This episode appears to be based on the 2003 Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) international gang case.
This episode appears to be inspired in part to the 1998 still unsolved murder of Suzanne Jovin. Ms. Jovin was a student at Yale University, and she was from Germany. In this episode, the victim has a German name (but she is born in the U.S.). Furthermore, the murder victim studied at Yale.