Transcript: 12. The Disappearance of Lars Mittank | Bulgaria

This is The Evidence Locker.

Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones. 

It was just before midnight on July 7th, 2014 in Marne, Northern Germany when Sandra Mittank’s cell phone rang. On the other end of the line, was her 28-year-old son, Lars, who was in Bulgaria on holiday. The two of them have always been close, but it was strange that Lars would call at this time of night. 

Lars was agitated and stressed and told his mom that something wasn’t quite right at the hotel where he was staying. He was incoherent and said that they wouldn’t accept ‘anything’ and that there was a problem with his credit card. He thought it was all very suspicious and asked Sandra to cancel all his credit cards immediately. 

Sandra was trying to make sense of what Lars was saying, but he hung up the phone before she could get more information from him. She was concerned, she knew that Lars was alone as his friends had returned to Germany earlier that day. She tried calling him back, but there was no answer.

Sandra played the conversation with Lars over in her head: did she understand him correctly? He said that he was fearing for his life, that something was wrong at the hotel and that he had to get out of there. Varna, Bulgaria, where Lars was, is in a time zone one hour ahead of Germany, which means it was 1am for Lars.

Sandra Mittank was relieved when her phone rang again sometime between 2 or 3am. She was anxious to hear if her son was safe. During this phone call, Lars was whispering. He told her that he had left the hotel. But now there were four men following him. He found a hiding spot somewhere on a hill and hoped that the men wouldn’t find him. Again, without anything more, Lars ended the call abruptly.

Sandra understood that he was hiding and didn’t want to call him back. If his phone rang, it would give him up – whoever was following him would find him. Sandra was beside herself: what should she do? She didn’t know exactly where he was and who the men were Lars was talking about… How could she alert Bulgarian police?

Sick with worry, Sandra spent most of the night pacing up and down at her home, more than 1500 miles (or 2500km) away from her son who was clearly in trouble in a foreign country.

Then came a cryptic text message from Lars, asking: 

“What is Cefzil 500?”

Why did Lars want information about a broad spectrum anti-biotic? Sandra knew he had been to the doctor in Varna, because of an ear injury the day before, and assumed it was the medicine that was prescribed to him. She went to her computer to Google and learn more about the anti-biotics, then answered Lars’ text. But there was no reply from Lars.

What was wrong? 

About two hours later Lars called Sandra again. He was relieved and told her that he had managed to make it to the airport. Sandra breathed a sigh of relief herself: Lars was on his way home and he would be able to explain to her what happened the night before once he was back home.

But hours later Lars was seen running out of the airport, like the devil was chasing him. Then he vanished into thin air and had not been seen since.

>>Intro Music

Lars Joachim Mittank was born on the 19th of February 1986 in the northernmost German state of Schleswig-Holstein and was an only child. 

He has always been athletic and loves playing sport. He is a healthy, good looking young man who is popular with his friends. 

When he left school, he trained to become a precision engineer. In 2007 he landed a job at GDF Suez Powerplant in Wilhelmshaven, about a hundred miles (that’s 150 kilometres) from his hometown of Marne. Lars loved his job; solving problems and fixing faults on smaller electrical machines. He felt lucky to be employed doing something he enjoyed.

The only thing Lars loved more than his job, was his favourite soccer team: the green and white Werder-Bremen.

Two years before his disappearance, Lars’ father suffered a stroke that left him incapacitated. This took quite a toll on Sandra Mittank, who cared for her ailing husband. Lars often took time off work to go home and help his mom in caring for his dad. He made a point of taking the two-and-a-half-hour journey back home every weekend to be there for his family. 

In 2014, a bunch of Lars’s school friends planned a trip to the party resort of Golden Sands in Bulgaria, they invited Lars along. Truth be told, Lars would probably have preferred to have gone scuba diving somewhere, but he had never been on an all-boys trip and it sounded like fun. Juggling his demanding job and taking care of his dad was stressful and his mom encouraged him to go and have a good time. 

