Ep. 116 | You Won't Believe How This Cold Case Was Solved | Nicole van den Hurk

Use code KMK at https://jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Gift with your first purchase! #JonesRoadBeauty #ad Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/cccm Stop putting off those doctor appointments and go to https://zocdoc.com/CCCM to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. Nicole van den Hurk was just 15 when she vanished without a trace on her way to a summer job. What followed was a decades-long mystery filled with dead ends, until new evidence finally pointed investigators toward a killer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners! When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

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• 0:45Speaker 02

  It was still dark when she left the house. A 15-year-old girl, alone on a bicycle, pedaling toward a job that started before sunrise. But she would never make it there. And the case would sit unsolved for the better part of two decades. And in the end, it wasn't a detective who cracked it, not new evidence, and not a stroke of luck, and not a deathbed confession. It was a lie. This is the story of Nicole Van den Berg. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually-minded freak. Today, we are talking about an absolutely heartbreaking case,

• 1:26Speaker 02

  but also an incredible, incredible breakthrough that was made. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go off onto the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through the windshield into this case together.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners! When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots, and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan, and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance and new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Nicole was born on July 4th, 1980, in the small German city of Erkenletz. But her birth name was Nicole Tetmeyer. And her mother, Angelika, was raising Nicole on her own when she met a Dutchman named Ad Vandenhove. And the two fell in love. Now Nicole was three when the whole family crossed over into the Netherlands. And her biological father remained behind in Germany. And after Ad and Angelika's wedding, Tetmeyer became Vandenhove. And Nicole would get that last name as well. So she had a new country, a new family, and a new life taking shape around her. But Angelika struggled with her mental health. And she'd disappear into her bedroom for hours at a time, withdrawn and unreachable.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  And for a young girl trying to build a bond with her mother, that distance became the defining feature of their entire relationship. And in 1989, when Nicole was eight years old, Ad and Angelika would unfortunately divorce. And Ad was granted custody and became the one actually raising Nicole. Now Ad's career was in music. And the hours of that job were really long, and single parenting on top of all that was pretty brutal. And his mother lived just a few minutes away, though, and he leaned on her pretty heavily to help out with Nicole. Now the grandmother became something more than a babysitter. And Nicole and her stepbrother Andy, who was five years old, would stay overnight and spend whole days under her roof in Tongelra.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Apologies if I say any of these words wrong, I am doing my best. And this was one of Aint Hoven's neighborhoods. And over time, the bond between the kids and their grandmother deepened immensely because it felt safe. That house became Nicole's anchor. And then Ad started seeing someone, a woman named Yolanda. And she worked in music as well. And she got along with Andy and Nicole, and eventually she and Ad would marry. But the problem was that both of them were gone for work all of the time. So the grandmother picked up even more of the load. And then in April of 1995, Angelica, Nicole's biological mother, would pass away in Tilburg. And the exact circumstances of her death were never fully clarified.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  But there is a report that does say she passed away by way of her own hand. And Nicole was naturally devastated because she'd spent years separated from her mother by illness and by the custody agreement. And now the distant became permanent. And the relationship she wanted with her mother was never going to happen now. And by the fall of 1995, Nicole was 15, and she'd settled into her grandmother's place along with Andy. Now, as she grew older, Nicole didn't really spend as much time in the house anymore. And if she wasn't at school, she was at work or out with friends. And she had a tight circle around her, people who kept her busy and kept her distracted from everything her family had gone through.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  And she also had a boyfriend at the time and was just a girl building a life outward, moving fast, filling the space with connection wherever she could find it. And then, one day, Nicole told her aunt something unsettling. And she complained that some man she had never seen before followed her and harassed her while she was walking home. But unfortunately, nothing would be done about it at the time. Now, it was still dark out when Nicole left her grandmother's house on the morning of Friday, October 6, 1995. And shortly after 5:00 a.m., Nicole got on her bicycle and headed toward Wunsol Shopping Center in Eidhoven, because she had a temporary job there at the supermarket, specifically

