The eerie case of ‘the grey-haired man who deleted his past’: Tourist with no record of entering the country checked into a hotel under a fake name – three days later he was dead and 16 years on, there are still no answers…

On a warm June afternoon, a grey-haired man with a German accent checked into the Sligo City Hotel.

He’d arrived by taxi, after getting a bus on from Derry to Sligo, a seaside town in the west of Ireland.

He checked in with the name Peter Bergmann. He paid with cash, and then carried three pieces of luggage to his room.

Four days later, his body washed up on the beach.

His death marked the first act of a mystery that has baffled police forces and compelled journalists and internet sleuths for more than a decade. Why? Because Peter Bergmann didn’t exist.

The mystery man used a fake name, gave a fake address, and apparently appeared in Ireland without a passport or any record.  

At the hotel he gave an address in Austira as his home, but police later discovered, the address didn’t exist.

The man looked to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s, he was 5ft 10in with blue eyes and a slight tan.

Under the fake name Peter Bergmann, the grey-haired man checked into the Sligo City Hotel on 12 June paid with cash and carried three pieces of luggage to his room

Over the next three days, he was captured by security cameras leaving the hotel with a full plastic bag and returning to his room with nothing. 

On the fourth day, he went to the nearby seaside village of Rosses Point, where he would later wash up on the shore.

Bizarrely, he hadn’t drowned, the official cause of death was determined to be acute cardiac arrest, as there was no water in his lungs, it is thought that his heart failed just moments before he went into the sea.

Irish Times journalist Rosita Boland, who spent years investigating this case, joined Sarah McGlinchey to go through the bizarre details of the case BBC podcast The Man With The Plastic Bag. 

Rosita spoke to every witness in the case and visited the hotel and the beach were his body was found to try and find out some answers.

She said: ‘He had a navy T-shirt on and he had a pair of Speedo type swimming trunks but then over those he had his underwear, which is just bizarre, why wouldn’t you take off your underpants and T-shirt if you were going swimming.’

Other items of the man’s clothing were carefully folded nearby, however no ID was found and the tags had been cut off all his clothing. It appeared he had gone to great lengths to remain anonymous. 

In the hopes to uncover why he was in Ireland and how he managed to go undetected, police looked back at the man’s final footsteps, but 16 years on, it remains a mystery.

The man looked to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s, he was 5ft 10in with blue eyes and a slight tan, it was believed he boarded a bus from Derry, in northern Ireland to Sligo, however there was no record of him entering Ireland

A living depiction was created in the hopes to refresh anyone’s memory or in the hopes family or friend’s will come forward to identify the man 

Rosita said: ‘The first we know of his existence in Ireland is him turning up at the bus station in Derry on that Friday afternoon, it’s very unlikely he was living in Northern Ireland but we don’t know how he got there. 

‘He was caught on CCTV at Derry bus station, he was consciously looking for the bus to Sligo, he first got on a bus to Galway and then got off when he heard it wasn’t for Sligo.’

Arriving at 6.30pm in Sligo he took a taxi to ‘somewhere cheap to stay’ so the driver took him to the Sligo City Hotel.

He was dressed in a black leather jacket and he had two bags with him, one was a small laptop bag. 

During the police investigation they discovered the address in Vienna that ‘Peter’ used to check into the hotel didn’t exist. 

He was spotted leaving the hotel 13 times with a purple plastic bag, each time the bag was full on contents but when he returned the bag was nowhere to be seen.

‘Either he dumped the contents and put the empty bag back in his pocket or he had lots of bags in his room,’ Rosita said. 

‘One person emailed me and said maybe he had murdered somebody and he was disposing of the limbs in those bags, maybe a small person or a child, the bags were not terribly big.’ 

At the hotel he provided the Austrian address, ‘Ainstettersn 15, 4472, Vienna, Austria’, as his own and witnesses say he spoke in a German accent but when police checked the address didn’t exist

He was spotted leaving the hotel 13 times with a purple plastic bag, each time the bag was full on contents but when he returned the bag was nowhere to be seen

However police didn’t think the bags were that suspicious, saying he may have had clothing or personal items in them.

On his first day in Sligo he made his way to the General Post Office at 10.50 AM, where he bought eight stamps and some airmail stickers. 

However he was never seen posting anything and the stamps were not found on his possession after his death. 

On Sunday, in the early afternoon he left the hotel for the town’s only taxi rank and asked to be taken to a quiet beach, where he could swim. 

The driver took him to Rosses Point, however on arrival he surveyed the beach, seemed satisfied with the choice and asked for the taxi to take him back to Sligo.

After requesting a late check out ‘Peter’ left the hotel and deposited his key at reception.

He was then seen carrying the three bags he arrived with, a black holdall, the laptop bag, and a purple plastic bag. 

However by the time he got to Sligo bus station the holdall bag was missing,  it was never found by police. 

After requesting a late check out ‘Peter’ left the hotel and deposited his key at reception just after 1PM on Monday the 15 June, he’s carrying the three bags he arrived with, a black holdall, the laptop bag, and a purple plastic bag

Later,  he was spotted by 16 people on the beach, but no one saw him enter the water. 

At 10.30 that evening he was seen along the beach carrying his purple plastic bag.

The last time he was seen was at 11.50 walking along the edge of the water. 

The next morning, not long after six, he was found washed up on the beach by a father and son who were out for a jog. 

Peter Bergmann’s body had been taken to post mortem there wasn’t any hint of foul play. 

The post-mortem revealed that he was in poor health, he had advanced stages of prostate cancer and bone tumours.

Meanwhile his heart had signs of previous ischaemic heart disease – despite all of these conditions, there was no trace of medication in his system.

Rosita said: ‘Was he thinking that perhaps I’m terminally ill, I’m just going to go into the ocean, we know that he didn’t die of drowning, did he tae something that brought on a heart attack.

‘It’s a crazy coincidence, did he die spontaneously, did he have a hand at his own death. It’s a total mystery.’ 

In 2019 the Guardi,  allowed Rosita to inspect ‘Peter’s’ clothes which were kept in evidence. 

‘They were still full of sand, his T-shirt, trunks and underpants, they lifted those out and there was just sand falling out.

‘It was the items in his pocket, those were the only things that he choose to keep, there was no passport, no phone, no credit cards.’

Found in his pockets was a watch, a packet of German tissues, a small bar of soap which wasn’t from any hotel in Ireland.  

The Guards kept the man’s body for three months in the hopes that some family member would come forward but he was eventually put to rest.  

‘The state had to step in and provide a plot and cover the cost of the funeral.

‘There was one other unidentified body underneath him and the plot can take three, but there was nobody to go on top in case they did find out who he was, they could dig his remains up and repatriate the bones to wherever he came from. 

‘There is a small wooden cross but it’s not for him it’s for the person who was underneath him who was also unidentified. ‘

Guardí circulated the man’s DNA profile and pictures of an Interpol system but nothing has flagged up. 

They also made public appeals in Austrian and German publications in an attempt to find out who he really was. 

16 years on from the mysterious death, the man is still unidentified, with no relatives or friends coming forward. 

If you have any information that might help in identifying the man please contact us at appeals@locate.international or call 0300 102 1011. 

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