Banking heir found dead four days after kidnapping

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Police found the body of an 11-year-old heir to a Frankfurt family banking fortune bundled under a lakeside dock Tuesday, days after the boy was kidnapped and a nearly million-dollar ransom was paid.

The body discovered at a small lake nearly 40 miles northeast of Frankfurt was identified as that of Jakob von Metzler, the son of Friedrich and Silvia von Metzler, prosecutor Rainer Schilling said.

Police were holding a suspect in the kidnapping, a 27-year-old law student who was acquainted with the family, Schilling told a news conference in Frankfurt.

The suspect, who could face murder charges, tipped police off to the body's location after he was detained overnight, police said.

The boy disappeared Friday morning on his way home from the public Carl Schurz school Friday. The family received a ransom note an hour after he was expected home; the note said nothing would happen to the boy if the money was paid.

Police went public with the case after the family paid the $990,000 ransom early Monday but he was not released.

Police now said they believe the boy was killed Friday, the day he was kidnapped.

Authorities found tens of thousands of dollars -- believed to be part of the ransom money -- while searching the suspect's apartment.

The suspect had tried to befriend the von Metzlers' three children -- Jakob, a 17-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter.

Last seen near home

Jakob was last seen at about 10:30 a.m. when a schoolmate said he saw the boy get off a public bus near the family's home in the Frankfurt neighborhood of Sachsenhausen.

More than 1,100 police officers using 20 sniffer dogs searched the woods surrounding a lake south of Frankfurt after the law student indicated he was being held in a cabin at a public recreation area. But authorities refocused the search after the suspect said the body was north of the city.

The family-owned Metzler Bank, headquartered in Frankfurt, is one of Germany's oldest banks and has been in business 325 years. Friedrich von Metzler belongs to the 11th generation of the founding family, which still owns and runs the bank, according to the bank's Web site.

There have been several high-profile kidnappings in Germany over the past decade, including the 1991 abduction of six-year-old Peter Fiszman and a schoolmate in Cologne. They were released unharmed two days later after a ransom was paid.

The boy's uncle, Jakub Fiszman, who ran an export and electronics business, was kidnapped and found murdered in October 1996, even after his family paid a ransom equivalent to $2.6 million.

In March 1996, Hamburg tobacco heir Jan Philipp Reemtsma was kidnapped and held for one month before his captors released him for $13 million.