11-year-old.
