WHEN a 15-year-old woman failed to point out up for breakfast, her foster household assumed she had gone to high school early.
However Willeke Dost was not in school on that day in January 1992 – and she or he was by no means seen once more.
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After a traumatic childhood and a string of foster houses across the Netherlands, Willeke mysteriously vanished.
Accusations of abuse by her foster household, the Mulders, emerged and resulted in arrests, however nothing has ever been confirmed.
The mom of one among Willeke’s buddies fuelled tales that led to the arrests in 2010, however they had been later launched.
And one other twist got here when sniffer canine repeatedly indicated the identical patch of earth to counsel Willeke might be buried there – however there was no signal of her.
After greater than three many years, a number of searches and the arrests, there are nonetheless no solutions.
However Marja West, a chilly case investigator, has made it her mission to crack the thriller – and she or he believes she has uncovered information that blow aside the present theories.
She has interviewed greater than 300 individuals who knew Willeke – and it revealed a brand new bombshell principle a few “predatory” man.
She instructed The Solar: “I do know what occurred that evening Willeke disappeared. The newspapers could not be extra mistaken.”
Each of Willeke’s dad and mom died in a automobile crash in 1976, earlier than her first birthday.
She was then handed between family members, foster dad and mom and varied shelters within the Netherlands.
On the time of her disappearance, she was dwelling on a farm with a foster household within the rural village of Koekange.
The dad and mom had a daughter and two sons, who Willeke lived alongside.
The schoolgirl left the farm early on the morning of January 15, 1992, driving a bicycle – a reality Marja agrees with.
There have been no leads after she vanished – and police initially assumed she had run away.
This meant the case was handled as a lacking individual fairly than a homicide, an it wasn’t investigated as intensely because it in any other case may need been.
Years handed with none progress, and Willeke slipped from the general public’s reminiscence, till new claims emerged within the media.
Certainly one of Willeke’s good buddies was Geke Crediet.
Geke’s mom – Anneke – initially instructed nationwide TV that Willeke had admitted to her daughter she was pregnant and had been sexually abused by her foster household.
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Marja says that for the primary 5 years Anneke instructed folks she believed Willeke had run away to search out her new life – and solely modified her story when the media consideration snowballed.
Rumours took maintain that the foster dad was the daddy of Willeke’s baby and that turned the accepted narrative.
Hypothesis culminated in 2010 with the arrest of the foster mom and brother – the daddy had since died – on suspicion of involvement in her disappearance.
Police carried out an intense search of the farm however discovered nothing – and the Mulders had been launched with out cost.
Marja is satisfied that the suspicion on the household was baseless – the results of a trial by public opinion.
A breakthrough got here once I discovered a few man who decapitated his spouse with a shovel
Marja West
She agrees with the later assumption that Willeke is useless, however pins the blame on a wholly completely different character, a “predator” known as Sebastian.
After chatting with tons of of people that knew Willeke and listening to hours of audio tapes, Marja has constructed her principle – and she or he does not imagine Anneke’s claims.
Marja says: “Anneke’s motivation remains to be a thriller. Nevertheless it destroyed a household and it by no means helped Willeke.
“A number of ‘information’ weren’t information in any respect.
“Nobody bothered to look any additional then the image Anneke drew.”
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She says that individuals believed the story offered – that Willeke had been abused and murdered by her foster household – as a result of it was neat and simple to know.
Marja says: “Though a radical search by forensic specialists didn’t discover any proof, the seed of doubt was planted.
“By Anneke, and by the media who repeated her story time and again.”
And Marja is satisfied she is aware of what actually occurred on the evening Willeke disappeared.
She stated: “Within the weeks earlier than she went lacking, Willeke talked a few a lot older ‘boy’ named Sebastian, a pretend identify.
“I discovered that ‘Sebastian’ was a predator, a person who later in life turned a convicted homicide.”
Marja discovered of ‘Sebastian’ by means of chatting with a police detective who investigated a person who murdered his spouse.
He decapitated her with a shovel whereas she was sleeping and dumped her physique in a canal.
This man was Sebastian.
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Throughout interrogation, Sebastian had spoken of Willeke as if he knew her, in response to detective.
Then, throughout his listening to, Sebastian taunted that he may have carried out the identical to Willeke.
After discovering that, issues started to fall into place for Marja.
She stays satisfied that Sebastian was the older man Willeke had spoken about, and that he’s behind her disappearance.
Willeke would have been “very susceptible to compliments”, Marja says, and so simply exploited by an ill-intentioned older man.
Marja remains to be piecing the case collectively – and her investigation has led her throughout Europe.
She says: “I spoke to 300 individuals who knew Willeke and, like Anneke, I bent over backwards to search out out what had occurred to her.
“I drove 93,000km in The Netherlands, in Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg and France, and I acquired assist from contained in the justice division.
Her subsequent step is to search out ‘Sebastian’.
I discovered that ‘Sebastian’ was a predator, a person who later in life turned a convicted homicide. Throughout his interrogation he talked about Willeke and made it seem to be he was concerned in her disappearance
Marja West
Befoer Marja acquired concerned within the case, the farm in Koekange was searched once more in 2019 – and this time two particular spots had been excavated.
One of many websites apparently attracted the eye of three sniffer canine, independently of one another.
However but once more, police discovered no hint of Willeke.
Marja believes she has a proof for the sniffer canine’ consideration.
She says: “A neighbouring home was constructed on the location of an outdated graveyard. After chatting with folks, I do know that gravestones had been used to construct paths within the space.
“This explains why the sniffer canine on the lookout for human stays had been all interested in that patch.”`
Marja is adamant that the narrative of Willeke being harmed by her foster household is a phenomenon fuelled by press hypothesis – and the true suspect has not been dropped at justice.
This isn’t the primary chilly case Marja has investigated.
She wrote an acclaimed e-book on the deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon – two Dutch ladies of their twenties who disappeared while climbing in Panama in 2014.
And, with the assistance of Dutch “myth-busting” forensic pathologist Frank van de Goot and British survival knowledgeable Megan Hine, she is making a documentary collection known as Wilderness: Chilly Case.
Marja says: “There are many youngsters like Willeke that went lacking. A few of them had been by no means discovered.
“Individuals don’t dissolve like an aspirin in water. Somebody should know one thing.
“Households want solutions and to not be left with doubt.”
