On Thursday, the prosecutor asks Jan Willem H. (52), suspected of strangling and hiding the body of his 37-year-old partner, for seventeen years in prison. He would also have stolen his money.
He hid the woman’s remains in a roof box and hid it for two years. At the beginning of February she dumped the suitcase into the water of the Oranjekanaal near Orvelte in Drenthe.
The man from Assen was arrested on 11 February and confessed almost immediately that he had already strangled the woman in early March 2020. He wrapped her body in plastic and blankets and hid it in the roof box the whole time.
He had sealed the seams of the suitcase. The woman was reported missing from her family in Hungary in December 2020. After a request for legal aid, police in the Netherlands launched a large-scale investigation in early 2021.
The suitcase was found by local residents, who called the carabinieri. One of the residents said they saw a man in a van. Rumor has it that he threw something into the water two days earlier.
H. says he dumped a roof box in a panic
The man says he strangled his wife because “blood came from under her nails”. The prosecutor believes the man acted on a whim.
H. said when he was arrested that he dumped the roof box in a panic. His father wanted to clean up the closet where his body was hidden.
“Not only did she take the children from their mother,” the prosecutor said, “they weren’t even able to greet her. The body was too decomposed for that.” According to H.’s lawyer, the discovery of the roof box was a great relief for H. “he knew that one day his secret would come out.”
The court will rule on November 24th.