Young people in Europe don’t go to Golden Sands, Bulgaria, for sight-seeing or cultural enrichment. They go because the summer party scene is insane, and the alcohol is cheap. Golden Sands is Bulgaria’s largest seaside resort on the Black Sea and is part of the larger city of Varna. As the name suggests, the beach is beautiful and summer temperatures go up to 80 degrees (or if you think in Celsius: around the high 20’s) in summer.

Golden Sands is THE spot to be if you’re young and looking for fun. Its vibe can be compared with Ibiza or Mallorca, but it is slightly less commercial than the popular Mediterranean destinations. Think of it as Europe’s ‘spring break’ hot spot. 

In summer there are beach parties everyday: girls in bikini’s dance on the cocktail bar counters while guys in board shorts appreciate the lack of inhibition. Loud music pumps from big speakers and it seems like the party never ends. Young people push the limits of alcohol and drug consumption and summer romances flare up and fizzle out.

The city of Varna has around 340,000 permanent residents and it plays host to an average of three million visitors to the region per year. 

Lars Mittank and his friends he had known since high school, Tim Schuldt and Paul Rohmann arrived in Bulgaria on June 30th, 2014 for their week-long summer vacation. To Paul, Lars was a fun drinking buddy with a lust for life who was usually the life of the party.

Golden Sands resort town has many hotels that offer all-inclusive packages. The German friends were young, unmarried professionals and could afford to stay at one of the nicer, more upscale resorts, the Hotel HVD Viva. Their package included all food and beverages and was located right on the beach. This was going to be the holiday of a lifetime.

The weather was perfect, and the friends spent time at the beach, played beach soccer, drank at a beach bar. The resort made things easy and they spent most of their time at the hotel pool. At night they went out to local night clubs and bars. In this party HQ of Bulgaria, there was a never a quiet moment.

Lars seemed to enjoy himself, but his friends found it strange that he didn’t eat much during the holiday. He usually didn’t have any breakfast at all. At lunch and dinner, he would only have a little bit of soup or a small plate of salad. This is unusual for a young man on an all-inclusive holiday. His friends ate all the time, but not Lars. He seemed to have no appetite.

Other than that, the guys had a blast. To add to the excitement of summer in Golden Sands, in July 2014, soccer fever swept over Europe with the 2014 Soccer World Cup in Brazil. Germany was strong, and everyone followed the matches as the tournament was coming to an end.

On Saturday night, July the 5th, Lars, Tim and Paul went to a beach bar called ‘Rock Bar’ to watch the Costa Rica-Netherlands quarter final. Rock Bar is right on the beach, underneath some trees. In summer happy hour lasts all afternoon till 7pm and crowds bundle in to listen to live music. 

When the soccer match kicked off in Brazil, it was 11pm in Bulgaria. No doubt the energy of the party was going strong even before the game started. 

Lars, who was wearing a green and white fan T-shirt of his favourite German team, Werder-Bremen, was joking around as usual. He managed to upset some other German holiday makers, who were out in their FC Bayern gear. Some angry words were thrown around, but before Tim and Paul had to intervene, Lars had backed off. The situation ended without a fight and everybody laughed it off. At most it could be described as an altercation, definitely not a fight.

It wasn’t like Lars to start a fight in any case. He was probably a bit drunk and took a joke too far, which offended the FC Bayern-fans. Considering how passionate avid soccer fans are, just seeing someone wearing fan-gear of an opposing team could be enough to sling an insult their way. All-in-all, the confrontation was a non-event.

Lars, Tim and Paul were the last ones to leave the bar in the early morning hours. On their way back to the hotel, they stopped in at a McDonald’s where Tim and Paul wanted to buy something to eat. However, Lars wasn’t hungry, so he stood back. The McDonald’s in Golden Sands is more of an open-air kiosk, so while his friends went to the counter to order their food, Lars waited for them, a couple of yards away.

With their burgers in hand, Tim and Paul were ready to continue the walk back to the hotel, but Lars was nowhere to be seen. They looked around the to see if they could find him, but there was no sign of him. In the end, they decided to go back to the hotel, assuming that Lars had decided not to wait and had gone back without them. 

