Officers came out livid.
A year ago, Den Bosch is startled by a double murder. On the morning of May 17, 2005, 64-year-old Ad van Boxtel is found dead in his home. Later that day, they find the lifeless body of his roommate Karin Simons in a ditch. Soon the police arrest two neighbors. This week justice continues the trial. "A thousand percent sure that those two junkies killed our Ad." Two middle-aged women stand in front of Ad van Boxtel's house on Steve Bikostraat in Den Bosch. It is a small single-family house with a front and back garden in the middle of the Edelstenen neighborhood. According to the women, Ad had lived here with great pleasure for thirteen years. Now the house has been empty for a year. In the front yard, which used to look well cared for, the many weeds sticking up between the tiles. Sadly, the women look at each other. "Ad just belonged to the street. Now we have to miss him, because those two murderers have grazed him."
On May 17, 2005, police find 64-year-old Ad van Boxtel dead in his home. His head has been smashed with a hammer and his body worked with a huge knife. From his home, a cell phone, a stereo system and money are missing. "A massacre," the two women call it. "It must have been terrible," says Ad's immediate neighbor, a stocky woman with long brown hair. "Police officers came walking out that day with livid faces. They had to wipe blood splatters off the ceiling."
That same day, agents also find the lifeless body of Karin Simons, a roommate of Ad. She lies in a ditch in Kerkwijk, a town in Gelderland that is 20 kilometers from Den Bosch. The 34-year-old woman was strangled. "It's an intrusion. Karin was a stumper. Ad had taken her in because she was having problems with her ex-husband. She had a muscle disease and could barely walk. It must have been hell for her to watch Ad being butchered and to be strangled by it herself." The woman angrily points to a row house down the road. "They did it," she snarls. "The whole neighborhood knows that, but no one dares to say anything. Everyone is terrified that they will get out and put a bullet through our heads."
Dancing in lingerie
A few days after the murder, police arrested two suspects, 36-year-old Brigitta van den A. and 41-year-old Jan B. The two had been living in two houses next to Ad van Boxtel for years until a few weeks before the murder. "They were addicts," says the second woman who lives down the street. "All their money went on heroin. They couldn't even take care of their three children properly. Ad was always very kind to them. He often put them some money or clothes."
Brigitta and Jan also frequent Ad's house. "Brigitta sometimes danced in her lingerie for Ad, he liked to see that. She may have been hooked, but definitely not ugly yes, they sat there regularly."
A few weeks before the murder, Brigitta and Jan go really wrong, according to their neighbor. Due to a sky-high rent debt, housing association SSW evicts the two. The three children were placed with Brigitta's sister. The two themselves leave for a campsite just outside Den Bosch. "There they went completely crazy," the women recount. "When they still lived here in the street, they were already a kind of Bonnie and Clyde," the neighbor explains. "They often ripped off dealers with counterfeit money, and Jan had even been in jail once for murder. When they were evicted, they had nothing left to lose. Ad had to die so she could steal his money." The other woman complements her friend. "The whole neighborhood knew he had a lot of cash in the house; he often bragged about that. They wanted that money, at any cost."
The prosecution also believes that money is the reason the addicted duo took Ad and Karin's lives. At the court hearing on March 30, 2005, the prosecutor demanded 20 years against the two former neighbors. According to the prosecutor, the evidence does not lie. Some stolen goods from Ad's house are recovered at the campsite. Police also find traces of Brigitta's scent in the victim's car and on the knife with which Ad was killed.
During the court hearing, it is also revealed that Brigitta confessed to the murder to a fellow inmate. In detail, she has explained how she took Karin and Ad's lives. Nevertheless, the judge decides to open a new investigation. According to Serge Weening, Jan B.'s lawyer, because the judge has cast doubt on the burden of proof. "The only hard evidence they have is the statement of a fellow inmate, the rest of the evidence doesn't amount to much," he said. The judge would still like to speak with these fellow inmates, because he doubts the reliability of this witness."
Ad's two girlfriends are shocked. "We hope with everything in our hearts that the judge conducts a new investigation so that they can punish Brigitta and Jan even more severely. But we are not at ease. If those two monsters do get released, it would be a disaster."
