The newspapers called them “Germany’s Bonnie and Clyde.” Norman Franz killed five people and his wife fled with him across half of Europe. Now there is a new documentary about one of the most wanted criminals in the republic.
“Norman was the first person who made me feel like I was special.” That's what Sandra C. says, the wife of one of the most wanted criminals in Germany – or his widow if Norman Franz is no longer alive. Dead or alive: he still controls your life. It's been 25 years since she last saw him. She was now in prison. He's still on the run. Norman Franz has five people on his conscience. 25,000 euros are being offered for information that could lead to his capture.
The newspapers called them “Germany’s Bonnie and Clyde.” Sandra smuggled a saw into the prison that Norman could use to break out. In Annika Blendl's documentary “The Phantom – On the Hunt for Norman Franz”, which can be seen on Sky and on the streaming service Wow from December 19th, Sandra C. talks publicly about this time for the first time. Next to her: Mike, their son. Why did he decide to talk about his father on camera? “If he’s still alive, he’ll see me like that.”
Sandra C. met Norman Franz when she was 16 and 23 years old. In the rough north of Dortmund, the young people are at home, in families where alcohol addiction and neglect are the order of the day. She still lives there, at Borsigplatz. Hoping Norman will find her there when he returns?
“Norman was always nice to me,” she says. She likes his gentle nature and that he has goals: getting his high school diploma, for example. She manages to graduate from secondary school with a bang and completes an apprenticeship as a meat saleswoman. But Norman is also a petty criminal who does crooked things with his clique. When a Polish gang got in his way in 1995, Norman Eiskalt made short work of it: together with two accomplices, he lured the Poles into a trap, two men were shot at close range, one survived seriously injured. Finally, the perpetrator throws a hand grenade into the car.
Norman flies to Spain and takes Sandra with him. At some point they return to Germany, are exposed, and Norman is arrested. The accused are put on trial and everyone gets life. They get married in prison – Sandra proposed to Norman. “We couldn’t see him suffering like that,” she says. Sandra is wearing a white wedding dress, cream meringue type.
Sandra smuggles a saw into prison for Norman
And then a plan emerges: Norman will break out. Sandra smuggles the saw blades into the Hagen prison. “Wait for me tomorrow morning,” he says as he says goodbye on that day in 1997, “either I’m coming or I’m dead.” That night he saws open the bars on the window and lowers himself down onto a knotted bed sheet. The police are now pretty sure that he had help. He probably bribed a supervisor. Sandra is waiting with the getaway car; Norman's mother has gotten her son a gun.
A few days later, Norman attacks a money transporter in Weimar and shoots the money messenger. Sandra is waiting near a bus stop. Norman says the man tried to grab the gun from him and a shot went off. Sandra will believe him. The loot: 10,000 marks.
Robbery on two money messengers in Halle
When the money runs out four months later, Norman Franz plans the next heist. This time the goal is a Metro market in Halle/Saale. He attacks two money messengers and shoots them too. Sandra's conscience plagues her. She is constantly sick – because of the crime or because she is now pregnant?
The couple flees to Portugal. Using false passports, Norman and Sandra buy a house in the Algarve. Their son Mike is born. “The best time of my life,” says Sandra. But they are recognized and arrested. Norman is incarcerated in a highly secure prison, Sandra is imprisoned in a women's prison in Lisbon with her eight-month-old baby. When Norman Franz finds out that he is to be extradited to Germany, he does the same thing he did in Hagen: he escapes, and there is a doll on his cot instead of him. Did he have support again? By a bribed guard, for example?
In 1999 Sandra was transferred to Germany. She is being tried here. The newspapers are overflowing with reports about “Bonnie and Clyde”. She is brought to the trial at the Halle regional court with heavily armed SEK escort because there is a fear that Norman Franz might try to free his wife. Sandra is sentenced according to juvenile criminal law because during the trial it becomes clear: here someone is both the perpetrator and the victim. According to one expert, she was her husband and was downright submissive. The sentence was six years, and Sandra C. was released in 2002.
Norman Franz went into hiding. Target leaders from the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia have been looking for him for decades. Is um still alive? Does he already have a new family? If so, says Sandra, “then that’s the way it is, then I’ll give him that too.”
Interpol has been searching since 2021
A global manhunt by Interpol has been running since 2021. You can listen to a voice sample of him online. “For a man, he really has a noticeably high voice, especially when he is excited and speaks faster,” said one of the Düsseldorf investigators assigned to the case at the time. “He has reportedly been spotted backpacking in India and several times in South America. To be honest, we currently have no clue as to where he really is.”
Franz, who is now 54 years old, has had a long criminal career and “he is smart – he learns from his failures.” He speaks German, Portuguese and English. Could he have gone into hiding in South Africa? Investigators now also believe it is possible that Franz could be dead. But they won't give up, says one of the investigators in the documentary: “We won't stop looking for Norman Franz.”
New documentary about a German serious criminal
I'm on pay TV and streaming
The true crime documentary “The Phantom – On the Hunt for Norman Franz” will be available on Sky and the streaming service WOW from December 19th, and will also be shown on December 19th. at 8.15pm on Sky Crime.
The manhunt
The State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia decided to work on the documentary because they hope to find new clues. “Experience shows that the information increases after the case is brought to mind again in the media,” said a spokesman for the dpa.
