On the morning of 10 August 1998, 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen disappeared from a summer camp he was attending in
Brunssum
Brunssum (; li, Broensem) is a municipality and a town in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. The municipality of Brunssum has residents as of .
Brunssum was a center of coal mining until 1973.
Population centres
Topography
Histor ...
,
Limburg
Limburg or Limbourg may refer to:
Regions
* Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium
* Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands
* Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...
. His body was found on the evening of 11 August, away in
Landgraaf
Landgraaf (; li, Lankgraaf ) is a municipality in southeastern Limburg, Netherlands, forming part of the Parkstad Limburg agglomeration. ''Snow World'' is the largest indoor ski piste in Europe.
Population centres
*Nieuwenhagen
*Schaesberg
*Ub ...
, and a murder investigation was subsequently launched. Despite extensive investigation, the case remained unsolved for over twenty years.
Joseph Theresia Johannes "Jos" Brech (born 29 October 1962)
stood trial for the killing of Verstappen in 2020. He was arrested on 26 August 2018 in Spain after DNA from his belongings and relatives matched samples taken from Verstappen's clothing, following the largest DNA-harvesting operation in Dutch history.
On 20 November 2020, Brech was acquitted of manslaughter, but found guilty of the kidnapping and sexual abuse that led to Verstappen's death, as well as of
possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to twelve-and-a-half years' imprisonment.
On 28 January 2022, an appeal court convicted Brech on a charge of manslaughter and sentenced him to 16 years.
Disappearance and body discovery
On Saturday, 8 August 1998, Verstappen and 36 other children took the bus from Heibloem to
Brunssum
Brunssum (; li, Broensem) is a municipality and a town in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. The municipality of Brunssum has residents as of .
Brunssum was a center of coal mining until 1973.
Population centres
Topography
Histor ...
to take part in a children's summer camp being held on the De Heikop camping grounds on the Brunssummerheide. Verstappen was last seen alive around 5:30 a.m. on 10 August by a tentmate; later that morning, he was no longer in his sleeping bag; only his shoes were still in the tent.
On 11 August, police and volunteers conducted a search for the boy; at 9 p.m., his body, naked from the waist up, was found in a pine grove on the Schinvelderweg in
Landgraaf
Landgraaf (; li, Lankgraaf ) is a municipality in southeastern Limburg, Netherlands, forming part of the Parkstad Limburg agglomeration. ''Snow World'' is the largest indoor ski piste in Europe.
Population centres
*Nieuwenhagen
*Schaesberg
*Ub ...
, from the camp.
The body showed signs of possible sexual abuse, but the post-mortem did not determine the cause of death, and an initial examination for foreign DNA yielded nothing. A tissue and cigarette with human DNA were found near where the body was discovered; from this DNA a complete
profile
Profile or profiles may refer to:
Art, entertainment and media Music
* ''Profile'' (Jan Akkerman album), 1973
* ''Profile'' (Githead album), 2005
* ''Profile'' (Pat Donohue album), 2005
* ''Profile'' (Duke Pearson album), 1959
* '' ''Profi ...
was compiled.
Investigation
![Herdenkingsmonument Nicky Verstappen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Herdenkingsmonument_Nicky_Verstappen.jpg)
Joos Barten, the founder of the camp Verstappen disappeared from, was extensively questioned by police in the days following. A former headmaster of the local primary school in Heibloem, Barten had had convictions for child sexual abuse and admitted to being near the tent Verstappen slept in at 6 a.m. on 10 August. During the search for Verstappen, he pointed several times in the direction where the body was eventually discovered. A 15-year-old girl who had attended the teenagers' camp on De Heikop a few days earlier suspected that she had been sexually abused by Barten in her sleep. None of the camp staff were officially held as suspects.
A reward of 25,000
guilder
Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' "gold penny". This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Roman Empir ...
s was offered by the
Openbaar Ministerie
The Public Prosecution Service ( nl, Openbaar Ministerie, OM; ) is the body of public prosecutors in the Dutch criminal justice system.
The literal translation of ''Openbaar Ministerie'', "Public Ministry", can lead to a misunderstanding, as the ...
in
Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
for information on the identity of the perpetrator; this offer was doubled in 1999 with money raised by crime reporter
Peter R. de Vries
Peter Rudolf de Vries (14 November 1956 – 15 July 2021) was a Dutch investigative journalist and crime reporter. His television program (''Crime Reporter''; 1995−2012) covered high-profile cases and set a Dutch television viewing record. F ...
