Public Prosecution Service demands 30 years in prison and TBS against Thijs H.: ‘He is emotionless and manipulative’ | Inland

The requirement is unusually high and much stricter than the 18 years and TBS that the court in Maastricht imposed on him earlier.

As far as the advocates-general is concerned, lifelong was not an option, because then there is a risk that Thijs H. will one day be released without treatment. They find that irresponsible because there would be a great risk of repetition. They spoke of three “delicately prepared murders” and an “emotionless, calculating and manipulative suspect who is mainly concerned with himself and his own future.”

Should the Den Bosch court come to the conclusion that Thijs H. did not suffer from a disturbance of his mental faculties, then the advocates general want him to be sentenced to life imprisonment.

H. confessed that on 4 May 2019 he stabbed 56-year-old Etsuko to death in the Scheveningse Bosjes in The Hague. Three days later he struck on Brunssummerheide, where he first stabbed 63-year-old Diny and a short time later 68-year-old Frans. The victims were attacked from behind and killed with great violence.

Mother

The mother of the triple murder suspect had a hard time on Tuesday during the second day of the appeal in the criminal case against her son. First, she heard her son declare that for a long period of time he saw her “as a bad person.” After that, she received the full brunt of the relatives of his three victims.

On Monday, the attorneys general accused her of directing her son’s statements. It does not make her popular with the relatives of the three victims. Despite attempts by lawyers Job Knoester and Serge Weening to silence twin sister Janny Schots of the stabbed Diny, the court allowed her to direct her verbal arrows not only at the suspect, but also at his mother.

According to Janny Schots, Thijs H.’s mother should have warned the police and the GGZ when he returned from Brunssummerheide with blood on his clothes and the knife he had used to kill two victims. Instead, Thijs H.’s mother washed the knife and gave her son clean clothes before taking him back to the Mondriaan mental health facility. Janny Schots bitterly: “Maybe mothers do that.”

Janny Schots feels amputated since the violent death of her sister Diny. She held out a piercing finger at Thijs H., called him a serial killer and said she had lived from court session to court session for two years. “And now you’re breaking it open again by appealing. You have to serve your god damn sentence. And as far as I’m concerned, not 18, but 30 years.”

Ger, Diny’s husband, held up a picture of his wife. “This is your victim, whom you have only seen from behind. She was much too young to die. My life is also in tatters and that is your fault.” Daughter Carla expressed her sadness via a video statement that she was unable to protect her mother “from the monster in the forest.”

‘The pain is indescribable’

Willem, the husband of Thijs H.’s first victim, 56-year-old Etsuko, also told the court through lawyer Sébas Diekstra that “the pain of her loss is indescribable.”

Thijs H. listened to it all in silence. His mother had already left the room when he told the court that for a while he thought she was a bad person. It is questionable whether she heard what he said afterwards: “It remains my mother and I love her very much.”

During the morning session, Thijs H. told how he had been convinced since the summer of 2018 that he was part of ‘the system’ that gave him orders in code language. He, along with his sister himself, belonged to “the awakened ones.” His parents, like about half of humanity, were enemies of the system.

Different rules applied within ‘the system’ and good and evil had been turned ‘inside out. Good was actually bad”, Thijs H. outlined his misgivings at the court.

Murder was ‘ordered by ‘the system’

He committed the murder of Etsuko in May 2019 on behalf of ‘the system’. He had to commit two murders or else he would be killed himself. “I thought it was a horrible thing to do,” said Thijs H. He wanted to leave it with that one victim, he no longer cared if it cost him his life. “I was in a state of total nihilism.” But ‘the system’ then threatened to kill his relatives. He saw the death of his uncle as a signal that he had to carry out the assignment after all. A few days after the first murder, he struck again on the Brunssummerheide where he killed two people.

Experts contradict each other about the state of mind of Thijs H. at the time of the three murders. According to the Pieter Baan Center, he was in psychosis and was completely mentally insane. According to other experts, he was at best less accountable.

Thijs H. was previously sentenced by the court in Maastricht to 18 years and TBS with compulsory treatment.

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