Latest / The conspiracy / The Nicole van den Hurk Case: The Breakthrough That Solved a Cold Case

Transcript

The Nicole van den Hurk Case: The Breakthrough That Solved a Cold Case · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: It was still dark when she left the house, a
0:03
Speaker 1: 15-year-old girl alone on a bicycle pedaling toward a job
0:07
Speaker 1: that started before sunrise. But she would never make it there,
0:11
Speaker 1: and the case would sit unsolved for the better part
0:14
Speaker 1: of two decades. And in the end, it wasn't a
0:17
Speaker 1: detective who cracked it, not new evidence, and not a
0:21
Speaker 1: stroke of luck. and not a deathbed confession. It was
0:25
Speaker 1: a lie. This is the story of Nicole Vandenberg. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:31
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume,
0:33
Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually-minded... Today,
0:38
Speaker 1: we are talking about a absolutely heartbreaking case, but also
0:42
Speaker 1: an incredible, incredible breakthrough that was made. So without further ado,
0:47
Speaker 1: let's unbuckle our seat belts, go mock ride to the highway,
0:49
Speaker 1: slam all the brakes, and bust through the windshield into
0:51
Speaker 1: this case together. Let's take a quick pause to talk
1:08
Speaker 1: about something I have been absolutely loving lately, and that
1:13
Speaker 1: is Jones Road. And before Jones Road, getting ready took
1:17
Speaker 1: forever and always ended up looking heavy and kind of
1:21
Speaker 1: caked on. But now I am obsessed with the Miracle Bomb.
1:25
Speaker 1: It just feels so nice and looks so nice, and
1:28
Speaker 1: it actually enhances my skin instead of just masking it.
1:32
Speaker 1: And it's the ultimate multitasker. It's highlighter, bronzer, blush, lip tint.
1:37
Speaker 1: I get that effortless, glowy look in under 60 seconds.
1:40
Speaker 1: Perfect for summer, post-workout, or travel when I don't want
1:43
Speaker 1: to pack a whole makeup bag.
1:45
Speaker 2: And I don't!
1:46
Speaker 1: Newsflash, I don't. Because nobody's got time for that. At
1:49
Speaker 1: least I don't have time for that. And the best
1:50
Speaker 1: part is that every formula is packed with skin-loving ingredients.
1:54
Speaker 1: Clean and high-performing with no phthalates, sulfates, or BPA. And
1:59
Speaker 1: they just launched a new foundation stick that even skeptics
2:02
Speaker 1: will love. And I'm a skeptic. I'm not much of
2:04
Speaker 1: a foundation person, but it is so nice. Because it's skincare-forward, buildable,
2:08
Speaker 1: medium-to-full coverage that feels weightless, with ceramide, squalene, and sodium hyaluronate.
2:14
Speaker 1: Not to mention, it's dermatologist tested and comes in 30
2:18
Speaker 1: shades and never looks cakey. And for a limited time,
2:21
Speaker 1: our listeners get a free gift on their first purchase
2:24
Speaker 1: with code KMK at checkout. Just head to jonesroadbeauty.com and
2:30
Speaker 1: use code KMK. And after you purchase, they'll ask where
2:32
Speaker 1: you heard about them, and please let them know that
2:35
Speaker 1: I sent you. I absolutely love this brand so much,
2:38
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited to be working with them. So
2:40
Speaker 1: please go check them out and use code KMK. Thank
2:43
Speaker 1: you so much to Jones Road Beauty for sponsoring this
2:46
Speaker 1: video and supporting the channel, and let's get back to it. Now,
2:48
Speaker 1: Nicole was born on July 4th, 1980, in the small
2:52
Speaker 1: German city of Urkenlitz. But her birth name was Nicole Tetmeier.
2:57
Speaker 1: And her mother, Angelica, was raising Nicole on her own
3:00
Speaker 1: when she met a Dutchman named Ad Vendenhoek. and the
3:03
Speaker 1: two fell in love. Now, Nicole was three when the
3:06
Speaker 1: whole family crossed over into the Netherlands, and her biological
3:10
Speaker 1: father remained behind in Germany. And after Ad and Angelica's wedding,
3:15
Speaker 1: Tettmeyer became Vandenhorck, and Nicole would get that last name
3:19
Speaker 1: as well. So she had a new country, a new family,
3:22
Speaker 1: and a new life taking shape around her. But Angelica
3:26
Speaker 1: struggled with her mental health, and she'd disappear into her
3:30
Speaker 1: bedroom for hours at a time, withdrawn and unreachable. And
3:34
Speaker 1: for a young girl trying to build a bond with
3:36
Speaker 1: her mother, that distance became the defining feature of their
3:39
Speaker 1: entire relationship. And in 1989, when Nicole was eight years old,
3:44
Speaker 1: Ad and Angelica would unfortunately divorce. And Ad was granted
3:48
Speaker 1: custody and became the one actually raising Nicole. Now, Ad's
3:52
Speaker 1: career was in music, and the hours of that job
3:55
Speaker 1: were really long, and single parenting on top of all
3:58
Speaker 1: that was pretty brutal. And his mother lived just a
4:01
Speaker 1: few minutes away, though, and he leaned on her pretty
4:04
Speaker 1: heavily to help out with Nicole. Now, the grandmother became
4:07
Speaker 1: something more than a babysitter. And Nicole and her stepbrother, Andy,
4:11
Speaker 1: who was five years old, would stay overnight and spend
4:14
Speaker 1: whole days under her roof in Tongleraw. Apologies, if I
4:18
Speaker 1: say any of these words wrong, I am doing my best.
4:21
Speaker 1: And this was one of Eindhoven's neighborhoods. And over time,
4:24
Speaker 1: the bond between the kids and their grandmother deepened immensely
4:28
Speaker 1: because it felt safe. And that house became Nicole's anchor.