Lars wasn’t there – but the friends, after a night of partying and in the free spirit of holiday weren’t too concerned and went to sleep. When the woke up the next morning, Lars was there. They wanted to know where he was the night before. Then Lars told them an unsettling story… 

He said that he had been in a fight. There were some local Bulgarian or Russian-speaking guys that confronted him. From what he could make out, they were hired by the FC Bayern soccer fans whom Lars had ticked off at Rock Bar earlier that night. One of the men aimed to punch Lars. Lars then ducked to avoid the punch, but was hit the side of his head – on his ear.

His friends didn’t really believe the story as there were no other signs that he had been in a fight. But they didn’t push too much. The bottom line was: Lars’ ear was hurting like hell. He had also experienced some hearing loss in that ear and he was very worried about it.

They only had two days of holiday left, so Lars tried to make the most of it, despite the pain. 

On the day of their departure, Monday the 7th of July, however, Lars was concerned about flying with his injured ear. What if altitude made it worse and caused permanent damage? What would it mean for his career and his future?

His friends thought that this was somewhat of an over-reaction, but they did want to help Lars. Paul suggested Lars goes to see a local doctor, that’s why they had travel insurance after all. Lars agreed, and Paul went with him to see a general practitioner, who diagnosed that Lars with a ruptured ear drum. That explained the pain and loss of hearing. The doctor felt that Lars he shouldn’t be flying but referred him to a specialist for a more thorough examination.  

It was time to make a decision: they were all booked on a flight home that day. Paul and Tim offered to stay with Lars, but he said that he was OK and that they should get back to Germany. They had jobs and he didn’t want to cause issues with their employers. Even when they insisted, Lars managed to convince them that he could take care of himself and would take a later flight, after he had seen the specialist. 

Tim and Paul agreed, said their goodbyes and caught a taxi to the airport. Lars got into another taxi and went to the hospital to see the specialist. 

This decision – to leave Lars behind – would haunt Tim Schuldt and Paul Rohmann in the days, months and years to come. In hindsight they wished that at least one of them had stayed to fly with Lars the next day, or if flying wasn’t an option, to return to Germany by bus with the injured Lars.

If they had known that he would’ve had to stay another night, they would’ve stayed too. 

At Varna Hospital, Lars saw a specialist, Dr Boris Najdenow who confirmed the diagnosis. He suggested surgery to repair the ruptured membrane. Lars preferred to have the operation back home in Germany and said that he didn’t want to stay in Varna Hospital for surgery. 

Concerned that Lars was at risk of developing an ear infection, Dr Najdenow prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic called Cefzil 500 as a preventative measure. It was the strongest 

Dosage available, due to the severity of Lars’ injury.

Lars left the hospital, stopped at a pharmacy to purchase the medicine, then made his way back to Hotel Viva to pack up his belongings and check out.

Back in Germany, Lars’ mother Sandra was unsettled when she heard the news that her son was injured and alone in a foreign country. She booked Lars another air ticket home for the following afternoon – as well as a bus ticket, should he not be able to fly. As long as he could make his way home. 

From Hotel Viva in Golden Sands, Lars took a taxi to Varna town centre where he checked into a budget hostel, Hotel Color for his overnight stay. What Lars didn’t realise, was that this downtown hotel was located in quite a rough area. Not many tourists came to the neighbourhood and it is known for known for black market activities. The so-called ‘family hotel’ is everything but… It is a dodgy place that has in-house prostitutes and where drug dealers converge.

It is unclear why Lars chose this hotel. There are many backpacker-type hostels near Hotel Viva in Golden Sands had been staying with his friends, why not go there? Or why didn’t he extend his stay at Hotel Viva for another night?

At this stage of the game, Lars was stressed, tired and desperate to go back to Germany. He was simply looking for a cheap accommodation, closer to the airport. Remember, it was high season at the beach resort of Golden Sands, perhaps he did try, but couldn’t find a place to stay. Some sources claim that the taxi driver who picked him up from Hotel Viva suggested Hotel Color. Even so, it was a strange choice.