, who became a spokesperson for Verstappen's family. Following a lack of leads, the investigation team was dissolved in November 1998, with a new team of investigators taking over the case between November 2000 and July 2001.
Between 2001 and 2007, a sex offender from
Kerkrade
Kerkrade ( Ripuarian: ; li, Kirkraoj; german: Kerkrade or ''Kirchrath'') is a town and a municipality in the southeast of Limburg; the southernmost province of the Netherlands. It forms part of the Parkstad Limburg agglomeration.
Kerkrade is the ...
was in and out of police custody while a number of witnesses claimed to have seen him in and around the camp around 10 August 1998; the sex offender died in August 2007. The case has also been linked to German serial killer
Martin Ney
Martin Ney (born 12 December 1970) is a convicted German serial killer and sex offender.
From 1992-2004, he murdered three and sexually assaulted at least 40 children. Known as the "Masked Man" and the "Black Man", he wore a mask while commit ...
, who killed three boys between 1992 and 2001.
Seven or eight letters written by an anonymous author suggesting they had killed Verstappen were found on a monument for the boy on the Brunssummerheide between 2005 and July 2006. In January 2007, a 36-year-old man from Landgraaf was arrested on suspicion of having written the letters. He was released two weeks later, before being re-arrested in December for vandalising the monument. One month later, he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for the vandalism. The monument was vandalised again in April 2008, August 2013 and April 2019.
DNA profiling
Between December 1999 and January 2000, 35 men took part in a DNA test, but none of the samples matched those found at the crime scene. In 2010, with foreign DNA having been found on Verstappen's body, police took DNA samples from 80 men, but still did not find a matching sample. In November of that year, the remains of Joos Barten, the camp founder, who died in 2003, were exhumed for a DNA test. His DNA also did not match that found on Verstappen's body.
In January 2018, it was announced that 21,500 men in the Limburg province would be asked to give samples of their DNA in an attempt to trace Verstappen's killer. The DNA-screening program took place between February and June, with a total of over 15,000 samples collected—the largest number in Dutch history, almost twice the number of samples collected in the program that successfully traced the man who was convicted of
Marianne Vaatstra's murder.
On 22 August 2018, it was announced that DNA samples from the belongings and relatives of a 55-year-old man originally from
Simpelveld
Simpelveld (; li, Zumpelveld ) is a municipality and a town in the southeastern Netherlands. It is part of the municipal cooperative unit Parkstad Limburg.
Simpelveld is part of the ''Mergelland'', named after the presence of chalk (mergel), hi ...
, Joseph Theresia Johannes "Jos" Brech,
matched DNA found on Verstappen's clothing.
Brech, who had been missing from his
Vosges
The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...
home since April of that year, had not responded to requests for a sample of his DNA and his immediate family also refused to cooperate in the DNA-screening program. A police team managed to retrieve a sample of Brech's DNA from his personal items after he was reported missing. Brech had a history of sexually abusing children
and was known to have been near the scene of the crime around the time it took place, though he was believed at the time to just be a passer-by.
The
gendarme
Wrong info! -->
A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "Man-at-arms, men-at-arms" ...
who wrote down his name was later killed in action in Iraq. Police located and arrested Brech in Spain, near
Castellterçol
Castellterçol is a town in Catalonia. It is in the province of Barcelona, in the comarca of Moianès; until May 2015 it was in Vallès Oriental
Vallès Oriental () is a comarca (county) in Catalonia, Spain. Its capital is Granollers. Along wit ...
, on 26 August,
and he was extradited to the Netherlands on 6 September.
Trial
The trial began on 28 September 2020 and lasted three weeks. Brech denied being guilty of the charges. In a pre-recorded video message played in court, Brech said that on 11 August 1998—hours before Verstappen's body was found by the search party—he was walking close to the edge of a forest when he "saw something in the distance" and went to look out of curiosity, finding the body. He said that his DNA was found on the body because he had checked for signs of life, brushed leaves off the body and then left without any other action because of his previous convictions.