4:32
Speaker 1: And then Ad started seeing someone, a woman named Yolanda,
4:36
Speaker 1: and she worked in music as well. And she got
4:39
Speaker 1: along with Andy and Nicole, and eventually she and Ad
4:42
Speaker 1: would marry. But the problem was that both of them
4:44
Speaker 1: were gone for work all of the time. So the
4:47
Speaker 1: grandmother picked up even more of the load. And then
4:50
Speaker 1: in April of 1995, Angelica, Nicole's biological mother, would pass
4:55
Speaker 1: away in Tilburg. And the exact circumstances of her death
4:59
Speaker 1: were never fully clarified. But there is a report that
5:02
Speaker 1: does say she passed away by way of her And
5:06
Speaker 1: Nicole was naturally devastated because she'd spent years separated from
5:11
Speaker 1: her mother by illness and by the custody agreement. And
5:14
Speaker 1: now the distant became permanent and the relationship she wanted
5:18
Speaker 1: with her mother was never going to happen now. And
5:21
Speaker 1: by the fall of 1995, Nicole was 15 and she'd
5:25
Speaker 1: settled into her grandmother's place along with Andy. Now, as
5:28
Speaker 1: she grew older, Nicole didn't really spend as much time
5:31
Speaker 1: in the house anymore. And if she wasn't at school,
5:34
Speaker 1: she was at work or out with friends. And she
5:37
Speaker 1: had a tight circle around her. People who kept her
5:39
Speaker 1: busy and kept her distracted from everything her family had
5:43
Speaker 1: gone through. And she also had a boyfriend at the
5:45
Speaker 1: time and was just a girl building a life outward.
5:49
Speaker 1: Moving fast, filling the space with connection wherever she could
5:52
Speaker 1: find it. And then one day, Nicole told her aunt
5:56
Speaker 1: something unsettling. And she complained that some man she had
6:00
Speaker 1: never seen before followed her and harassed her while she
6:04
Speaker 1: was walking home. But unfortunately, nothing would be done about
6:07
Speaker 1: it at the time. Now, it was still dark out
6:10
Speaker 1: when Nicole left her grandmother's house on the morning of Friday,
6:13
Speaker 1: October 6th, 1995. And shortly after 5 a.m., Nicole got
6:17
Speaker 1: on her bicycle and headed toward Wunsoul Shopping Center in Eidhoven.
6:22
Speaker 1: Because she had a temporary job there at the supermarket,
6:25
Speaker 1: specifically a holiday position that required really early starts. And
6:30
Speaker 1: it was her regular commute, the same route she always took.
6:34
Speaker 1: But Nicole never made it to work. And when she
6:37
Speaker 1: didn't show up for her shift, her co-workers grew really concerned.
6:41
Speaker 1: And a late arrival turned into a missed shift. And
6:44
Speaker 1: a missed shift turned into a phone call. and police
6:47
Speaker 1: were contacted. And the first searches would begin immediately. And
6:51
Speaker 1: that evening at six o'clock, officers pulled Nicole's bicycle from
6:54
Speaker 1: the Dommel River. Now the Dommel winds through the Endenhoven area,
6:58
Speaker 1: cutting across the area she would have ridden through that
7:01
Speaker 1: very morning. And the bike was completely submerged, and the
7:05
Speaker 1: search would widen very fast. So police would zero in
7:09
Speaker 1: on every single bridge, water's edges, cycling paths, and walkways
7:14
Speaker 1: anywhere close to where the bicycle had turned up. And
7:17
Speaker 1: the river became the anchor point. And for 11 straight days,
7:21
Speaker 1: October 6th to October 17th, search teams tore through the
7:26
Speaker 1: Dommel and the surrounding forest. And teams worked the water
7:30
Speaker 1: and the banks grid by grid. And shortly after Nicole vanished,
7:34
Speaker 1: a TV program called Deadline launched a massive coordinated search
7:38
Speaker 1: of its own. And they brought in search teams and dogs.
7:41
Speaker 1: And much of the focus centered on a location called
7:44
Speaker 1: the Vossenpott area, which was repeatedly mentioned in coverage. But
7:48
Speaker 1: they would find nothing. But on October 19th, another piece
7:53
Speaker 1: of Nicole surfaced. And her small backpack was discovered on
7:56
Speaker 1: a strip of ground between the DAF complex and Knoll-Deixoit,
8:01
Speaker 1: near a canal in Eindhoven. Now, the backpack would change
8:06
Speaker 1: the map. Because the bicycle was in one part of
8:08
Speaker 1: the city and the backpack was in another. And that
8:11
Speaker 1: kind of spread doesn't happen by accident. So on October 20th,
8:16
Speaker 1: officers went through the canal and worked the southern banks.
8:19
Speaker 1: And they came back again on October 28th and the 29th.
8:23
Speaker 1: And some people wondered whether Nicole had simply just run away.
8:27
Speaker 1: And as we know, her biological father still lived in
8:29
Speaker 1: Germany and she had extended family there. And perhaps she
8:33
Speaker 1: went to go stay a while with them over there.
8:35
Speaker 1: But her stepfather would completely shut down that theory. And
8:39
Speaker 1: he would say Nicole hadn't fled anywhere, and this was
8:42
Speaker 1: much worse. And the tip count for the search hit
8:45
Speaker 1: roughly 300 by November 20th. So that was 300 leads
8:49
Speaker 1: from the public, and not one of them pointed to
8:51
Speaker 1: a clear suspect. And her bike and backpack had been found,
8:55
Speaker 1: but Nicole herself hadn't. had not. So on Wednesday, November 22nd, 1995,
9:00
Speaker 1: a passerby walking through a stretch of woodland between Mirlo
9:04
Speaker 1: and Lirup stumbled onto something hidden beneath a pile of
9:08
Speaker 1: branches and pruning waste. And it would be Nicole. Roughly
9:12
Speaker 1: seven weeks after she vanished, her body lay roughly 10
9:16
Speaker 1: kilometers east of her grandmother's house. separate from where both
9:21
Speaker 1: her belongings had been found, in the woodland area of
9:24
Speaker 1: North Burbont, deliberately concealed. Because it was obvious that someone
9:29
Speaker 1: had taken the time to cover her. With the location
9:32
Speaker 1: and the effort to hide her and the distance from
9:34
Speaker 1: the searched zones, all of it pointed to a killer
9:38
Speaker 1: who chose carefully. And Nicole's body had been exposed to
9:42
Speaker 1: the elements throughout that time 700 years ago. weeks. So rain, bacteria, insects,
9:47
Speaker 1: temperature shifts, just weeks of decomposition working against everything forensic
9:52
Speaker 1: science needed. And they would collect as many biological samples
9:56
Speaker 1: as they could with clothing traces, hair evidence, and three
10:00
Speaker 1: DNA samples were gathered in total, two from her genital area,
10:05
Speaker 1: and one from the fabric of her underwear. Now, the
10:07
Speaker 1: techniques available in 1995 were, of course, limited by modern standards,
10:12
Speaker 1: and combined with the outdoor decay, those samples were considered
10:16
Speaker 1: very fragile at best. And contamination was a real possibility.
