Kalinka Bamberski, a healthy and athletic 14-year-old girl, was attending a French-language boarding school in Germany in 1982. She spent the summer vacation at the home of her mother and her stepfather in Lindau. Krombach stated that on the evening of 9 July 1982 right after dinner he injected her with
Kobalt-Ferrlecit, a
cobalt-
iron preparation that he liked to use on several family members and friends. Initially he said it was intended to aid in tanning, later he contradicted himself and claimed it was intended to treat
anemia. He said that he told her to switch off the light at midnight and found her dead in her room in the morning. He administered various injections intended to revive her, and he then called emergency services. He later said that he also had given her a sleeping pill that night. The autopsy, conducted two days later, could not establish a cause of death. Among the findings were aspirated stomach contents in the airway and lungs, undigested contents in the stomach, several injection marks, a superficial vaginal tear (judged to have occurred after death), fresh bloody stains around the genitals, and a whitish substance in the vagina; the substance was not tested. The genitals were removed and have been missing ever since. The prosecutor declined to open a case. Once André Bamberski had obtained a copy of the autopsy report, he pressed for another investigation. Additional investigations were ordered in Germany and found that the Kobalt-Ferrlecit injection must have happened very close to Kalinka's death and that Kobalt-Ferrlecit is a dangerous drug that could cause an adverse reaction, but it would do so immediately after injection, not several hours later. The undigested stomach contents pointed to a death soon after a meal; the aspirated stomach contents in the lungs pointed to a death during coma or anesthesia. The expert concluded that the timeline given by Krombach was not convincing and that it was more likely that an injection right after dinner had caused circulatory failure, unconsciousness, vomiting, and death. In 1983, Bamberski distributed leaflets in Lindau accusing Krombach of the rape and murder of his daughter. Krombach sued for defamation and received a judgement of 500,000
German marks, which Bamberski refused to pay. Bamberski hired well-known German lawyer
Rolf Bossi to press for a trial against Krombach. The case ended before the
Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) in Munich in 1987 with a finding that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Krombach's injection negligently or intentionally caused the girl's death. == First trial in France ==