Till R.: A missing teenager explains his years of escape

In an interview with Bild newspaper, Till reveals why he ran away from home at the age of 15 and what he has been up to in recent years. On September 17, 2017, he traveled by train to Lincoln in Emsland (Lower Saxony) without parental permission to visit an online gaming debutant. Disregarding the youth welfare office return ticket, he disappeared down the road.

Until describing her decision to say she was bullied at school “because I was too fat”. “I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I never told my parents and brothers what was going on. Instead, he confided in the youth welfare office. He didn’t get any help: “They weren’t particularly friendly and didn’t take my problem seriously. I stayed home until the bullying stopped at my school. I told them I would not return.”

During a train journey he suddenly landed in Düsseldorf. “I was afraid to go home. But I was even more afraid of school. I constantly had a bad feeling on the train. During the first week, Till hung around the train station and downtown Düsseldorf and slept on the streets.

In mid-October 2017, a school friend called and said he was fine. He tells “Build”: “Over time, I slowly got to know people on the street, including two homeless people who I became friends with. We kept ourselves afloat in warehouse work. We lived in an abandoned, run-down hall in an industrial area. There were three of us and we shared what we had. This went on for about a year.”

When the trio became unemployed, they traveled to Berlin. Despite the distance, Till lived in constant fear of being discovered. “None of the three of us have ever owned a cell phone.” Everything changed when he learned that in the summer of 2022 his photo would be published in “Aktenzeichen XY” and a reward would be offered for information on his whereabouts. “It was a boon! Suddenly I felt like fair game. One of my two friends was beaten to reveal my whereabouts. But he kept it tight,” said the 21-year-old.

But slowly he realized that he wanted to go home. On April 21, he sent a message to his father from a borrowed cell phone.

Till today R. Sitting in the garden with his parents. It seems that everything has never been different. “I enjoy peace and quiet here,” says the son.