The sudden death and reappearance of Petra Pazsitka is one for the books. The German woman was found alive 31 years after being declared “murdered” by a convicted murderer and rapist known only as Gunter K. What makes her story even more interesting is that Pazsitka staged her own disappearance and lived without credit cards or even an identity card. While Pazsitka has yet to explain her motive to the world, could it be that the Cold War explains some of her reasons?

In a related report by the Inquisitr, Petra Pazsitka’s family asked police to give their missing daughter a letter. The family desires to be one day be reunited, but she has claimed that she does not want any future contact with her family.

“Her father passed away a few years ago, but her brother and mother were in shock and tears when they heard the news,” a police spokesman said explained.

The reasons for her disappearance go all the way back to 1984, a time when west and east Germany were still divided. At the time, Petra Pazsitka was a computer science college student with a newly finished thesis on computer languages.

The last anyone saw of the young woman was when she went on a trip to the dentist, and it was assumed that she taken transportation to her parent’s house afterward. The then-24-year-old student was reported missing after failing to show up at her brother’s birthday. In response, the German police initiated a search for the girl since it was presumed she was missing based upon “the assumption of a murder crime.”

Police investigator Dirk Bosse remembers these events clearly. According to Bild, as a young police officer he had to postpone his vacation to help in the search. At the time, Bosse says everyone thought that she was surely dead.

Fast forward two years to 1985, and Joachim Grande, a spokesman for the police in Braunschweig, Germany, said that investigators of the time period turned to a popular TV show called “Aktenzeichen XY” for help in solving their cold case. A man known only as Gunter K confessed to Pazsitka’s murder after being arrested for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl from the same area.

Based upon this information, Petra Pazsitka was officially declared dead in 1989, the same year that the infamous Berlin wall was taken down. However, the dead body of Pazsitka was never found, and Gunter K later retracted his confession.

Long after the Cold War ended, the seemingly dead case came alive when a woman calling herself “Mrs. Schneider” contacted police about a burglary in Dusseldorf, Germany. According to Düsseldorf police spokesman Andre Hartwich, the name on the door of the residence was different from the woman who answered.

When Pazsitka could not provide ID papers, she eventually admitted she was the “murdered” woman from 1984, and proved it by showing them an old, out-of-date identity card. Bosse says that part of the reason Pazsitka was identified so quickly was a bureaucratic “failure” by police officials. Normally, missing persons are deleted from the system when they are pronounced dead, but in the case of Pazsitka this did not happen.

The strange tale became even stranger as the woman gave details. The Telegraph reports that Pazsitka staged her own disappearance, and had saved enough money to jumpstart her new life. Although she had lived in student accommodations, she moved into an apartment she had silently rented. And, just like that, she was gone from her old life.

Over the last 30 years, Petra Pazsitka says she lived almost like a spy from the movies. Using assumed names, police say she made a living by doing “illicit” work in multiple German cities, although the exact nature of this work has yet to be clarified.

What’s more, she managed to live all these years without the benefit of a social security card, a drivers’ licence, or a passport.

“She did not even have a bank account and paid all her bills cash,” police spokesman Grande said, according NBC.

When someone goes the extra effort to be entirely cash-based, the desire is often security. In this case, the German woman managed to maintain her anonymity.

The now 56-year-old police investigator Bosse also hopes to clarify the mystery. Now that her careful charade has collapsed around her, he believes it is his human obligation to initiate a family reunion, even though the matter is not up to police.

“The case has all moved us deeply in the heart,” Bosse explained. “Having a 80-year woman sit over over here and telling her that her daughter is back there – when they still thought that the daughter had been dead for more than 30 years. This also touches on a homicide detective. “

In the end, Petra Pazsitka refuses to explain why she disappeared, or why she worked so hard to have her real identity discovered. The German woman claims that family issues were not behind her disappearance, so you have to wonder: did the Cold War play some role in her story?

Petra Pazsitka in 2015 [Image via Michael Gstettenbauer/Bild]

[Image via Aktenzeichen XY]