A four-month neighborhood feud in Geleen escalates on a hot Saturday, Aug. 31, 2019. However, the biggest victim becomes an unsuspecting passerby, who is attacked by a family with a knife, a metal bar and a baseball bat. Justice is demanding prison sentences of between three and six years against the father, mother and son on Tuesday after a lengthy hearing in the Maastricht District Court.

After a divorce, Frans picks up his life again in an apartment in Geleen's Gansbeek. There, Josje K. (66) becomes his upstairs neighbor. The acquaintance is unpleasant. She thinks Frans is too noisy during the move. It is the beginning of a neighborly conflict, which explodes four months later. Intermittent taunting goes back and forth. Tapping on the floor, curses, threats and taking pictures of the other.

Water

And spraying water in through the open window. That is the straw for Josje. Earlier on Saturday, August 31, 2019, there is already resentment. Frans has invited people and there is some shouting from his garden towards Josje. When she is startled by the water late at night, she immediately alarms her ex-husband Leon V. (69).

By then she herself has already fled into the street in panic. There she sees chance passerby Ralf taking pictures of the road surface. He captures an old parade number to share with his friends. But Josje thinks he belongs to her downstairs neighbor's clique and is taking pictures of her: "Are you taking pictures of me, you pervert?" She goes to get her story.

Meter

Ralf wants to show Josje that he did not put her in the picture. Because, in his opinion, she gets too close, he pushes her away. Leon sees that. With a metal rod, which he had taken from Josje's meter cupboard, he hits him.

During the struggle, he is also stabbed with a paring knife of the kind Josje also has in her drawer. Whether she is also the one who causes the five-centimeter deep wound does not become clear. No one saw it and she herself does not remember it.

Firebreak

In the meantime, Josje and Leon's son - Sebastiaan V. (39) - also arrived at his mother's apartment, notified by his father. About what happens there, the readings differ. Frans says that upon returning home after visiting a café, he is met by Sebastiaan in the fire hallway and attacked with a baseball bat. With a head wound, he reaches the home of another neighbor.

Sebastian, however, turns the tables and claims that it was he who was attacked. By Frans. Having been struck twice with Frans' bat, he "in his defense" also deals a blow. He refers to an observed swelling on the back of his head. Justice dismisses his story as bullshit.

Horror Movie

Regardless, Sebastian eventually ends up on the street, where he sees his father lying in the grass and hears his mother screaming. Wanting to protect his parents, he throws himself at Ralf, who thus ends up "in a seven-minute horror movie. Witnesses see Sebastian striking the Gelener "forcefully on the head and upper body several times. Among parked cars, Ralf finds a hiding place as soon as he can escape.
The prosecutor's office thinks that is worth hefty prison sentences. Josje and Leon would have to spend four and three years behind bars respectively for attempted manslaughter, their son six years for attempted murder. All this with deduction of pre-trial detention, already seventeen months in Josje's case. Her ex and her son were allowed to await the trial at liberty.
The lawyers argue for acquittal or at most a prison sentence equal to the remand. Among other things, they speak of self-defense and point to conclusions by experts, who say the trio was struggling with paranoid thoughts at the time.

'Wrong time, wrong place'

During the trial, victim Ralf Klinkers read a statement in which he spoke of "a seven-minute horror movie. "I was at the wrong time, in the wrong place. It's that by playing sports I have high bone density and am physically strong. But my life and that of my family has been turned upside down. Still every day this incident has an impact. After nine months of rehabilitation, I still struggle mainly with psychological symptoms. Memory problems interfere with my work and I no longer feel safe on the street. That is your fault," he addressed the three suspects.

Frans, the lower neighbor of Josje K., also looks back on the evening in question. "I was threatened by the family for a long time and harassed by the neighbor. Inquiries with the previous occupant of my apartment confirmed my impression of her. It went from bad to worse." In the fire pit, it came to a climax. "I'm still struggling to process it. For a while I locked myself away. Now that I've moved out, things are going a little better. But the suspicion remains."

The three suspects - K., her ex and her son, express regret during the hearing. Mother regularly bursts into tears. She says the conflict completely engulfed her. According to investigators, the family forms a trinity, whose members reinforce each other in their beliefs and incite. This happened, among other things, in a mutual WhatsApp group.