10:20
Speaker 1: But investigators preserved them anyway. And the autopsy would tell
10:24
Speaker 1: the rest. And it would say that Nicole had been
10:27
Speaker 1: killed through extreme violence. With the cause of death being
10:31
Speaker 1: internal bleeding from a stab wound. And her jaw was
10:34
Speaker 1: also fractured. And she had injuries to her head and
10:38
Speaker 1: to her fingers. And the finger injury suggested she fought back.
10:42
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there was also evidence of S. But investigators
10:46
Speaker 1: made the deliberate choice to keep that finding from the public.
10:50
Speaker 1: And the S was documented internally and noted in the
10:53
Speaker 1: case file. And on November 28th, 1995, Nicole was buried.
10:58
Speaker 1: But before the body was even found, one moment stood
11:02
Speaker 1: out in the search. And on October 24th, 1995, an
11:04
Speaker 1: anonymous man called police And he said he could identify
11:10
Speaker 1: Nicole's killer. And then the line just went dead. And
11:13
Speaker 1: the call cut off before officers could get a full
11:16
Speaker 1: statement and before they could pin down a name or
11:19
Speaker 1: a location. But they had a recording to go off of.
11:22
Speaker 1: So come January 1996, that recording was broadcast on national
11:27
Speaker 1: television in hopes that someone would recognize the voice or
11:31
Speaker 1: the caller himself would come forward again. But sadly, neither happened.
11:36
Speaker 1: But then in February of 1996, a different lead surfaced
11:41
Speaker 1: and a friend of the Vandenhurst family was arrested on
11:44
Speaker 1: drug trafficking charges. And while locked up, this person pointed
11:47
Speaker 1: the finger at specific men. And the claim was that
11:51
Speaker 1: those men had forced the drug smuggling on them and
11:54
Speaker 1: that they were also behind Nicole's murder. And Ad initially
11:58
Speaker 1: believed the story, Nicole's stepfather, because to him, it finally
12:02
Speaker 1: felt like a break, a thread that might actually lead somewhere.
12:06
Speaker 1: So police investigated. So they pulled the claim apart, but
12:09
Speaker 1: the story fell apart under their scrutiny. So it was
12:12
Speaker 1: just another dead end. And by now the pattern was
12:15
Speaker 1: the same. Tips would come in, the leads were chased,
12:19
Speaker 1: but nothing stuck. And one magazine even put up a
12:22
Speaker 1: cash reward asking the public for anything they could help
12:25
Speaker 1: identify the killer. And naturally more tips would follow, but
12:29
Speaker 1: none proved strong enough for a prosecution. And eventually the
12:33
Speaker 1: investigative team shrank and new investigators took over, but Nicole's
12:37
Speaker 1: file did not close. But it did kind of stop
12:41
Speaker 1: moving and the case settled into a kind of limbo
12:45
Speaker 1: that families of murder victims know all too well. And
12:49
Speaker 1: technically it was open but barely active. So there was
12:52
Speaker 1: a girl buried so young and no one held responsible yet.
12:58
Speaker 1: So by the summer of 1996, investigators had come up
13:01
Speaker 1: completely empty and every thread just led nowhere. So police
13:06
Speaker 1: turned their attention to the people closest to Nicole. And
13:09
Speaker 1: that summer, authorities arrested her stepfather, Ad, and her stepbrother, Andy.
13:15
Speaker 1: And they held them for five days each. And then
13:18
Speaker 1: they let them go. And neither arrest produced charges, and
13:22
Speaker 1: not a single piece of forensic evidence connected Ad or
13:25
Speaker 1: Andy to what happened to Nicole. There were no links,
13:28
Speaker 1: no witnesses, just nothing. They had nothing on the both
13:31
Speaker 1: of them. But the damage was already done, because they
13:33
Speaker 1: were held for five days and word spread. And in
13:36
Speaker 1: the public eye, the arrest told a story that the
13:39
Speaker 1: evidence just didn't support. and reporters discuss the family structure.
13:43
Speaker 1: And they pointed out that Ad wasn't Nicole's biological father
13:47
Speaker 1: and that he was only her legal guardian. And it
13:50
Speaker 1: didn't matter that both men walked out of custody without
13:53
Speaker 1: a single charge filed against them because suspicion had already
13:56
Speaker 1: settled on the family like a stain. As a man
13:59
Speaker 1: who raised a girl as his own daughter and then
14:02
Speaker 1: lost her to a murder. It's just so awful. And
14:06
Speaker 1: a stepbrother who grew up alongside her and who lived
14:09
Speaker 1: in the same house, the grandmother's house, and he got
14:13
Speaker 1: hauled in as well. I just can't imagine how they
14:15
Speaker 1: both felt being scrutinized like that. And they were only
14:18
Speaker 1: suspects because the evidence didn't point to anyone else, basically.
14:22
Speaker 1: So they were just doing, you know, process of elimination.
14:25
Speaker 1: And in a case with no answers, proximity became its
14:28
Speaker 1: own kind of guilt. And the family that had been
14:31
Speaker 1: grieving Nicole was now defending itself against the suspicion that
14:35
Speaker 1: one of them killed her. And though both men had
14:38
Speaker 1: been cleared, it didn't really matter because in a small community,
14:42
Speaker 1: in a case this public, the Whispers don't follow the
14:45
Speaker 1: same rules as the courts. But as time went on,
14:49
Speaker 1: voices got quiet, and the years after the arrests were
14:52
Speaker 1: defined by silence. There were no new witnesses, forensic breakthroughs,
14:57
Speaker 1: or confessions, and the investigative team had already been cut down.
15:01
Speaker 1: Detectives moved on to other cases, but the file still
15:05
Speaker 1: stayed open, but fewer and fewer people were working on it.