• 6:24Speaker 02

  a holiday position that required really early starts. And it was her regular commute, the same route she always took. But Nicole never made it to work. And when she didn't show up for her shift, her coworkers grew really... And a late arrival turned into a missed shift. And a missed shift turned into a phone call. And police were contacted. And the first searches would begin immediately. And that evening at 6 o'clock, officers pulled Nicole's bicycle from the Dammel River. Now, the Dammel winds through the Endenhoven area, cutting across the area she would have ridden through that very morning. And the bike was completely submerged, and the search would widen very fast.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  So, police would zero in on every single bridge, water's edges, cycling paths, and walkways anywhere close to where the bicycle had turned up. And the river became the anchor point. And for 11 straight days, October 6th to October 17th, search teams tore through the Dammel and the surrounding forest. And teams worked the water and the banks grid by grid. And shortly after Nicole vanished, a TV program called Deadline launched a massive coordinated search of its own. And they brought in search teams and dogs. And much of the focus centered on a location called the Boswenpot area, which was repeatedly mentioned in coverage. But they would find nothing.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  But, on October 19th, another piece of Nicole surfaced. And her small backpack was discovered on a strip of ground between the DAF complex and Kanal Digssoit, near a canal in Einhoven. Now, the backpack would change the map. Because the bicycle was in one part of the city and the backpack was in another. And that kind of spread doesn't happen by accident. So, on October 20th, officers went through the canal and worked the southern banks. And they came back again on October 28th and the 29th. And some people wondered whether Nicole had simply just run away. And as we know, her biological father still lived in Germany, and she had extended family there.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  And perhaps she went to go stay a while with them over there. But her stepfather would completely shut down that theory. And he would say Nicole hadn't fled anywhere, and this was much worse. And the tip count for the search hit roughly 300 by November 20th. So, that was 300 leads from the public. And not one of them pointed to a clear suspect. And her bike and backpack had been found, but Nicole herself had not. So on Wednesday, November 22nd, 1995, a passerby walking through a stretch of woodland between Mirlo and Lyrup stumbled onto something hidden beneath a pile of branches and pruning waste. And it would be Nicole.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Roughly seven weeks after she vanished, her body lay roughly 10 kilometers east of her grandmother's house. Separate from where both her belongings had been found. In the woodland area of Norc-Brebonne, deliberately concealed. Because it was obvious that someone had taken the time to cover her. With the location and the effort to hide her and the distance from the searched zones, all of it pointed to a killer who chose carefully. And Nicole's body had been exposed to the elements throughout that time, seven weeks. So rain, bacteria, insects, temperature shifts, just weeks of decomposition working against everything forensic science needed.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  And they would collect as many biological samples as they could, with clothing traces, hair evidence. And three DNA samples were gathered in total, two from her genital area and one from the fabric of her underwear. Now, the techniques available in 1995 were of course limited by modern standards. And combined with the outdoor decay, those samples were considered very fragile at best. And contamination was a real possibility. But investigators preserved them anyway. And the autopsy would tell the rest. And it would say that Nicole had been killed through extreme violence. With the cause of death being internal bleeding from a stab wound. And her jaw was also fractured. And she had injuries to her head and to her fingers.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  And the finger injury suggested she fought back. And unfortunately, there was also evidence of SA. But investigators made the deliberate choice to keep that finding from the public. And the SA was documented internally and noted in the case file. And on November 28th, 1995, Nicole was buried. But before the body was Even found, one moment stood out in the search. And on October 24th, 1995, an anonymous man called police. And he said he could identify Nicole's killer. And then, the line just went dead. And the call cut off before officers could get a full statement and before they could pin down a name or a location. But they had a recording to go off of.