In 2009, a German tourist arrived at a small hotel in a quiet town in Ireland. He checked in under a fake name — Peter Bergmann, paid in cash and only carried a little bit of luggage with him. Over the next three days, his odd behavior was recorded on the hotel’s security and CCTV on the streets. On the fourth day his body would be found washed up on the beach.
Bergmann, who looked to be in his late 50’s or 60’s, arrived by taxi in the Irish seaside town of Sligo on June 12, 2009. He checked into the hotel and paid with cash. Over the next few days he would be captured by CCTV leaving the hotel with a plastic bag full of items. When he’d return from his excursions his bag would always be empty. It seemed he was disposing of whatever was in the bag on his trips around town.
On his first day in town, he was also seen at the general post office where he bought eight stamps and some airmail stickers. However, he was never seen posting anything yet the stamps weren’t found with him when his body was later discovered.
A couple of days after his arrival Bergmann took a taxi to the local beach before coming back the same day. On his final day, Bergmann deposited his key at the hotel reception and left with a black holdall, a laptop bag, and a purple plastic bag, according to an article from the Daily Mail. CCTV showed that, by the time he had arrived at the bus station to get him to the beach, the black holdall was missing. Police were never able to find it either.
The death of Peter Bergmann
Witnesses saw Bergmann at the beach later that day with the last sighting of the man being around 11:50pm by the edge of the water. The next morning, his body was spotted, washed up on the shore around 6am by a father and son.
Local authorities instantly began looking into the case in an attempt to identify the man. They quickly found out his name was fake and also learned that the address in Vienna Bergmann had used to check in to the hotel was also non-existent. They then combed through hotel CCTV and footage from cameras about the town but he had covered his tracks well.
The only additional info they could glean was from the mysterious man’s autopsy which revealed he had actually had a heart attack before entering the water. He was also suffering from the advanced stages of prostate cancer and he also had bone tumors.
There was no sign of foul play leading authorities to believe that Bergmann had intentionally taken his own life, perhaps taking something to cause a heart attack. What was more baffling was why he had seemingly gone to so much effort to erase his own existence from all records, why didn’t he want people to know his true identity? And what had he been throwing away in those bags? Unfortunately it’s been more than 16 years and we still don’t have the answers, perhaps we never will.