15:08
Speaker 1: And in 2004, a cold case team pulled Nicole's case
15:12
Speaker 1: off the shelf, and they reviewed the evidence. and reexamined
15:16
Speaker 1: what had been collected and looked for anything that might
15:18
Speaker 1: have been missed. But the case went right back where
15:21
Speaker 1: it had been. And breaking the case open again meant
15:24
Speaker 1: one of two things needed to happen. Someone who knew
15:27
Speaker 1: something would have to come forward, or the science would
15:30
Speaker 1: have to catch up to the evidence. So by 2011,
15:34
Speaker 1: 16 years had passed since Nicole's body was found beneath
15:38
Speaker 1: those branches and the DNA samples were sealed away in
15:41
Speaker 1: evidence storage. And the original material had been collected with
15:45
Speaker 1: mid-90s technology and degraded by weeks of outdoor exposure. And
15:50
Speaker 1: the case had sat dormant since the failed 2004 review.
15:53
Speaker 1: And Andy, Nicole's stepbrother, had moved to England by then.
15:57
Speaker 1: And in 2011, from across the North Sea, he did
16:01
Speaker 1: something no one saw coming. And he went on Facebook
16:06
Speaker 1: and he confessed to killing his stepsister. The stepbrother who
16:10
Speaker 1: lived in the same grandmother's house, who'd grown up alongside her,
16:14
Speaker 1: who'd been hauled in once before back in 1996 and walked.
16:19
Speaker 1: Now he was saying it out loud in writing for
16:22
Speaker 1: anyone to read. I did it. So once the confession
16:27
Speaker 1: hit social media, law enforcement in England responded immediately and
16:31
Speaker 1: they arrested Andy in the UK. And on March 30th, 2011,
16:36
Speaker 1: he was extradited back to the Netherlands, back in the
16:39
Speaker 1: country where he'd grown up, this time arriving in handcuffs.
16:43
Speaker 1: And Dutch authorities held him for approximately five days, the
16:46
Speaker 1: same length of time they'd held him back in 1996
16:49
Speaker 1: when he was first suspected. But the confession didn't hold
16:54
Speaker 1: and investigators still had nothing connecting him to the murder
16:57
Speaker 1: beyond his own words online. No forensics, no witnesses, nothing
17:02
Speaker 1: but a post on a screen. So again, they let
17:05
Speaker 1: him go. And the moment he was released, Andy just
17:09
Speaker 1: retracted his confession because he hadn't done it after all,
17:12
Speaker 1: he would say. But then he went further and he
17:15
Speaker 1: would accuse his own father, Ad, of the murder, Nicole's stepfather.
17:22
Speaker 1: But it made no sense. A man confesses to killing
17:25
Speaker 1: his stepsister takes it back, and then points the finger
17:28
Speaker 1: at the father who raised them both, with essentially zero
17:32
Speaker 1: evidence to back it up. And because of that, the
17:34
Speaker 1: accusation against Ad didn't lead to charges either. But something
17:39
Speaker 1: had shifted now, and whatever Andy was doing, it had
17:42
Speaker 1: dragged Nicole's name back into the headlines and made it
17:45
Speaker 1: impossible for the case to quietly slide back into a
17:49
Speaker 1: filing cabinet. And the confession triggered Dutch authorities to assemble
17:53
Speaker 1: a fresh cold case team and point them at her file.
17:56
Speaker 1: So for the first time in years, people were looking
17:59
Speaker 1: at the case again. And Andy was relieved. But Andy's
18:03
Speaker 1: relief carried a weight no one around him understood. Because
18:08
Speaker 1: Andy had never killed anyone. Because the Facebook confession was
18:12
Speaker 1: a lie. A calculated, deliberate lie. But he understood something
18:16
Speaker 1: most people don't. Confess to a murder and the body
18:20
Speaker 1: gets exhumed and new samples get taken and modern testing
18:24
Speaker 1: gets applied and the wheels turn again. And it was
18:27
Speaker 1: the only way he could think of to force the
18:30
Speaker 1: system's hand. And he knew it was a risk. A
18:34
Speaker 1: false confession doesn't come with a safety net. And if
18:37
Speaker 1: the legal system had moved faster than his plan accounted for,
18:40
Speaker 1: he could have ended up convicted of a crime he
18:42
Speaker 1: didn't commit. But to him, the alternative was worse, which
18:46
Speaker 1: was another decade of silence and the man who killed
18:49
Speaker 1: Nicole walking free. And even accusing his own father had
18:53
Speaker 1: been part of it. And Andy didn't explain his true
18:56
Speaker 1: motive publicly until 2016 when he said, quote, I wanted
19:00
Speaker 1: her to get exhumed and get DNA off her. I
19:03
Speaker 1: kind of set myself up and it could have gone
19:06
Speaker 1: horribly wrong. To get her exhumed, I had to put
19:09
Speaker 1: steps in place to get her exhumed. I went to
19:12
Speaker 1: police and said I did it. She is my sister. Absolutely.
19:16
Speaker 1: I miss her every day. And this was five years
19:20
Speaker 1: after his confession. He waited five years. That's how long
19:23
Speaker 1: he let people believe what they wanted about him. But
19:26
Speaker 1: it was all by design. What an insanely amazing brother
19:30
Speaker 1: to have. Oh my goodness. Confessing to a murderer just
19:33
Speaker 1: to get your body exhumed. so the killer doesn't walk free.
19:36
Speaker 1: But did it work? Well, in September of 2011, authorities
19:40
Speaker 1: exhumed Nicole's remains, and the Netherlands Forensic Institute reexamined biological
19:45
Speaker 1: material and clothing traces, and all of it got processed
19:49
Speaker 1: through DNA testing. that simply hadn't existed when Nicole was
19:52
Speaker 1: first found. And complex, degraded samples that had been borderline
19:56
Speaker 1: useless in 1995 could now potentially yield identifiable profiles. And
20:01
Speaker 1: following the exhumation, authorities made another decision. And they publicly
20:06
Speaker 1: confirmed for the first time that Nicole had in fact
20:10
Speaker 1: been found. And this was information the earlier teams had
20:14
Speaker 1: documented internally, but deliberately kept from the public, like we
20:17
Speaker 1: spoke about before, because they weren't 100% about it. Now,
20:21
Speaker 1: the world finally knew, and authorities bumped the reward up
20:24
Speaker 1: to 15,000 euros for anyone who could help identify the killer.