In total, 27 traces of Brech's DNA had been found on the body, including on the boy's underwear; Brech said he had "no idea" how his DNA ended up on the underwear. The prosecution contested Brech's assertions, referencing a photograph taken of the location of where the body was found in a pine grove and a screenshot from a video of the location Brech said he was standing when he "saw something". According to the prosecution, it would not have been possible for Brech to have seen Verstappen's body lying behind a
chain-link fence
A chain-link fence (also referred to as wire netting, wire-mesh fence, chain-wire fence, cyclone fence, hurricane fence, or diamond-mesh fence) is a type of woven fence usually made from galvanized or linear low-density polyethylene-coated st ...
and obscured from view by trees. Brech's lawyer argued that Brech had said in his video message that he "saw something"—not clarifying whether it was the body—from where he was standing that drew his attention to the pine grove. A forensic pathologist who had reviewed the post-mortem could not ascertain whether the injury to Verstappen's body was caused by sexual abuse, due to the poor quality of the photographs and the fact that the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem had since died.
The prosecution deemed Brech's assertions to be "wafer-thin and unbelievable", saying that they believed him to be guilty of the kidnapping, sexual abuse and aggravated manslaughter of Verstappen, and that although the medical cause of death was not determined, the boy's death could not have been the result of anything other than a criminal act, as he was healthy and had no genetic disorder. According to them, evidence at the crime scene indicated Verstappen died at the same location his body was found. On 8 October, the prosecution requested a sentence of 15 years' imprisonment and
compulsory treatment
Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hos ...
(or 18 years' imprisonment if the court decided not to impose compulsory treatment) for Brech for the kidnapping, sexual abuse and manslaughter of Verstappen, as well as for
possession of child pornography.
On 20 November, the court found Brech guilty of kidnapping and sexually abusing Verstappen, saying the multiple traces of Brech's DNA found on Verstappen's body, including on the boy's underwear, indicated prolonged physical contact of a sexual nature that Verstappen could not possibly have consented to. The court cited the manner of Brech's previous offences against children, which involved him restraining his victims by placing his hand over their mouths, and while not ruling out the possibility that Brech intentionally suffocated and killed Verstappen, the court took into account the possibility that the boy died accidentally as Brech attempted to restrain him. Brech was therefore acquitted of manslaughter, though the court maintained that Verstappen's death was the result of Brech's actions. Brech was given a 12-year prison sentence for the kidnapping and sexual abuse of Verstappen, as well as a six-month sentence for possession of child pornography found on the laptop he left behind in France during his flight. Brech's lawyer announced that the verdict would be appealed.
On 28 January 2022, an appeal court convicted Brech on a charge of manslaughter and sentenced him to 16 years.
Aftermath
In 2003, folk band
Rowwen Hèze
Rowwen Hèze is a band from the small village of America in the province of Limburg, the Netherlands. They are one of the biggest bands singing in North Limburgish, a South Guelderish dialect. The band was founded in 1985.
Music
Rowwen Hèze' ...
released a song about the case, titled "Vlinder" ().
Author published a book about the case titled ''De mysterieuze dood van Nicky Verstappen'' () in 2010.
Notes
: 12 years in the Nicky Verstappen case and 6 months for possession of child pornography.
: Brech denied that his departure to Spain from France was a flight. Both the lower and appeal courts found that it was.
See also
*
Cold case
A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or re ...
*
Killing of Nicole van den Hurk
On 6 October 1995, 15-year-old Nicole van den Hurk () disappeared on her way to work in Eindhoven, in the Dutch province of North Brabant. On 22 November, her body was found in the woods between the towns of Mierlo and Lierop.
In 2011, van de ...
*
Murder of Marianne Vaatstra
Marianne Vaatstra (; 10 August 1982 – 1 May 1999) was a Dutch girl whose rape and murder became a high-profile criminal case in the Netherlands. Vaatstra, then sixteen years old, was last seen alive cycling from Kollum to her parents' house in ...
*
List of solved missing person cases
Lists of solved missing person cases include:
* List of solved missing person cases: pre-2000
* List of solved missing person cases: post-2000
See also
* List of kidnappings
* List of murder convictions without a body
* List of people who dis ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Verstappen, Nicky, Death of
1990s missing person cases
1998 crimes in the Netherlands
1998 in the Netherlands
August 1998 events in Europe
Child sexual abuse in the Netherlands
Kidnapping in the Netherlands