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  So come January 1996, that recording was broadcast on national television in hopes that someone would recognize the voice, or the caller himself would come forward again. But sadly, neither happened. But then, in February of 1996, a different lead surfaced. And a friend of the Van den Horex family was arrested on drug trafficking charges. And while locked up, this person pointed the finger at specific men. And the claim was that those men had forced the drug smuggling on them, and that they were also behind Nicole's murder. And Ad initially believed the story. Nicole's stepfather. Because to him, it finally felt like a break. A thread that might actually lead somewhere. So, police investigated.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  So they pulled the claim apart, but the story fell apart under their scrutiny. So it was just another dead end. And by now, the pattern was the same. Tips would come in, the leads were chased, but nothing stuck. And one magazine even put up a cash reward, asking the public for anything they could help identify the killer. And naturally, more tips would follow, but none proved strong enough for a prosecution. And eventually, the investigative team shrank, and new investigators took over. But Nicole's file did not close. But it did kind of stop moving. And the case settled into a kind of limbo that families of murder victims know all too well. And technically, it was open, but barely active.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  So there was a girl, buried so young, and no one held responsible yet. So by the summer of 1996, investigators had come up completely empty. And every thread just led nowhere. So police turned their attention to the people closest to Nicole. Summer, authorities arrested her stepfather, Ad, and her stepbrother, Andy, and they held them for five days each. And then they let them go. And neither arrest produced charges and not a single piece of forensic evidence connected Ad or Andy to what happened to Nicole. There were no links, no witnesses, just nothing. They had nothing on the both of them. But the damage was already done because they were held for five days and word spread.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  And in the public eye, the arrest told a story that the evidence just didn't support. And reporters discussed the family's structure. And they pointed out that Ad wasn't Nicole's biological father and that he was only her legal guardian. And it didn't matter that both men walked out of custody without a single charge filed against them because suspicion had already settled on the family like a stain. As a man who raised a girl as his own daughter and then lost her to a murder. It's just so awful. And a stepbrother who grew up alongside her and who lived in the same house, their grandmother's house, and he got hauled in as well. I just can't imagine how they both felt being scrutinized like that.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  And they were only suspects because the evidence didn't point to anyone else, basically. So they were just doing, you know, process of elimination. And in a case with no answers, proximity became its own kind of guilt. And the family that had been grieving Nicole was now defending itself against the suspicion that one of them killed her. And though both men had been cleared, it didn't really matter. Because in a small community, in a case this public, the whispers don't follow the same rules as the courts. But as time went on, voices got quiet. And the years after the arrests were defined by silence. There were no new witnesses, forensic breakthroughs, or confessions. And the investigative team had already been cut down.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Detectives moved on to other cases. But the file still stayed open, but fewer and fewer people were working on it. And in 2004, a cold case team pulled Nicole's case off the shelf. And they reviewed the evidence and reexamined what had been collected and looked for anything that might have been missed. The case went right back where it had been. And breaking the case open again meant one of two things needed to happen. Someone who knew something would have to come forward, or the science would have to catch up to the evidence. So by 2011, 16 years had passed since Nicole's body was found beneath those branches and the DNA samples were sealed away in evidence storage. And the original material had been collected with mid-'90s technology