20:29
Speaker 1: And a week later, police went public with a statement,
20:32
Speaker 1: and that is that they've recovered foreign DNA from Nicole's body,
20:35
Speaker 1: and they also reported receiving over 20 new leads. And
20:39
Speaker 1: two months after the exhumation, Nicole's remains were released back
20:42
Speaker 1: to the family. So the DNA was there, and it
20:45
Speaker 1: just took the right technology to finally see it. And
20:48
Speaker 1: now investigators had a profile, and for the first time
20:51
Speaker 1: since 1995, the case was finally moving forward. Now, the
20:55
Speaker 1: updated testing at the Netherlands Forensic Institute produced clear results
20:59
Speaker 1: that the original investigation never could. And the results pointed
21:03
Speaker 1: to three different men who'd left DNA on Nicole. And
21:07
Speaker 1: the first profile belonged to her boyfriend at the time
21:10
Speaker 1: she disappeared. And that was expected due to their relationship.
21:14
Speaker 1: And the second profile belonged to a convicted from Helmont
21:19
Speaker 1: named Yoss DeGee. And his DNA showed up in sperm
21:23
Speaker 1: traces and pubic hair that had been collected from Nicole's body.
21:28
Speaker 1: And the third profile belonged to an unknown male whose
21:31
Speaker 1: identity was never determined. But the match to Yas Deji
21:35
Speaker 1: didn't come from the DNA alone. It came from pattern recognition.
21:39
Speaker 1: Because in September of 2000, a 20-year-old woman was attacked
21:43
Speaker 1: in Volkenswar, a town just south of Eindhoven. And she
21:46
Speaker 1: was pulled from her bike and... in an isolated location.
21:51
Speaker 1: And the man who committed the horrible crime was Yosteji.
21:55
Speaker 1: So the cold case team saw the parallel immediately. A
21:58
Speaker 1: young woman on a bike intercepted, taken somewhere isolated and assaulted.
22:03
Speaker 1: And Nicole had been cycling to work in the dark
22:06
Speaker 1: when she vanished and her body ended up concealed in
22:09
Speaker 1: woodlands 10 kilometers away. So the method was the exact same.
22:13
Speaker 1: And the cold case team compared DeG's DNA profile against
22:16
Speaker 1: the unidentified traces recovered from Nicole. And the similarities were
22:20
Speaker 1: strong enough to trigger an arrest. Let's take a quick
22:23
Speaker 1: pause to talk about something that's genuinely really hard and terrifying.
22:28
Speaker 1: And that's just starting something new. Like when I started
22:31
Speaker 1: this whole channel, I wasn't even sure what I was doing.
22:34
Speaker 1: And I would be thinking to myself, what if no
22:36
Speaker 1: one watches or listens? What do I do then? But
22:39
Speaker 1: it turns out believing in myself was the right call
22:42
Speaker 1: and it helps to have a partner like Shopify on
22:45
Speaker 1: your side. Now Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions
22:48
Speaker 1: of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce
22:52
Speaker 1: in the United States, from household names to brands just
22:55
Speaker 1: getting started. You can get going with hundreds of ready
22:58
Speaker 1: to use templates that match your brand style. But what
23:01
Speaker 1: if I get stuck, Chris? Well, Shopify is always around
23:04
Speaker 1: with award-winning 24 seven support. Plus that iconic purple shop
23:08
Speaker 1: pay button means the best converting checkout on the planet,
23:12
Speaker 1: fewer abandoned carts and more sales for you. So it's
23:15
Speaker 1: time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today.
23:20
Speaker 1: So sign up for your $ 1 per month trial today
23:23
Speaker 1: at Shopify.com slash CCCM. Go to Shopify.com slash CCCM. That's Shopify.com
23:29
Speaker 1: slash CCCM. Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring
23:31
Speaker 1: the video and supporting the channel and for helping me
23:34
Speaker 1: with all of my business endeavors. And let's get back
23:36
Speaker 1: to it. So in January of 2014, police arrested 46-year-old
23:42
Speaker 1: Yas Deji from Helmand. And he'd been living in a
23:45
Speaker 1: shelter home for about a month and a half, and
23:47
Speaker 1: he was in the home stretch of reintegration. He had
23:50
Speaker 1: one more supervised phase, and he'd be on his own again,
23:54
Speaker 1: which is horrifying to think about. But he never made
23:57
Speaker 1: it to the next step, luckily. And Deji was from Walkenswerd,
24:01
Speaker 1: which is a town right on Eindhoven's doorstep where Nicole lived.
24:06
Speaker 1: And he was in his late 20s when she went missing.
24:08
Speaker 1: And on October 5th, 1995, the night before Nicole vanished,
24:12
Speaker 1: Deji walked out of his ex-girlfriend's place upset because the
24:16
Speaker 1: two had been fighting. And several hours later, Nicole left
24:19
Speaker 1: for work on her bicycle in the dark. And by
24:22
Speaker 1: the time police arrested him for Nicole's case, Daegi already
24:26
Speaker 1: had three convictions on his record. How was he out
24:30
Speaker 1: and about? Why is this a thing? Kill it with fire, what?
24:34
Speaker 1: And his earliest known offense dated back to 1987, which
24:38
Speaker 1: was an essay connected to him only later through a
24:41
Speaker 1: DNA match. And he was sentenced to 17 months for
24:44
Speaker 1: a violent assault against his own girlfriend. And within months
24:48
Speaker 1: of that sentencing, authorities arrested him for the essay of
24:52
Speaker 1: a 20-year-old woman in Watkinsford. And two additional convictions followed
24:56
Speaker 1: for abusing his ex-girlfriend. Both assaults happened in her home.