What exactly happened at this hotel on the night of the 7th of July remains a mystery. Lars did not feel safe here and had the sense that someone was out to get him. He felt so strongly about it, that he asked his mom, Sandra, to cancel his credit cards. As anyone who has travelled to a foreign country knows: your credit card is your lifeline. Why cancel it, hours before you plan on leaving the place?

In his phone calls to his mom, Lars said that he felt something was wrong at the hotel and that he had to get out of there. Hotel staff confirmed that Lars left with all his luggage in the middle of the night. Then there was the phone call where he whispered and claimed that four men were following him and that he was hiding from them. And the text, asking about his anti-biotics… 

At 5am local time in Bulgaria, a taxi driver saw a young man, adamantly waving his arms in an attempt to flag down the taxi. There was already another passenger in the taxi, both the driver and the passenger felt the urgency in the man’s gestures and decided to pick him up. The man was Lars Mittank, who was thankful that the driver had stopped. He was eager to make his way to the airport and go home to Germany.

Both the driver and the passenger, a local social worker, noticed that Lars’s pupils were visibly dilated. We will discuss the issue of Lars’ dilated pupils later in this episode.

The taxi dropped Lars off at the airport at 6am. As he walked into the building, he called his mom and said that he had made it to the airport. Sandra was somewhat surprised at his turn of phrase: he didn’t say: ‘I’m at the airport’ but ‘I made it to the airport.’ Nonetheless, he was on his way home and they could talk about the bizarre phone calls from the night before when he was back home.

Because his credit cards were cancelled, Lars asked his mom to transfer 500 Euros through Western Union. She agreed that she would do so as soon as they ended the call. She then suggested that he found the medical centre at the airport, so a doctor could check his ear before he boarded the plane. 

CCTV cameras show that Lars walked around the check-in area aimlessly. He seemed calm and relaxed, just like any other traveller, waiting to board his flight.

Then he called his mother one last time. He said that ‘they’ didn’t want him to fly OR travel by bus. A bus journey from Varna to Northern Germany would take about 35-40 hours). Sandra felt uneasy about this, why was he not allowed to travel by bus? Who were the ‘they’ that Lars was referring to? Was it a simple turn of phrase, or was he referring to someone specifically?

The strange thing about this phone call is that Lars had told his mom that ‘they’ - whoever ‘they’ were – said he shouldn’t fly, BEFORE he went to the airport medical centre. After the phone call, some German speaking witnesses saw Lars talking to an unidentified man, but the conversation seemed casual and non-threatening. 

Lars then went to the restroom to freshen up. When he came out, CCTV cameras caught him asking a woman for directions and she pointed towards the medical centre. At 09:30am, Lars went into the treatment room of the airport doctor.

Dr Kosta Kostow said that throughout their consultation Lars was restless and fidgeted with his hands. The doctor suggested Lars should wait 7-10 days before he flew. Following procedure, Dr Kostow took Lars’ temperature and examined his ears. He gave Lars some tablets for the pain caused by his ruptured eardrum, but Lars placed the tablets back on the doctor’s desk and said that he didn’t want to take anything. When the doctor said that it would bring some relief, Lars insisted that he didn’t want medication.

Dr Kostow recalled that Lars was nervous and muttered, almost to himself:

"I don't want to die here. I have to get out of here."

Half an hour later, CCTV cameras outside the medical centre caught a glimpse of a man in uniform going into the doctor’s office. The man was a construction worker, dressed in an airport employee uniform.

While Lars was sitting with the doctor, the man opened the door of the consulting room and entered. Lars became highly agitated and upset when he saw the man. The doctor tried to calm him down, telling him it was only an airport employee. The airport was in the middle of an upgrade and construction workers were in and out all the time. But Lars wasn’t pacified. He looked like he had seen a ghost. 

Next thing, out of the blue, Lars flew up and bolted out of the room. He left behind all his belongings: including his ID, wallet and his cell phone.