• 15:44Speaker 02

  and degraded by weeks of outdoor exposure. And the case had sat dormant since the failed 2004 review. And Andy, Nicole's stepbrother, had moved to England by then. And in 2011, from across the North Sea, he did something no one saw coming. And he went on Facebook and he confessed to killing his stepsister. The stepbrother who lived in the same grandmother's house, who'd grown up alongside her, who'd been hauled in once before, back in 1996, and walked. Now he was saying it out loud, in writing, for anyone to read. "I did it." So once the confession hit social media, law enforcement in England responded immediately.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  And they arrested Andy in the UK. And on March 30th, 2011, he was extradited back to the Netherlands, back in the country where he'd grown up, this time arriving in handcuffs. And Dutch authorities held him for approximately five days, the same length of time they'd held him back in 1996 when he was first suspected. But the confession didn't hold. And investigators still had nothing connecting him to the murder beyond his own words online. No forensics, no witnesses, nothing but a post on a screen. So again, they let him go. And the moment he was released, Andy just retracted his confession, because he hadn't done it, after all, he would say. But then he went further,

• 17:13Speaker 02

  and he would accuse his own father, Ad, of the murder, Nicole's stepfather. But it made no sense. A man confesses to killing his stepsister, takes it back, and then points the finger at the father who raised them. ...both, with essentially zero evidence to back it up. And because of that, the accusation against Ad didn't lead to charges either. But something had shifted now. And whatever Andy was doing, it had dragged Nicole's name back into the headlines and made it impossible for the case to quietly slide back into a filing cabinet. And the confession triggered Dutch authorities to assemble a fresh cold case team and point them at her file. So for the first time in years, people were looking at the case again.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  And Andy was relieved. But Andy's relief carried a weight no one around him understood. Because Andy had never killed anyone. Because the Facebook confession was a lie. A calculated, deliberate lie. But he understood something most people don't. Confess to a murderer, and the body gets exhumed. And new samples get taken, and modern testing gets applied, and the wheels turn again. And it was the only way he could think of to force the system's hand. And he knew it was a risk. A false confession doesn't come with a safety net. And if the legal system had moved faster than his plan accounted for, he could have ended up convicted of a crime he didn't commit. But to him, the alternative was worse.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Which was another decade of silence, and the man who killed Nicole walking free. And even accusing his own father had been part of it. And Andy didn't explain his true motive publicly until 2016, when he said, "I wanted her to get exhumed and get DNA off her. I kind of set myself up, and it could have gone horribly wrong. To get her exhumed, I had to put steps in place to get her exhumed. I went to police and said I did it. She is my sister. Absolutely, I miss her every day." And this was five years after his confession. He waited five years. That's how long he let people believe what they wanted about him. But it was all by design. What an insanely amazing brother to have.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Oh my goodness. Confessing to a murderer just to get your body exhumed, so the killer doesn't walk free. But did it work? Well, in September of 2011... Authorities exhumed Nicole's remains. And the Netherlands Forensic Institute reexamined biological material and clothing traces. And all of it got processed through DNA technology that simply hadn't existed when Nicole was first found. And complex degraded samples that had been borderline useless in 1995 could now potentially yield identifiable profiles. And following the exhumation, authorities made another decision. And they publicly confirmed, for the first time, that Nicole had in fact been raped. And this was information the earlier teams had documented internally, but deliberately

• 20:13Speaker 02

  kept from the public, like we spoke about before. Because they weren't 100% about it. And now, the world finally knew. And authorities bumped the reward up to 15,000 euros for anyone who could help identify the killer. And a week later, police went public with a statement. And that is that they've recovered foreign DNA from Nicole's body, and they also reported receiving over 20 new leads. And two months after the exhumation, Nicole's remains were released back to the family. So the DNA was there. And it just took the right technology to finally see it. And now, investigators had a profile, and for the first time since 1995, the case was finally moving forward. Now, the updated testing at the Netherlands Forensic Institute produced clear results

• 20:57Speaker 02

  that the original investigation never could. And the results pointed to three different men who'd left DNA on Nicole. And the first profile belonged to her boyfriend at the time she disappeared. And that was expected, due to their relationship. And the second profile belonged to a convicted rapist from Helmont, named Yoss Digi. And his DNA showed up in sperm traces and pubic hair that had been collected from Nicole's body. And the third profile belonged to an unknown male, whose identity was never determined. But the match to Yoss Digi didn't come from the DNA alone, it came from pattern recognition. Because in September of 2000, a 20-year-old woman was attacked in Valkenswaard, a town

• 21:42Speaker 02

  just south of Eindhoven. And she was pulled from her bike and as... Isolated location. And the man who committed the horrible crime was Yoss Deji. So the cold case team saw the parallel immediately. A young woman on a bike intercepted, taken somewhere isolated and sexually assaulted. And Nicole had been cycling to work in the dark when she vanished and her body ended up concealed in Woodlands 10 kilometers away. So the method was the exact same. And the cold case team compared Deji's DNA profile against the unidentified traces recovered from Nicole and the similarities were strong enough to trigger an arrest.

• 22:21Speaker 00

  Hey Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi. Sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  So good, so good, so good. Stay cozy and look cool with up to 60% off cold weather gear at Nordstrom Rack. Save on cashmere, outerwear, boots and more from brands like Ugg, Vince, Kohan and Hunter. Join the Nordy Club for free to unlock exclusive discounts, shop clearance and new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  So in January of 2014, police arrested 46-year-old Yoss Deji from Helmand. And he'd been living in a shelter home for about a month and a half and he was in the home stretch of reintegration. He had one more supervised phase and he'd be on his own again, which is horrifying to think about. But he never made it to the next step, luckily. And Deji was from Valkensford, which is a town right on Einhoven's doorstep where Nicole lived. And he was in his late twenties when she went missing. And on October 5th, 1995, the night before Nicole vanished, Deji walked out of his ex-girlfriend's place upset because the two had been fighting. And several hours later, Nicole left for work. on her bicycle in the dark.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  And by the time police arrested him for Nicole's case, Deji already had three rape convictions on his record. How was he out and about? Why is this a thing? Kill it with fire, what? And his earliest known offense dated back to 1987, which was an essay connected to him only later through a DNA match. And he was sentenced to 17 months for a violent sexual assault against his own girlfriend. And within months of that sentencing, authorities arrested him for the essay of a 20-year-old woman in Waukesha. And two additional convictions followed for sexually abusing his ex-girlfriend. Both assaults happened in her home. And in 2011, a court ordered three years of preventative detention, along with mandatory