25:02
Speaker 1: And in 2011, a court ordered three years of preventative
25:05
Speaker 1: detention along with mandatory psychiatric care. That is an abhorrently
25:10
Speaker 1: small sentence. Oh my God. And the psychological evaluation from
25:15
Speaker 1: his earlier sentencing didn't hold back. And a psychiatrist called Yosteji,
25:19
Speaker 1: quote unquote, a vessel overflowing with hate. But yeah, let
25:24
Speaker 1: him walk. And the report warned of significant chance he'd
25:27
Speaker 1: reoffend if the underlying issues weren't properly treated. But despite
25:32
Speaker 1: all that, by January 2014, the system had moved him
25:35
Speaker 1: to the doorstep of freedom and placed him in a
25:38
Speaker 1: shelter home, just six short weeks from living on his
25:41
Speaker 1: own again. And he joined an amateur football club in Helmand, RKPVV,
25:47
Speaker 1: where he played in goal. And teammates found him spontaneous,
25:50
Speaker 1: but withdrawn, but they liked him well enough. So with
25:54
Speaker 1: Deji apprehended, Andy sent a message to his friends saying, quote,
25:58
Speaker 1: they finally got this monster after 19 years, unquote. All
26:03
Speaker 1: thanks to him, by the way. So in April, 2014,
26:06
Speaker 1: prosecutors formally charged Yoste Gee with and murder of Nicole
26:11
Speaker 1: Vanden Hark. Almost two decades after she was pulled from
26:14
Speaker 1: beneath a pile of branches, the case finally had a
26:18
Speaker 1: name attached to it. And that name had been in
26:21
Speaker 1: the system all along. So Yoss De Gee was originally
26:25
Speaker 1: charged with both murder and, but that didn't last. And
26:29
Speaker 1: on July 3rd, 2014, during a pretrial hearing in Den Bosch,
26:34
Speaker 1: prosecutors dropped the murder charge as the forensic evidence wouldn't
26:38
Speaker 1: support it. and he now faced trial for manslaughter and instead.
26:43
Speaker 1: And the family, understandably, was furious, and Andy called the
26:47
Speaker 1: reduction a betrayal of justice, and he argued that moving
26:51
Speaker 1: a victim's body is a deliberate act, one that should
26:54
Speaker 1: constitute murder, not the lesser charge. An ad, Nicole's stepfather,
26:59
Speaker 1: went further, telling reporters, quote, this man deserves the highest
27:03
Speaker 1: punishment there is. He has already attempted to murder two
27:06
Speaker 1: women in the past and has taken the life of
27:08
Speaker 1: my child. The Netherlands is not helped by this, that
27:12
Speaker 1: such a man may still walk the streets, unquote. Drop
27:15
Speaker 1: the mic. Prosecutors asked the court for a 14-year sentence
27:19
Speaker 1: if he was convicted on both counts. And the defense attorney,
27:22
Speaker 1: Jaap Knooster, planned to argue for full acquittal. Now, De
27:26
Speaker 1: Gea's account was built on strategic principles. First, he claimed
27:30
Speaker 1: he never crossed paths with Nicole around the time she
27:33
Speaker 1: went missing, and then he offered an alternative. Maybe the
27:36
Speaker 1: two of them had a consensual encounter in the days
27:39
Speaker 1: before her death. He just couldn't remember. Shut up. And
27:43
Speaker 1: his attorney pointed out that Nicole and his client moved
27:46
Speaker 1: through the same circles, the same hangouts, so a chance
27:49
Speaker 1: meeting was completely possible. Then the defense pushed further and
27:54
Speaker 1: Knoster told the court that other males' DNA had also
27:58
Speaker 1: been recovered, which he said meant Nicole had been active
28:01
Speaker 1: before her death. And he even floated the claim that
28:04
Speaker 1: she may have been pregnant when she was killed with
28:08
Speaker 1: no basis, by the way, Insane thing to say about
28:12
Speaker 1: a murdered 15 year old girl. An ad responded to
28:14
Speaker 1: the pregnancy claim directly saying quote, these are lawyer shenanigans.
28:19
Speaker 1: He is the devil's advocate in the end. I do
28:21
Speaker 1: not want to comment on these allegations. I'll leave that
28:24
Speaker 1: to the Justice Department, unquote. And Andy kept his reaction brief, saying, quote, unquote,
28:29
Speaker 1: the defense attorney is a very clever man. And the
28:32
Speaker 1: prosecution rejected the entire framework, though. And consensual sex with
28:37
Speaker 1: a 15-year-old wasn't realistic or a thing, by the way,
28:42
Speaker 1: since he was in his 20s. And the defense still
28:44
Speaker 1: had no believable explanation for why DeG's DNA was on
28:48
Speaker 1: Nicole's body. And by October 2015, the case had been
28:52
Speaker 1: through eight pretrial hearings. And the strategy was very clear,
28:56
Speaker 1: not to prove innocence, but to muddy the water enough
28:59
Speaker 1: that certainty became impossible. So basically the central fight in
29:03
Speaker 1: the courtroom was on the reliability of the DNA match itself.
29:08
Speaker 1: And the whole reason Deji was sitting there was a
29:10
Speaker 1: partial match between his DNA and what had been pulled
29:13
Speaker 1: from Nicole, just partial, not complete. And that gap was
29:18
Speaker 1: the defense's primary weapon. And experts from two institutions testified
29:22
Speaker 1: in Den Boss. the Netherlands Forensic Institute, or NFI, and
29:27
Speaker 1: the Independent Forensic Services, or IFS. And at the center
29:31
Speaker 1: of it all was the sperm recovered from Nicole's remains.
29:34
Speaker 1: Investigators had never been able to build a complete profile
29:37
Speaker 1: from it, and even if the IFS brought in a counter-expert,
29:41
Speaker 1: agreed the gap was unusual. Normally, semen yields a full profile.
29:46
Speaker 1: And the NFI's expert, Yarin Kopman, explained why this case
29:50
Speaker 1: was different. Quote, There you go! Because six weeks of
29:54
Speaker 1: outdoor decomposition had degraded everything, and the sample wasn't clean
29:58
Speaker 1: to begin with, and at least three separate people's DNA
30:00
Speaker 1: had shown up in those semen traces. And two of
30:13
Speaker 1: the profiles were clear, believed to match Deji and Nicole's boyfriend.
30:19
Speaker 1: But some peaks didn't conclusively match either man. And the
30:23
Speaker 1: NFI and the IFS couldn't agree on what the DNA
30:26
Speaker 1: actually proved. So the court brought in a third set
30:29
Speaker 1: of eyes, And the samples were shipped to New Zealand,
30:32
Speaker 1: where analysts applied probabilistic genotyping, a math-driven method built to
30:37
Speaker 1: pull apart mixed DNA when several people's material ends up
30:40
Speaker 1: on the same item. They really have a job for everything.
30:43
Speaker 1: And no Dutch case had ever used it before. And
30:46
Speaker 1: the results, presented in April of 2016, were striking. The
30:50
Speaker 1: odds that the three strands belong to Deji and two
30:54
Speaker 1: other specific individuals rather than three strangers were 2.28 million
30:59
Speaker 1: to one. So across two continents, the takeaway was the same.
