Death of Nicky Verstappen, Mass DNA study

19 years ago, a young 11 year old boy was kidnapped and later found murdered in a nature park about 15 miles from where I live. He was there with a group of other kids on summer camp. At the time all investigations were totally done but no suspect was found. The case was closed and a few years afterwards a new group of investigators re-did the investigation fully and the forensic institute of the Netherlands re-investigated all of the evidence and a DNA source was found. This was possible because the DNA technology in this day and age was a lot more advanced than those in 1998.

A small study of about 100 men in the region/close friends was asked to give their DNA to try and find a DNA match but none was found. Even the body of the former head of the summer camp was exhumed to get a DNA sample but he was cleared of being involved. So now the options were over and done with for the investigation except for one thing. A mass familial male DNA study, in this case about 15,000 men.

I may too get called up because I was a young male at thed time and lived only a handful of miles from where this happened. Personally I have never been at the location where this took place (as a toddler I was there) but as a teen/man I have never been there but if I get a call up for this DNA study I think I will comply because the family of the victim deserves that people cooperate as much as possible to try and find a familial DNA trail to the killer (hell even the killer could decide to have his DNA tested).

Hopefully this will be as successful as the DNA study did after the murder of Marianne Vaatstra and hopefully the killer, who has remained silent for 19 years, will be flushed out and sentenced to life for his murder of this innocent boy.

The DNA of all the people who participated will only be compared to the DNA found on Nicky Verstappen and not compared to DNA of other open and unsolved crimes and as soon as a familial DNA clue is found, all cotton swabs, the DNA material and all DNA profiles gathered will be destroyed. Last time in the Vaatstra case, the DNA screening was done about about 7,500 people so this is a screening in which twice as many people will be tested.

I just hope it leads to the killer. He has been living on stolen time for 19 years and deserves to be punished finally.

Massive DNA investigation launched in Dutch boy's 1998 murder | NL Times

Well, it is the Netherlands so if they say they will destroy the samples after being used they probably will. I probably wouldn't comply with such a request here in the US, however.

Wow, Talk about juxtaposition. Something with good intentions has so many possible negatives. Once the genie is out of that bottle....Hope it works out and the perp is found.....sorta like fishing with a hand grenade....succes!

Skeptic Bob said:

Well, it is the Netherlands so if they say they will destroy the samples after being used they probably will. I probably wouldn't comply with such a request here in the US, however.

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TV crews were present the last time everything was chucked in the fire so that the public knew it had been destroyed. Because trust is good, seeing with your own eyes is better..

Rexedgar said:

Wow, Talk about juxtaposition. Something with good intentions has so many possible negatives. Once the genie is out of that bottle....Hope it works out and the perp is found.....sorta like fishing with a hand grenade....succes!

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It already worked in the case of Marianne Vaatstra, and it is a decision that is not easily taken. It is a very costly and invasive procedure into a society so all other avenues of investigation have to be exhausted, it has to be a very serious case and and a judge has to give approval and again, the DNA will only be compared to the evidence of the Nicky Verstappen DNA material and not to any other crime and all DNA will be destroyed after the screening has ended.

Update, a local newspaper has done a representative poll among men in the area where Nicky was murdered, there close to 90% of the men are prepared to give DNA samples and as a whole, in the entire province it is about 80% who are willing give up a DNA sample so that the killer hopefully can be found. If they ask me, even though I am reasonably far from where the crime took place (about 15 miles or so), I too would have no problem giving up a DNA sample.

This is the perpetrator of the murder/killing of 11 year old Nicky Verstappen



His name is Jos Brech aged 55 and he is somewhere in Europe hiding his location so the police has created a European arrest warrant and he is added to our Most Wanted list.

After on the 11th of August 1998, when the murder/killing had just taken place, the police had ended the surveillance but the crime scene had not been released, so the Military Police took over the surveillance of the area. At that time more than a day after the death of Nicky Verstappen, the name of the perpetrator had been added to the police file because the Military police had stopped him when he cycled at midnight in the area of the murder scene. The military police took his name and details as a passerby only. In 2001 he had been questioned as a witness but nothing had come from that.