• 24:44Speaker 02

  psychiatric care. That is an abhorrently small sentence. Oh my God. And the psychological evaluation from his earlier sentencing didn't hold back. And a psychiatrist called Yost Deji, quote unquote, "a vessel overflowing with hate." But yeah, let him walk. And the report warned of significant chance he'd re-offend if the underlying issues weren't properly treated. But despite all that, by January 2014, the system had moved him to the doorstep of freedom and placed him in a shelter home, just six short weeks from living on his own again. And he'd joined an amateur football club in Helmand, R.K. PVV, where he played in goal.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  And teammates found him spontaneous, but withdrawn, but they liked him well enough. So with Deji apprehended, Andy sent a message to his friends, saying, quote, "They finally got this monster after 19 years," unquote. All thanks to him, by the way. So in April 2014, prosecutors formally charged Yost Deji with rape and murder of Nicole Van den Hark. Almost two decades after she was pulled from beneath a pile of branches, the case finally had a name attached to it. And that name had been in the system all along. So Yost Deji was originally charged with both murder and rape, but that didn't last. And on July 3-

• 26:07Speaker 02

  ...2014 during a pre-trial hearing in Den Bosch. Prosecutors dropped the murder charge as the forensic evidence wouldn't support it, and he now faced trial for manslaughter and rape instead. And the family understandably was furious, and Andy called the reduction a betrayal of justice, and he argued that moving a victim's body is a deliberate act, one that should constitute murder, not the lesser charge. And Ad, Nicole's stepfather, went further, telling reporters, quote, "This man deserves the highest punishment there is. He has already attempted to murder two women in the past and has taken the life of my child. The Netherlands is not helped by this, that such a man may still walk the streets," unquote,

• 26:52Speaker 02

  dropped the mic. Prosecutors asked the court for a 14-year sentence if he was convicted on both counts, and the defense attorney, Jaak Noster, planned to argue for full acquittal. Now, Deji's account was built on strategic vagueness. First, he claimed he never crossed paths with Nicole around the time she went missing, and then he offered an alternative. Maybe the two of them had a consensual encounter in the days before her death. He just couldn't remember. Shut up! And his attorney pointed out that Nicole and his client moved through the same circles, the same hangouts, so a chance meeting was completely possible. Then, the defense pushed further, and Knooster told the court that other males' DNA had

• 27:34Speaker 02

  also been recovered, which he said meant Nicole had been sexually active before her death. And he even floated the claim that she may have been pregnant when she was killed, with no basis, by the way, fucking insane thing to say, about a murdered 15-year-old girl. And Ad responded to the pregnancy claim directly, saying, quote, "These are lawyer shenanigans. He is the devil's advocate in the end. I do not want to comment on these allegations. I'll leave that to the Justice Department," unquote. And Andy kept his reaction brief, saying, quote, unquote, "The defense attorney is a very clever man." And the prosecution rejected the entire framework, though. And consensual sex with a 15-year-old wasn't realistic, or a

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Thing, by the way, since he was in his twenties. And the defense still had no believable explanation for why Deji's DNA was on Nicole's body. And by October 2015, the case had been through eight pre-trial hearings. And the strategy was very clear, not to prove innocence, but to muddy the water enough that certainty became impossible. So basically, the central fight in the courtroom was on the reliability of the DNA match itself. And the whole reason Deji was sitting there was a partial match between his DNA and what had been pulled from Nicole. Just partial, not complete. And that gap was the defense's primary weapon. And experts from two institutions testified in Den Bosch, the Netherlands Forensic Institute,