31:04
Speaker 1: Deji's DNA was almost certainly part of that mixture, but
31:09
Speaker 1: very likely and beyond reasonable doubt don't mean the same thing, obviously.
31:15
Speaker 1: And the unknown third profile still hung over the case.
31:18
Speaker 1: and the defense intended to use it. So a verdict
31:21
Speaker 1: was expected in 2015, and then two surprise witnesses blew
31:25
Speaker 1: the timeline apart. And both had done some time in
31:29
Speaker 1: the same psychiatric institution as Deji, and each said separately
31:33
Speaker 1: that he told them about killing a girl. And they
31:37
Speaker 1: were both convinced that girl was Nicole. And the court
31:40
Speaker 1: postponed proceedings and called 15 people to testify about how
31:44
Speaker 1: Deji And the two men had actually interacted. And Deji
31:48
Speaker 1: tried to discredit one of them, claiming they'd gotten along
31:52
Speaker 1: like cat and dog inside the facility. But a psychiatrist
31:55
Speaker 1: from the clinic remembered the two of them sitting together
31:57
Speaker 1: playing poker. But in the end, neither man's statement made
32:00
Speaker 1: it into official evidence. And prosecutors said they believed the witnesses,
32:05
Speaker 1: but their testimony stayed out of the formal case and
32:07
Speaker 1: the trial moved forward without it. But on November 21st, 2016,
32:12
Speaker 1: a unanimous panel found Yost A.G. guilty and sentenced to
32:17
Speaker 1: five years. But on manslaughter, he was acquitted. And the
32:22
Speaker 1: reasoning came down to that unknown third DNA profile. Because
32:26
Speaker 1: the court couldn't rule out that the unidentified man had
32:29
Speaker 1: played some role in Nicole's death. And with nothing beyond
32:33
Speaker 1: the trace evidence, it wouldn't connect A.G. to the killing itself.
32:37
Speaker 1: And everything else the defense had argued was rejected. And
32:40
Speaker 1: the judges found that Nicole and Dejee did not know
32:44
Speaker 1: each other before the day she vanished. And the consensual
32:47
Speaker 1: contact story was completely thrown out. And the promiscuity defense
32:51
Speaker 1: with it. And Dejee's sperm on Nicole's body indicated not consent.
32:58
Speaker 1: But none of it was enough to convict him of
33:00
Speaker 1: taking her life. And the court acknowledged what it was
33:03
Speaker 1: leaving unanswered, quote, we regret that the relatives have no
33:07
Speaker 1: clarity on what happened after the rape, unquote. And the
33:10
Speaker 1: judges also declined to impose TBS, the Dutch system of
33:14
Speaker 1: psychiatric detention, reasoning that experts had assessed his risk of
33:18
Speaker 1: reoffending as minimal. And prosecutors had asked for 14 years
33:23
Speaker 1: and he only got five, with two already served in
33:26
Speaker 1: pretrial custody. So roughly only three years remaining. And the
33:31
Speaker 1: family just broke. And Nicole's stepmother, Yolanda Vendervaden, shouted in court, quote,
33:38
Speaker 1: what if this could happen to your children? This is
33:41
Speaker 1: simply unbelievable, unquote. And police let her out as relatives
33:45
Speaker 1: walked out in tears. And days later, Ad appeared on
33:49
Speaker 1: a regional broadcast called Crack. Quote, this is not a man,
33:53
Speaker 1: but a terrible creature, unquote. So the five-year sentence lasted
33:57
Speaker 1: eight days before it was challenged. And on November 29th, 2016,
34:02
Speaker 1: the public prosecutor appealed the manslaughter acquittal outright, arguing the
34:07
Speaker 1: and the killing were one act by one man. But
34:10
Speaker 1: the defense appealed too, contesting the conviction itself. So the
34:15
Speaker 1: whole case went back before the judges and every count
34:18
Speaker 1: relitigated from scratch. And hearings opened on August 28th, 2018
34:23
Speaker 1: at the Court of Appeals in Sertogenbos, sorry for the pronunciation,
34:27
Speaker 1: the same city as the first trial. And prosecutors again
34:31
Speaker 1: asked for 14 years, which I still think isn't enough. Life,
34:37
Speaker 1: just in a hole for life. So there was the
34:40
Speaker 1: same defendant with the same forensic evidence, but one thing changed,
34:44
Speaker 1: the unknown third DNA trace. Because in the first trial,
34:48
Speaker 1: it had been the reason DeG walked, as we know.
34:51
Speaker 1: And the appeal court saw it differently. They concluded the
34:54
Speaker 1: trace carried no real weight. It was minimal. Its origin
34:58
Speaker 1: couldn't be pinned down, and there were plenty of innocent
35:01
Speaker 1: ways it could have ended up there. Transfer contamination, incidental contact.
35:06
Speaker 1: Where the first court treated the trace as an open door,
35:10
Speaker 1: the appeal court closed it. With that obstacle gone, the
35:14
Speaker 1: judges turned to what remained. Deji's biological material had been
35:18
Speaker 1: found three times on Nicole's body. And the forced nature
35:23
Speaker 1: of the contact established at the first trial went unchallenged.
35:27
Speaker 1: And then there was what happened afterward. Nicole's body hidden
35:31
Speaker 1: under branches in a woodland 10 kilometers from where she
35:34
Speaker 1: was last seen. That kind of concealment doesn't just happen
35:37
Speaker 1: by accident. It's the behavior of someone trying not to
35:41
Speaker 1: get caught. And the appeal court drew a straight line
35:44
Speaker 1: from the essay to the killing to the disposal. One offender,
35:48
Speaker 1: one sequence of events, one man responsible for all of it.
35:52
Speaker 1: So on October 9th, 2018, the court of appeal convicted
35:55
Speaker 1: Yas Deji of both... and manslaughter, and sentenced him to
36:01
Speaker 1: 12 years. Still not good enough. Still not good enough.
36:05
Speaker 1: But at least we know without a doubt who committed
36:08
Speaker 1: this heinous crime. And the court's language left no room
36:11
Speaker 1: for ambiguity, accusing him of, quote, forcing a young girl
36:15
Speaker 1: with her whole life ahead of her into sex and
36:19
Speaker 1: then killing her, unquote. And in its judgment, the evidence
36:22
Speaker 1: proved he beat a 15-year-old to death and buried her
36:26
Speaker 1: under branches so no one could find her. So 23
36:30
Speaker 1: years after Nicole was pulled from beneath that pile of branches,
36:34
Speaker 1: a court had finally held someone accountable for putting her there.