From this point CCTV cameras captured Lars’ escape – he was running for his life. He ran out of the doctor’s office. There is no sign of anyone following or chasing after him, only surprised travellers, staring at him. Lars also doesn’t look back to see if anyone is following him.

Once outside the building, Lars slowed down, walked for a bit, while deciding which direction to go. He then started running again, northwest to the left, across the parking lot. From there multiple witnesses saw him climbing an eight feet (or 2.5 metre) fence – with barbed wire. On the other side of the fence (in July 2014) was a sunflower field in full bloom. The plants averaged 2m high and once inside, Lars could not be seen anymore. 

110 yards (or a 100 metres) further along is the A2 Motorway 100m. If he had hitched a ride immediately after reaching the highway, he would have headed in the direction back into Varna town. Had he crossed the road, the A2 leads in the direction of Sofia or it could take you all the way to Romania or Serbia, ultimately back in the direction of Germany.

Lars had vanished into thin air.

In the meantime, his mom tried to call him multiple times to check if he could access the cash that she had transferred to him. But he never picked up or returned her calls.

Realising that something was wrong, Sandra reported Lars missing to the German Embassy in Sofia. The Embassy – in turn – alerted Varna police and the search for Lars Mittank was initiated. Bulgarian police brought search dogs to the airport and the sunflower field, but they found no sign of Lars. 

Police, suspecting that Lars was a drug smuggler, searched his luggage, but found no trace of drugs. 

They watched the CCTV footage over and over again, trying to make sense of the events. The footage of Lars running out of the airport has been made public and has been viewed on YouTube all over the world. It has over 16 million views. Some articles refer to Lars as ‘the most famous missing person on YouTube who went missing.’ 

If you would like to see the footage, we have a link on our Facebook Page at facebook.com/evidencelockerpodcast.

On the clip, you’ll see… It was like he was desperately trying to get away FROM something, running towards safety.

Did someone want to rob him? Or perhaps try to extort him? It did look like it. All his belongings and valuables were in his luggage. Police also found that the 500 Euros that Sandra had transferred via Western Union, had remained untouched in Lars’s account.

This disappearance was very strange. And because of the international nature of the case, police in Varna convinced Interpol to get involved, but they could find any concrete leads either.

Lars’s mom could also not sit in Germany and wait for news. She made arrangements for friends to care for her ailing husband while she went to Varna. Sandra did absolutely everything she could. With the help of friends and some other German travellers who happened to be in Varna at the time, she distributed flyers and put up posters all over town. Sandra visited hospitals and morgues, but there was simply nothing that lead them closer to understanding what had happened to Lars. Sandra said: 

“It’s like the earth swallowed him up.”

Less than a week after his disappearance, on Sunday the 13th of July, Germany won the World Cup Soccer tournament in Brazil. Under normal circumstances, Lars Mittank would have had a couple of beers and watched the final with his friends. But not this time. Lars’s seat was empty, and nobody had a clue where he could be.

Sandra had to return to Germany to resume care of her husband, but she couldn’t give up hope that Lars was still out there. Lars’s friends raised some money, so Sandra could pay for a German private detective to continue the search. The friends also set up a Facebook page where people could report sightings or give any relevant information that could lead them to Lars.

In the early days of the investigation, Sandra’s supporters in Bulgaria realised how vastly different the country is to their native Germany. Large parts of the country are very poor.  The area surrounding Varna airport, is a good example of this. Many people don’t have smart phones or television sets or are even able to read daily news. 

They found that the rural population is very friendly and there are many abandoned houses and stables on the wide-open land. People make a living by collecting berries, herbs and mushrooms and sell them in town.

It would be possible for Lars to survive in this environment. It is also not very far-fetched to believe that people who have seen or helped him, had not seen the flyers or news reports. 

On the other hand, had Lars been murdered or died of exposure, chances are good that people collecting goods would have found his body. In that case, locals would be quick to report it, as the discovery of a body usually carries a monetary reward.  