• 29:02Speaker 02

  or NFI, and the Independent Forensic Services, or IFS. And at the center of it all was the sperm recovered from Nicole's remains. Investigators had never been able to build a complete profile from it. And even if the IFS brought in a counter expert, agreed the gap was unusual. Normally semen yields a full profile. And the NFI's expert, Yerin Kotman, explained why this case was different. Quote, "It is quite extraordinary that we were able to find usable DNA evidence after six weeks. It does not surprise me that no single profile came from it." Unquote. There you go. Because six weeks of outdoor decomposition had degraded everything, and the sample wasn't clean to begin with.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  And at least three separate people's DNA had shown up in those semen traces. And two of the profiles were clear, believed to match Deji and Nicole's boyfriend. But some peaks didn't conclusively match either man. And the NFI and the IFS couldn't agree on what the DNA actually proved. So the court brought in a third set of eyes. And the samples were shipped to New Zealand, where analysts applied probabilistic genotyping, a math-driven method built to pull apart mixed DNA when several people's material ends up on the same item. They really have a job for everything. And no Dutch case had ever used it before. And the results, presented in April of 2016, were striking.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  And the odds that the three strands belonged to Deji and two other specific individuals, rather than three strangers, were 2.28 million to one. So across two continents, the takeaway was the same. Deji's DNA was almost certainly part of that mixture, but very likely and beyond reasonable doubt don't mean the same thing, obviously. And the unknown third profile still hung over the case, and the defense intended to use it. So a verdict was expected in 2015, and then two surprise witnesses blew the timeline apart. And both had done some time in the same psychiatric institution as Deji, and each said separately

• 31:10Speaker 02

  that he told them about killing a girl. And they were both convinced that girl was Nicole. And the court postponed proceedings and called 15 people to testify about how Deji and the two men had actually interacted. And Deji tried to discredit one of them, claiming they'd gotten along like cat and dog inside the facility, but a psychiatrist from the clinic remembered the two of them sitting together playing poker. But in the end, neither man's statement made it into official evidence. And prosecutors said they believed the witnesses, but their testimony stayed out of the formal case, and the trial moved forward without it. But on November 21st, 2016, a unanimous panel found Yaost Deji guilty of rape and sentenced

• 31:54Speaker 02

  to five years. But on manslaughter, he was acquitted. And the reasoning came down to that unknown third DNA profile, because the court couldn't rule out that the unidentified man had played some role in Nicole's death. And with nothing beyond the trace evidence, it wouldn't connect Deji to the killing itself. And everything else the defense had argued was rejected, and the judges found that Nicole and Deji did not know each other before the day she vanished. And the consensual contact story was completely thrown out, and the promiscuity defense with it. And Deji's sperm on Nicole's body indicated SA, not consent, but none of it was enough to convict him of ...taking her life.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  And the court acknowledged what it was leaving unanswered. Quote, "We regret that the relatives have no clarity on what happened after the rape." Unquote. And the judges also declined to impose TBS, the Dutch system of psychiatric detention, reasoning that experts had assessed his risk of reoffending as minimal. And prosecutors had asked for 14 years, and he only got five, with two already served in pretrial custody. So roughly only three years remaining. And the family just broke. And Nicole's stepmother, Yolanda van der Weyden, shouted in court, quote, "What if this could happen to your children? This is simply unbelievable." Unquote.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  And police let her out as relatives walked out in tears. And days later, ad appeared on a regional broadcast called Crack. Quote, "This is not a man, but a terrible creature." Unquote. So the five-year sentence lasted eight days before it was challenged. And on November 29th, 2016, the public prosecutor appealed the manslaughter acquittal outright, arguing the rape and the killing were one act by one man. But the defense appealed too, contesting the rape conviction itself. So the whole case went back before the judges and every count relitigated from scratch. And hearings opened on August 28th, 2018, at the Court of Appeals in Saratoga, Boss. Sorry for the pronunciation.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  The same city as the first trial. And prosecutors again asked for 14 years, which I still think isn't enough. Life. Just in a hole. For life. So there was the same defendant with the same forensic evidence, but one thing changed: the unknown third DNA trace. Because in the first trial, it had been the reason Diggy walked, as we know. And the appeal court saw it differently. They concluded the trace carried no real weight. It was minimal. Its origin couldn't be pinned down, and there were plenty of innocent ways it could have ended up there. Transfer contamination, incidental contact. Where the first court treated the trace as an open door, they Appeal court closed it.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  And with that obstacle gone, the judges turned to what remained. Deji's biological material had been found three times on Nicole's body. And the forced nature of the contact established at the first trial went unchallenged. And then, there was what happened afterward. Nicole's body, hidden under branches in a woodland 10 kilometers from where she was last seen. That kind of concealment doesn't just happen by accident. It's the behavior of someone trying not to get caught. And the appeal court drew a straight line from the essay to the killing to the disposal. One offender, one sequence of events, one man responsible for all of it.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  So on October 9th, 2018, the Court of Appeal convicted Yossi Deji of both rape and manslaughter and sentenced him to 12 years. Still not good enough. Still not good enough. But at least we know without a doubt who committed this heinous crime. And the court's language left no room for ambiguity, accusing him of, quote, "forcing a young girl with her whole life ahead of her into sex and then killing her," unquote. And in its judgment, the evidence proved he beat a 15-year-old to death and buried her under branches so no one could find her. So 23 years after Nicole was pulled from beneath that pile of branches, a court had