36:38
Speaker 1: And the judges again declined TBS, and Deji had been
36:41
Speaker 1: given it for a prior conviction and never finished it.
36:44
Speaker 1: And the court found it was no longer possible to
36:47
Speaker 1: tell whether his mental health had played any role in 1995.
36:51
Speaker 1: But Dejie wasn't finished, and he took the case to
36:55
Speaker 1: the Hogerat, the Dutch Supreme Court, arguing he hadn't received
36:59
Speaker 1: a fair trial. And his objections aimed at the appeal
37:02
Speaker 1: court's use of the DNA findings and its handling of
37:05
Speaker 1: the defense's challenges to expert witnesses. And the advocate general
37:09
Speaker 1: reviewed the arguments and recommended they fail. So on June 16th, 2020,
37:14
Speaker 1: they dismissed every complaint. and the conviction was locked in.
37:18
Speaker 1: So no more appeals, no more hearings, nothing left to pursue.
37:22
Speaker 1: But there was one final adjustment. The court knocked four
37:26
Speaker 1: months off for how long the case had dragged on,
37:29
Speaker 1: turning 12 years into 11 years and eight months. What
37:33
Speaker 1: are we doing over there in the Netherlands? Are you
37:35
Speaker 1: guys okay? What's going on? Just everywhere, honestly. It's not
37:38
Speaker 1: even the Netherlands. It's just like, I don't understand the
37:43
Speaker 1: sentencing for this type of thing. This man... murdered a
37:48
Speaker 1: girl and defiled her. But they're just, it's a slap
37:52
Speaker 1: on the wrist. What are we doing? Again, hole for
37:56
Speaker 1: life or fire, you know? I don't understand. And I
38:00
Speaker 1: don't think I'll ever understand. But at this point, the
38:03
Speaker 1: case was closed. And the third male whose DNA appeared
38:07
Speaker 1: on Nicole's remains was never identified. And courts waited, argued
38:11
Speaker 1: over it and set it aside as too small and
38:14
Speaker 1: too ambiguous to matter. And that question still hangs over
38:17
Speaker 1: the case, but the central one has been answered. Yosteji
38:21
Speaker 1: killed Nicole Vanden Hark, and the conviction was final. And
38:25
Speaker 1: it had taken a false confession, an exhumation, forensic science
38:29
Speaker 1: that didn't exist when Nicole died, and years of grinding
38:32
Speaker 1: and persistence, but someone was finally held responsible. Let's take
38:37
Speaker 1: a quick pause to talk about something.
38:39
Speaker 2: I know about you, okay? You've been putting off making
38:43
Speaker 2: an appointment, haven't you? A doctor's appointment, dermatologist appointment, therapy appointment.
38:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's okay. I've been known to do that too.
38:52
Speaker 1: Until I started using soft dogs. ZocDoc is a free
38:56
Speaker 1: app and website that helps you find and book high
38:59
Speaker 1: quality in-network doctors so you can find someone you love.
39:03
Speaker 1: There are over 150,000 providers across all 50 states and
39:07
Speaker 1: 200 plus specialties. You can search for specialty or symptom,
39:12
Speaker 1: read thousands of verified patient reviews and book in person
39:15
Speaker 1: or by video. And you can also see real time
39:18
Speaker 1: availability and book instantly. And appointments typically happen within 24
39:21
Speaker 1: to 72 hours. I have been notorious for putting off
39:25
Speaker 1: doctor's appointments, but ZocDoc makes it so easy, I don't
39:28
Speaker 1: have an excuse anymore. So stop putting off those doctor's
39:31
Speaker 1: appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash CCCM to find and
39:35
Speaker 1: instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash CCCM. ZocDoc.com
39:41
Speaker 1: slash CCCM. Thank you so much to ZocDoc for sponsoring
39:44
Speaker 1: the video and supporting the channel, and let's get back
39:46
Speaker 1: to it. So Yosteji was sentenced and the legal fight
39:49
Speaker 1: was over. But a verdict ends the legal question and
39:52
Speaker 1: it doesn't end anything else. And Andy Vandenhark had given
39:57
Speaker 1: more to this case than anyone should have to. Confessing
40:00
Speaker 1: to a murder he didn't commit to force it to
40:03
Speaker 1: open back up again. And it worked. And the boy
40:07
Speaker 1: who set himself on fire, basically, metaphorically, to light the
40:11
Speaker 1: path to justice actually got there. But on August 27th, 2021,
40:17
Speaker 1: Andy posted a final message on Facebook saying he was
40:21
Speaker 1: ready to say goodbye. And not long after, he would
40:26
Speaker 1: just with years of grief, suspicion, sacrifice, and waiting had
40:31
Speaker 1: proved to be too much for him. But he was
40:33
Speaker 1: the reason his stepsister's killer was identified. And yet the
40:37
Speaker 1: person who fought the hardest for Nicole didn't get to
40:40
Speaker 1: live in the world he'd helped create. the one where
40:43
Speaker 1: her killer was named, convicted, and locked away. An ad
40:47
Speaker 1: Vandenhorck carried a different version of the same weight, and
40:51
Speaker 1: he had raised Nicole as his own, lost her to murder,
40:55
Speaker 1: and heard the word convicted 23 years after he buried her.
41:00
Speaker 1: And he was right to call the man who did
41:02
Speaker 1: it a terrible creature. But that is the end of
41:05
Speaker 1: this deep dive case on Nicole Vandenhorck. My heart as
41:10
Speaker 1: always goes out to the family and to her. What a,
41:14
Speaker 1: just a horrible, horrible case. I just can't believe what
41:19
Speaker 1: the stepbrother did for her and everything he sacrificed. And
41:23
Speaker 1: in the end, he's no longer with us. But I
41:26
Speaker 1: think that Nicole would have been extremely proud of what
41:30
Speaker 1: he did for her. But thank you so much for listening.
41:33
Speaker 1: And if you would like me to deep dive into
41:34
Speaker 1: any other cases, please let me know down below. And
41:38
Speaker 1: until then, I will see your beautiful face. And please,
41:40
Speaker 1: please stay safe out there, okay?