In a bizarre twist, a man confessed to murdering his step-sister in a bid to revive the cold case, leading to the exhumation of her body and eventual identification of a suspect. Andy van den Hurk, now living in the UK, posted a chilling confession on Facebook in March 2011, stating he would be arrested for the murder of his sister Nicole.
Nicole van den Hurk, 15, vanished while cycling to work in Eindhoven in 1995. Her body was found a month later in nearby woods, stabbed and assaulted. Despite a massive search and thousands attending her funeral, the case went cold.
Frustrated by the lack of progress, Andy confessed to the murder, was arrested by British police, and extradited to the Netherlands. However, he was released five days later when no evidence linked him to the crime. He later admitted his confession was false, saying he wanted Nicole's body exhumed for DNA testing.
His plan worked. In September 2011, police exhumed Nicole's body and found DNA traces belonging to two men: her boyfriend and an unknown individual. The unknown DNA matched Jos de G, a 46-year-old former psychiatric patient and convicted rapist with a similar prior assault.
In 2014, de G was charged with rape and murder, but the defence argued the semen could have been from a consensual encounter. He was acquitted of murder and manslaughter but sentenced to five years for rape, a sentence upheld by the Dutch Supreme Court in June 2020.