• 36:12Speaker 02

  finally held someone accountable for putting her there. And the judges again declined TBS, and Deji had been given it for a prior conviction and never finished it. And the court found it was no longer possible to tell whether his mental health had played any role in 1995. But Deji wasn't finished, and he took the case to the Hoegeracht, the Dutch Supreme Court, arguing he hadn't received a fair trial, and his objections aimed at the appeal court's use of the DNA findings and its handling of the defense's challenges to expert witnesses. And the Advocate General reviewed the arguments and recommended they fail. So on June 16th, 2020, they dismissed every complaint, and the conviction was locked in. So no more appeals, no more

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Hearings, nothing left to pursue. But there was one final adjustment. The court knocked four months off for how long the case had dragged on, turning 12 years into 11 years and eight months. What are we doing over there in the Netherlands? Are you guys OK? What's going on? Just everywhere, honestly. It's not even the Netherlands. It's just like, I don't, I, I, I don't understand the sentencing for this type of thing. This man murdered a, a, a girl and, and defiled her. But they're just, it's a slap on the wrist. What are we doing? Again, hole for life or fire, you know? I don't understand, and I don't think I'll ever understand. But at this point, the case was closed.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  And the third male, whose DNA appeared on Nicole's remains, was never identified. And courts waited, argued over it, and set it aside as too small and too ambiguous to matter. And that question still hangs over the case, but the central one has been answered. Yastegi killed Nicole Van Den Haak, and the conviction was final. And it had taken a false confession, an exhumation, forensic science that didn't exist when Nicole died, and years of grinding and persistence. But someone was finally held responsible.

• 38:14Speaker 00

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• 38:40Speaker 03

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• 39:08Speaker 02

  So Yastegi was sentenced and the legal fight was over. But a verdict ends the legal question and it doesn't end anything else. And Andy Vandenheerck had given more to this case than anyone should have to. Confessing to a murder he didn't commit to force it to open back up again. And it worked. And the boy who set himself on fire, basically, metaphorically, to light the path to justice actually got there. But on August 27th, 2021, Andy posted a final message on Facebook saying he was ready to say goodbye. And not long after, he would take his own life. Just with years of grief, suspicion, sacrifice and waiting

• 39:52Speaker 02

  had proved to be too much for him. But he was the reason his stepsister's killer was identified. And yet, the person who fought the hardest for Nicole didn't get to live in the world he'd helped create. The one where her killer was named, convicted and locked away. And Ad Vandenheerck carried a different version of the same weight. And he had raised Nicole as his own, lost her to murder and heard the word convicted 23 years after he buried her. And he was right to call the man who did it a terrible creature. But that is the end of this deep dive case on Nicole Vandenheerck. My heart, as always, goes out to the family and to her.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  What a, just a horrible, horrible case. I just can't believe what the stepbrother did for her and everything he sacrificed. And in the end, he's no longer with us. But I think that Nicole would have been extremely proud of what he did for her. But thank you so much for listening. And if you would like me to deep dive into any other cases, please let me know down below. And until then, I will see your beautiful face. And please, please, stay safe out there, okay? Bye.

• 41:10Speaker 04

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