A 32-year-old Danish man who is in custody for the abduction and rape of the Danish 13-year-old Filippa is now being investigated in connection with the 2016 abduction and murder of 17-year-old Emilie Meng. Danish TV2 has found out that Philip Westh (32) owned a car of the exact same make, model and colour that the police had been looking for, but were unable to find the owner in 2017.
Emilie Meng had been on a city trip in Slagelse when she disappeared after saying goodbye to her friends at Korsør station on the night of 10 July 2016. The search for the missing 17-year-old involved all of Denmark, with more than 2,500 people lining up for her in a torchlight procession to remember her. The procession was held a few days after she was found in the water on Regnemarken near Borup in Midtsjælland, on Christmas Day of the same year.
On Wednesday, it became clear that Danish police are now also investigating whether the 32-year-old has anything to do with this unsolved murder.
On Wednesday the solicitor for Emilie Meng’s mother stated that the police have confirmed that they are also investigating the 32-year-old in their case.
I have been in contact with the police, who have confirmed that they will of course also look into the Emilie Meng case, Mai-Brit Storm Thygesen told B.T. (TV 2 Denmark)
The police did not find the car.
More than a year after the abduction of Emilie Meng, on 20 July 2017, Sydsjælland and Lolland-Falster’s Police came up with new information in the case:
One of the surveillance videos from Korsør Station showed a car driving from the car park at the station at 04:07 on the 10th July 2016 – around the time when the then 17-year-old Emilie was last seen, said the police in a post on Facebook.
The footage of the car was of such poor quality that it took specialists several months to identify the make, model and colour. But the police believed that they knew with great probability that it was a Hyundai i30 in a light colour, they appealed for witnesses who might have seen the car. At the same time, the police stressed that it was not certain that the car or the car’s driver had anything to do with Emilie Meng’s disappearance. (TV2 Denmark)
It was such a car that was wanted in connection with the murder of 17-year-old Emilie Meng. Photo: Danish police
Dansk TV2 then writes how Sydsjælland and Lolland-Falster’s Police investigated more than 400,000 cars, without getting closer to any owner or explanation. Even when a witness came forward three months later, the police did not come investigate:
A witness had told the police that, a few days after Emilie Meng had disappeared, she had seen a suspicious man and a white or light-coloured car on a dirt road at the Regnemark Bakke Nature Area near Borup. Only a few hundred metres from where Emilie Meng was found dead in a small lake.
She describes that there is a man standing next to the car, perhaps a craftsman type, as is described, and it seems that he is carrying something heavy, but she could not say what, said Søren Ravn-Nielsen – who at the time was the head of the investigation on the case.
Nor did this inquiry lead to any breakthrough in the case. (TV2 Denmark)
Media help
When 32-year-old Philip West was arrested, Danish TV2 began searching public records:
After the arrest of the 32-year-old, whose name TV 2 is familiar with, TV 2’s journalists have searched via Bilbogen.
Here it appears that the accused 32-year-old registered financet on 3 May 2016 for a silver-grey Hyundai i30. In other words, exactly the same make, model and shade of colour as the car which two months later, according to the police, was at Korsør Station, where Emilie Meng was last seen.
According to Bilbogen, the suspect had finance on the car until 2021. In other words, he must be presumed to have been the owner of the car at the time when Emilie Meng disappeared. (TV2 Denmark)
Police scandal
A documentary in three parts about the Emilie Meng case, made in 2019 by Danmarks Radio goes a long way in suggesting a scandalously poor police investigation. Emilie’s mother, Helene Meng, was among the strongest critics of the police investigation:
She appears in a new three episode DR documentary. It brings a number of circumstances of the police investigation into question, among other things, that evidence may have been lost. Several surveillance recordings from the possible escape routes from Korsør have never been seen. (DR)
Now Danish police say that they will, of course, see if the 32-year-old can be linked to several unsolved cases.