Two months after Lars’s disappearance, people searching for him were shocked to learn that some rural police stations had not been informed about his case. Despite their best efforts, it was very hard to spread the news that Lars Mittang was missing and that his loved ones were desperately searching for him.

Bulgarian media also did not make a big story out of Lars’s disappearance. A few reports were scattered on the news and in newspapers after he went missing, but there wasn’t anywhere near enough of a story to cause national interest in the case.

Bulgaria relies on its tourism industry for economic growth. A story like Lars Mittank’s would make traveling to Bulgaria look unsafe. All the details of the dodgy hotel and thugs who hit him on the ear… Young foreign tourists would rather go elsewhere, which would have a dire effect on the country’s tourism trade.

Sandra went to Bulgaria as often as she could. She was in constant contact with the private detective and they followed up on every lead they could find, no matter how big or small.

At the end of September, three people claimed to have seen a man fitting Lars’s description in the Varna area. The family felt strongly that this man WAS Lars. After extensive questioning, investigators confirmed that the man identified was definitely Lars Mittank. Finally, there was something to go on. They could not track Lars down again, but they had proof that he had survived for almost three months and that he was keeping his own company. 

A reward of 40,000 Euros was put up for any information that would lead to the discovery of Lars. His mom, Sandra, believed that Lars was still out there. He was mentally agile and strong-willed. She was confident that whatever he was facing, he would have been able to pull through. 

A year after Lars was last seen, a Bulgarian truck driver reported that he had picked Lars up when he was hitchhiking. The truck driver remembered giving the ‘dishevelled-looking’ young man a ride some months earlier. Some time had passed before he saw Lars’s face on a missing persons’ poster, and the driver couldn’t remember where he had dropped Lars off. Frustrating as this was, at least it was another sign that he was still alive, perhaps trying to make his way back to Germany.

Tips came to the Findet-Lars-Mittank Facebook page, leading investigators to look at homeless people living in Austria, but it was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

In December 2015, people observed a homeless man in Bulgaria. He had a likeness to Lars. They approached him, and it turned out the man spoke German and English. The man wasn’t sure (or he would not say) where he was from. A photo of the man was sent to Lars’s family and friends via the Facebook page, but sadly, as much as they hoped it would be Lars, it wasn’t him. 

Another man resembling Lars was spotted in Varna, near the city centre. He also spoke German and did not know who he was or why he was in Varna. He tried to commit suicide and people who thought he might have been Lars alerted the police. The young man was found to be from Poland and was taken back home. Although it wasn’t Lars, the people looking for Lars probably saved this young Pole’s life. 

In the extensive search for Lars, his family and friends have found about 15 other German nationals who lived alone in different places throughout Europe. Some were drifters who lived on the road, travelling from one destination to the next. Others preferred to live in remote areas like forests or abandoned sheds. 

The sad truth of all their stories was that none of them wanted to return to their previous lives. They were hiding from the pressures of life, personal demons like divorce or child support or tax debt.

Two years after Lars’s disappearance, a German TV show arranged for Sandra to be on national TV in Bulgaria. She was able to tell the story of how Lars had vanished and appealed for information from the public. She struggled through an emotional interview and pleaded for help. Her tearful plea loosely translated into English from German:

“I won’t give up. I hope that the Bulgarian public can help. Any mother or father or anyone who has children… If they could just help us. Please, please.”

Sandra refuses to believe that Lars is no longer alive. 

“I feel my son is still alive. I will try everything I possibly can to find him. I will never give up!”

Later that same year, in December 2016, there was a tip that sounded very promising. But it did come from Bulgaria – or anywhere in Europe for that matter. A man, who claimed to be Canadian, matching Lars’s description was discovered in Brazil. 

When Sandra and Lars’s friends received a photograph of this man, hope flared up: could this really be Lars? He looked very similar, in fact, so similar that the family asked Brazilian police for more information. Unfortunately, all hopes were dashed when the man’s blood type and eye colour didn’t match up with Lars.

