Detectives in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium have launched an investigation to try to establish the identities of 22 women believed to have been murdered over the past 50 years – even publishing their Interpol “black notice” details usually kept confidential by police.
In a rare and poignant example of cross-border co-operation, the three forces have launched Operation Identify Me, placing extensive details of each case online along with a facial reconstruction of the victims, mainly aged 15-30 when they died.
“Most of the victims died violently and some were abused or starved before they died,” Dutch police spokeswoman Carina van Leeuwen said. “What we are looking for now is something we could not establish at the time: a name, often the key to cases like these.”
The oldest of the suspected murders, known as The Girl in the Parking Lot, is the case of a teenager whose body was found on October 24th, 1976, in a car park on the A12 motorway between Utrecht and Arnhem in the Netherlands. She was discovered under soil and branches by hikers.
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Police incorrectly linked this to a separate missing person case in the same area. That critical error was not discovered until 2006, three decades later.
However, developments in crime investigation since her death – specifically the use of isotopes to measure amino acids in human hair as a forensic tool to generate information about an individual’s sex, age, race and health – have filled in some of her mystery background.
There are now indications that she may have come from the border area between Germany and the Czech Republic, broadly the region between Dresden and Prague, and was most likely aged 13-20 when she encountered her killer.
Where possible, pictures of jewellery or items of clothing worn by the women or discovered at the sites where their bodies were discovered are included in their online files, but in this case there was nothing potentially identifiable found.
Alongside a facial reconstruction of the victim, an investigator’s note on her file observes: “She may have known a period of malnutrition, probably during the last 14 months of her life.”
“This is unbearably sad for a girl whose life should have been just starting”, said Anniko van Santen of TV programme Opsporing Verzocht, which seeks assistance with crime. “Please help the police to give her her name back after 47 years.”
In the most recent Dutch case, called The Woman in the Suitcase, the victim was aged 16-22. Her body was found in October 2005 wrapped in a white duvet and folded into a red suitcase thrown into a canal at Thorbeckesingel in Schiedam, west of Rotterdam.
The Interpol team says she probably originated in northern Scandinavia, Poland or Russia, may have spent her childhood in Germany and probably spent the end of her life in western Europe. It seems likely her teeth had never been seen to.
Nine of the 22 cases relate to the Netherlands, while seven originated in Belgium and six in Germany.
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Of the Belgian cases, among the most striking is The Woman with the Flower Tattoo. Her body was found on June 3rd, 1992, pressed against an underwater grate in the Groot Schijn river in Antwerp.
It was impossible to give an estimated date of death and only possible to estimate her age as 20-50. On her left forearm, however, was a distinctive tattoo of a black flower with a yellow outline and green leaves, with the word “R’Nick” beneath it.
Information from “black notices” is being made public in these cases for the first time, a spokesperson for Interpol’s DNA Unit confirmed.
A spokesperson for Interpol’s DNA unit said: “Investigations like these can help bring offenders to justice and closure to victims’ families. However dreadful it may be to get that confirmation, it is part of an important process.
“That’s why I urge everyone to look at the faces of these women. You may recognise someone.”