After the first police study had ended, the entire police file was transferred to a police unit higher up in the Netherlands for a new study of the death of Nicky Verstappen. The complete file was digitized and newly investigated. When the large DNA study was announced, Jos Brech was one of the 1500 people who were asked to give up DNA for a 1 on 1 DNA study. When he failed to reply the police went to his house several times and left a letter at his house.

The family of the man, who gives Bushcraft courses to people, contacted the police and stated that the man was in France and would come to the Netherlands in April of this year and then would voluntarily surrender his DNA. But in February the man stopped communicating with his family and they reported the man as missing. Then the police was able to collect personal items to send to our Forensic agency the NFI to try and find DNA on those items in the missing persons case. Meanwhile the police unit investigating the death of Nicky Verstappen also collected personal items but then not from his home but from the chalet he was staying in in France to collect DNA and they also got familial DNA to cross reference. In June the NFI confirmed that the DNA from Jos Brech was a 100% match with the perpetrator DNA found on Nicky Verstappen.

When the DNA match was found, the family (who had been involved in the investigation in the last 17 years, who had been promised by the DA from the Limburg region to go to the exteme to try and solve this case) were called to the secret location where the new investigation unit was located. At that meeting the family was informed that the DNA found on their son had been 100% matched to Jos Brech.

Since then the police has been searching in France but now the police has gone public (finally allowing the family to talk about what they had been informed about by the investigation team and that they had not been allowed to talk about) to ask the public for information about Jos Brech and ask people for information regarding his current location.

Not the entire case has been solved but by identifying him before the statute of limitations ran out after 20 years, that statute of limitation has been stopped and now Jos Brech is no longer safe from prosecution. Maybe something he had been trying to achieve by trying to stay out of the hands of police.

As soon as more is known I will update this story.

SUSPECTED MURDER JOS BRECH CAUGHT

Update, his flight has ended after just a few days. A witness warned the police that he saw a person fitting the description of Jos Brech in the North of Spain where Brech was hiding. It has been reported that he was switching locations between a tent in the woods and an abandoned home with homeless people.

At 10pm here in the Netherlands the capture was reported. Now the Netherlands will request extradition of the suspect and depending on him fighting that extradition, he will either been in the Netherlands very soon or a bit later (if he fights the extradition and a Spanish judge will have to decide on the extradition request).

Both the police and relatives of Nicky Verstappen are extremely happy Brech has been caught and now sits in a Spanish cell.

News has been flooding in the past week, according to sources he was accused of attempted fondling of young boys and one successful fondling of a young boy and was sentenced to 2 years probation. He later still worked as someone helping scouts (in the Netherlands and according to some in Poland) and some people say he was kicked out of a scout group because the police said he was a threat to young children.

More news will follow.

Peter King said:

19 years ago, a young 11 year old boy was kidnapped and later found murdered in a nature park about 15 miles from where I live. He was there with a group of other kids on summer camp. At the time all investigations were totally done but no suspect was found. The case was closed and a few years afterwards a new group of investigators re-did the investigation fully and the forensic institute of the Netherlands re-investigated all of the evidence and a DNA source was found. This was possible because the DNA technology in this day and age was a lot more advanced than those in 1998.

A small study of about 100 men in the region/close friends was asked to give their DNA to try and find a DNA match but none was found. Even the body of the former head of the summer camp was exhumed to get a DNA sample but he was cleared of being involved. So now the options were over and done with for the investigation except for one thing. A mass familial male DNA study, in this case about 15,000 men.

I may too get called up because I was a young male at thed time and lived only a handful of miles from where this happened. Personally I have never been at the location where this took place (as a toddler I was there) but as a teen/man I have never been there but if I get a call up for this DNA study I think I will comply because the family of the victim deserves that people cooperate as much as possible to try and find a familial DNA trail to the killer (hell even the killer could decide to have his DNA tested).

Hopefully this will be as successful as the DNA study did after the murder of Marianne Vaatstra and hopefully the killer, who has remained silent for 19 years, will be flushed out and sentenced to life for his murder of this innocent boy.