The search for Lars had discovered yet another lost person and Sandra felt it was necessary to follow through and see if they could find his family. Over the years the people looking for Lars have become aware of so many families who are desperately searching for lost loved ones.

The blonde man in Brazil turned out to be Canadian, as he had said. But he didn’t know more than that. He was Anton Pilipa who had been missing from his hometown of Scarborough, Ontario, for five years. Anton left his home area in 2012 before he had to stand trial for a robbery he had committed. 

When Lars’s team informed Anton’s mother about his whereabouts, she was understandably sceptical. But with the help of Brazilian authorities, they were eventually able to confirm that the man was, without a doubt, Anton Pilipa.

It turned out that Anton was suffering from schizophrenia. After he fled Canada, he somehow managed to hitchhike his way from Scarborough in Toronto, all the way across North and South America to Brazil. 

Police found him wandering next to a highway. With his long blonde hair and naturally fair skin, he stood out - police knew he wasn’t a native Brazilian. There he only told the police that he was a Canadian. A police officer, who was incidentally a Canadian-born Brazilian, researched the case on the Internet and took to social media. 

When he was first discovered, police took him in to hospital as he appeared to have been on the road for a while. He also had no form of identification on him. But Anton escaped from hospital and disappeared again, this time into the Brazilian jungle. 

Police managed to track him down and he was found in Manaus, on the Amazon. There he stayed until his brother, Stefan came from Canada to pick him up.

It is an amazing story. Nobody knows exactly how Anton managed to travel all that way without a passport or identification. Once back on his medication and cared for back home, Anton recalled some details of his 6,500 miles (or 10,500-kilometre journey). He claimed to have walked most of the way – barefoot. He sometimes hid in the backs of trucks. Generosity of strangers kept him going and he felt lucky to be alive. 

Lars Mittank’s loved ones were disappointed that Anton turned out not to be Lars, but his incredible story made their conviction that Lars was still alive stronger than ever. 

In a strange and unsolved case like Lars’s, one can always expect multiple theories to emerge. 

Another theory emerged that Lars simply wanted to disappear, that he wanted to stay in Bulgaria and go off-grid. He was an easy-going guy that perhaps wanted to start new. But this theory doesn’t carry much weight. Lars was very close to his family. His dad was sick, and his mom needed him. He had a promising career and plans for the future. Although she managed to stay out of the media, Lars had a steady girlfriend that he was serious about. He was in touch with her while he was away, and nothing indicated that Lars intended to leave her. Lars also had many friends who all liked him. He had no reason whatsoever to WANT to disappear.

Some more elaborate theories are out there too. Like that Lars was forced to become a drug mule against his will. That’s where he disappeared to that night when his friends were at McDonald’s. The theory was that a Bulgarian or Russian gang forced him to become a mule by making him ingest drugs. Remember there were no drugs in his luggage though, so if there were drugs on him, it must have been inside of him. That’s perhaps why he was hesitant to fly: he had changed his mind and wanted out. He was waiting for the drugs to pass through his system before he boarded the flight. Also, he didn’t want to get his friends into trouble, so he sent them home.

His strange behaviour in the doctor’s room makes believers of this theory think that Lars was scared that the doctors were onto him. When the construction working in uniform came, he probably thought it was police coming to arrest him.

If one of the ingested bags of drugs broke inside him, it would cause an overdose quite quickly and he would die. He would not have been able to get too far from the airport. Yet, no body was ever found. 

Also, if Lars was forced to be a mule, would he call his mom and only give her sketchy details about people following him? If he had known what they wanted him to do and he somehow changed his mind or tried to escape from the situation, why didn’t he tell his mom what the problem was? He was vague in his calls, saying something wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what.

Things started to go wrong after Lars and his friends’ night out at Rock Bar in Golden Sands. Nobody witnessed the fight Lars claimed to have been in – the fight that caused his ear problems. What really happened that night and why did Lars’s friends – who had known him for a long time – feel that he was lying about it?

