The Münster results were not a confirmation that Hauser was the Baden prince. They were a finding of similarity that could be explained by a maternal relationship. But the difference between the 1996 blood results and the 2001-2002 hair results created a scientific impasse that neither side could resolve with the existing technology. Were the hair samples from a different person than the blood samples? Had the blood sample been contaminated? Had the hair samples been contaminated? Had the Münster team encountered fragmented, degraded DNA that had been partially replaced by younger foreign DNA from handling? The techniques available at the time could not answer these questions definitively.
The result, as Walther Parson — who would lead the 2024 study — later described it, was a stalemate. Two sets of DNA results, from different samples using different techniques, pointing in opposite directions. The Baden prince theory could not be confirmed. It could not be excluded either. The case had been scientifically inconclusive for over two decades.
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## Walther Parson and the Decision to Resolve It
The 2024 study began as an attempt to break the stalemate using techniques that did not exist when the earlier analyses were conducted.
Walther Parson, a forensic molecular biologist at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck, led the project. His specialization was in ancient and degraded DNA — the analysis of genetic material that has been exposed to environmental damage, fragmentation, and time. The methods his group used were originally developed for the analysis of Neanderthal DNA and other ancient specimens: techniques capable of recovering interpretable genetic information from material so degraded that conventional sequencing methods produce no usable result.