{"id":5765,"date":"2018-08-23T13:22:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=5765"},"modified":"2018-08-23T13:22:26","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T13:22:26","slug":"the-investigation-of-nicky-verstappens-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/the-investigation-of-nicky-verstappens-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The Investigation of Nicky Verstappen&#8217;s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday morning, Dutch police announced the discovery of the\u00a0<em>verdachte<\/em> or prime suspect in Nicky Verstappen&#8217;s death. After years of investigation, police finally matched the DNA on the body of Nicky to that of Jos Brech. Although the investigation had recently been mentioned in the news, the crime goes back 10 years which is why it is important to understand what happened and why it has taken so long.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5766\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/4KAXPj\" aria-label=\"2462501204 7a87904ca4 B 350x263\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5766\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5766\"  alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"263\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-350x263.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5766\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo taken by R\/DV\/RS found on Flickr.com with license CC BY 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>The Crime<\/h3>\n<p>On August of 1998, Nicky Verstappen, a 9-year-old boy from Heibloem in Limburg, went missing from a summer camp in the Brunsummerheide, near the border with Germany. The camp staff quickly began a search and later called the police for support. Despite the efforts of police and volunteers, they were not able to make any discoveries on the first day. The following day, another search party was sent out, this time with the support of other enforcement agencies in the country and they found the body of Nicky Verstappen.<\/p>\n<h3>The\u00a0Investigation<\/h3>\n<p>As police investigated the area surrounding the body and the body itself, it was evident this was a\u00a0murder. At the time, there were a few open cases around Europe of\u00a0<em>kindermoordenaars<\/em> or\u00a0serial killers who had targeted children, but there wasn&#8217;t enough evidence to convict anyone. Although the media hype died down, police continued to investigate the murder. In January of this year, police announced that they were widening their search scope to match the DNA that was found in Nicky&#8217;s body. It is through this effort that they found a suspect, Jos Brech.<\/p>\n<p>The following video gives a timeline of the investigation.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"TIJDLIJN: Zoektocht naar moordenaar Nicky Verstappen duurt al 20 jaar\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kn0mqiZ3TLM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>The Search<\/h3>\n<p>Yesterday morning, August 22nd, the police in Maastricht announced a\u00a0<em>doorbraak<\/em> or\u00a0breakthrough and the search for Jos Brech began. His last known location was camping in France. Police are seeking help from everyone given that the\u00a0<em>verdachte<\/em> has good survival training and can easily hide. The 20-year delay in this breakthrough has brought up the topic of a DNA database where everyone would be required to participate. There are pros and cons to this, but until the Dutch legislature decides on anything, the police are forced to ask for volunteers. You can read more about this in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nporadio1.nl\/homepage\/11425-peter-r-de-vries-pleit-opnieuw-voor-een-nationale-dna-databank\">this article by NPO<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The following video is a short interview with the mother of Nicky Verstappen. It is quite a moving video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Moeder Nicky Verstappen: \u2018Alles draait nu om antwoorden&#039; - RTL NIEUWS\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tJLD4e_LGm4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you have any information that could be useful, please contact your local police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-350x263.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2018\/08\/2462501204_7a87904ca4_b.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Yesterday morning, Dutch police announced the discovery of the\u00a0verdachte or prime suspect in Nicky Verstappen&#8217;s death. After years of investigation, police finally matched the DNA on the body of Nicky to that of Jos Brech. Although the investigation had recently been mentioned in the news, the crime goes back 10 years which is why it&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/the-investigation-of-nicky-verstappens-death\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":5766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[27714],"tags":[506152,10149,179,7873],"class_list":["post-5765","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","tag-investigation","tag-netherlands","tag-news","tag-police"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5765"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5769,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5765\/revisions\/5769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}