Theories about human trafficking also emerged. Bulgaria has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in Europe. People are kidnapped and forced into a life of drug smuggling, prostitution or sex slavery. There is also black-market organ trafficking and a fit and healthy young man like Lars would be a good candidate. This opens up a whole dark underworld for investigators to follow up on. If Lars is still being kept against his will in circumstances like these… It would probably be the worst-case scenario.

Some people believe that the anti-biotics prescribed to Lars caused a psychotic breakdown. The text Lars sent to his mom asking about the Cefzil 500, made the police wonder if the drugs had triggered psychosis. However, even if Lars had swallowed his anti-biotics down with a drink, it’s highly unlikely to have caused psychosis. 

The side-effects of Cefzil don’t usually cause anything more than headaches, dizziness or nausea. It also takes time and multiple doses for effects like these to take form. Lars could only have taken capsules after buying it from the pharmacy, less than 24-hours before he ran away.

One theory suggests that Lars, like Anton Pilipa, suffered from schizophrenia. This is typically diagnosed in males between 16-30 years old. Schizophrenia can loosely be defined as a long-term psychiatric condition which affects a person’s thought process. A person suffering from paranoid Schizophrenia could suffer from delusions that someone is out to get them. 

Lars’s behaviour on the night before he vanished certainly showed signs of angst and fear that somebody was following him. But to claim that he is schizophrenic is perhaps a stretch. Firstly, Lars had no family or personal history of mental illness. He also showed no signs that he was unwell or unmotivated, as is usually the case in the onset of the illness. Although he had a decreased appetite during his holiday, he was socially interactive and everything but depressed. 

Another question was whether the fight Lars was in perhaps caused a significant head injury that brought on psychosis? Severe head trauma can bring about symptoms like hallucinations, delusions, paranoia and personality changes. 

Remember: in the taxi that picked Lars up on the morning of his disappearance, the driver and passenger both noticed that Lars’s pupils were dilated. There are various reasons why someone’s pupils could be perceived as dilated. Most commonly perhaps is if the person has taken drugs. It could also, in some circumstances, signal brain injury or a psychiatric condition like schizophrenia. Pupils can also dilate if the body is under severe stress, in ‘fight or flight’ mode.

Perhaps the fight caused a head injury that brought on psychosis. Lars was under a lot of stress: he was injured and stuck in a foreign country. He checked into the cheap hotel and something there did not feel right to him, perhaps he saw something that made him uncomfortable. Paranoia could have snuck in, that made him believe someone was following him. Either way, he did not sleep the night before his disappearance. There is a 2-3-hour period when he had no contact with his mom, but by this time he had left the hotel already. And being on high alert, trying to evade someone, it is fair to assume he did not sleep at all.

If this episode was indeed brought on by a brain injury, perhaps Lars is currently suffering from amnesia, which is why he hasn’t returned home: he doesn’t know who he is or where he’s from. 

Lars was scared when he ran away. An airport is generally seen as a safe place, there are many people mulling around, someone could have helped him. It was also the best place to be if he wanted to make his way back to Germany. Why would he run away from a place where people could possibly help him?

Whatever happened to Lars, investigators, family and friends cannot exclude any theory. Lars is still missing and any information that could help to find him is followed up on. 

This case certainly has more questions than answers, but until they find Lars Mittank, dead or alive, his family and friends will not give up the search. His mother Sandra has a suitcase packed with Lars’ clothes, ready to go should she receive a phone call that he has been located.

Lars would now be in his early thirties. He is blonde and athletic and stands about 5 ft 9 (or 1.8 metres) tall. He has brown eyes. 

To see a photo of him, or if you have any information, contact his family and friends at facebook.com/findetlarsmittank. We will have the link in our show notes. 

If you’d like to read more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes. You would enjoy 

Also visit and like our Facebook Page at facebook.com/evidencelockerpodcast/” to see more about today’s case.

If you like our podcast, please subscribe in Apple Podcast or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. We would also appreciate if you could review the episodes, as it gives us some street cred in the world of podcasting. 

This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!

©2018 Evidence Locker Podcast

All rights reserved. This podcast or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a podcast review.

‍