The DNA of all the people who participated will only be compared to the DNA found on Nicky Verstappen and not compared to DNA of other open and unsolved crimes and as soon as a familial DNA clue is found, all cotton swabs, the DNA material and all DNA profiles gathered will be destroyed. Last time in the Vaatstra case, the DNA screening was done about about 7,500 people so this is a screening in which twice as many people will be tested.

I just hope it leads to the killer. He has been living on stolen time for 19 years and deserves to be punished finally.

Massive DNA investigation launched in Dutch boy's 1998 murder | NL Times

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There is no way that the cops can force all men to give DNA samples if they don't want to and why in the hell would anybody guilty volunteer to give DNA? The whole thing seems bizarre and a waste of time.

Bodhisattva said:

There is no way that the cops can force all men to give DNA samples if they don't want to and why in the hell would anybody guilty volunteer to give DNA? The whole thing seems bizarre and a waste of time.

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You do know how familial DNA works right? Because they are not expecting a 1 on 1 match, even though the killer of Marianne Vaatstra came to donate his DNA voluntarily so it seems you are wrong.

And it is not a case of forcing men to give up their DNA, now pressuring them somewhat by reminding them is another thing.

And most people volunteer their DNA and if they have nothing to hide, why not?

Peter King said:

SUSPECTED MURDER JOS BRECH CAUGHT

Update, his flight has ended after just a few days. A witness warned the police that he saw a person fitting the description of Jos Brech in the North of Spain where Brech was hiding. It has been reported that he was switching locations between a tent in the woods and an abandoned home with homeless people.

At 10pm here in the Netherlands the capture was reported. Now the Netherlands will request extradition of the suspect and depending on him fighting that extradition, he will either been in the Netherlands very soon or a bit later (if he fights the extradition and a Spanish judge will have to decide on the extradition request).

Both the police and relatives of Nicky Verstappen are extremely happy Brech has been caught and now sits in a Spanish cell.

News has been flooding in the past week, according to sources he was accused of attempted fondling of young boys and one successful fondling of a young boy and was sentenced to 2 years probation. He later still worked as someone helping scouts (in the Netherlands and according to some in Poland) and some people say he was kicked out of a scout group because the police said he was a threat to young children.

More news will follow.

Click to expand...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45317883

Peter King said:

You do know how familial DNA works right? Because they are not expecting a 1 on 1 match, even though the killer of Marianne Vaatstra came to donate his DNA voluntarily so it seems you are wrong.

And it is not a case of forcing men to give up their DNA, now pressuring them somewhat by reminding them is another thing.

And most people volunteer their DNA and if they have nothing to hide, why not?

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Does the State keep your DNA? I would never allow the State to have my DNA.

And the argument that if you have nothing to hide means you should give up your privacy is horrible.

Glad they caught the guy.!!!

Bodhisattva said:

Does the State keep your DNA? I would never allow the State to have my DNA.

And the argument that if you have nothing to hide means you should give up your privacy is horrible.

Glad they caught the guy.!!!

Click to expand...

Only DNA collected from convicted felons get kept, all the DNA collected from those who give their DNA voluntarily are only used for this study, afterwards all the data is destroyed completely. It is illegal to compare the DNA with any other crime. It is completely anonymized by the police and as said it can only be compared with the DNA from the investigation of that specific crime, not with DNA from other cases.

So nobody's DNA is kept or registered, you privacy is guaranteed.

The NFI who conducts the DNA testing does this anonymously.

The NFI does the mass DNA familial DNA study for the Prosecution Service and does this completely anonymously. The names of the people who give up their DNA voluntarily are not known to the NFI laboratory. The NFI only sees the code that the police has coupled to the DNA sample of the person who has given the DNA. Only the police knows the the name who belongs with the sample (as only they know the coupling of name and code).

DNA of those who volunteer their DNA is destroyed

The DNA that was voluntarily given by the people participating is neither kept nor stored in any way or shape. All DNA samples that are not a familial match is destroyed. This is regulated by law. The Prosecution Service orders the destruction.