Marianne Vaatstra

Marianne Vaatstra (10 August 1982 – 1 May 1999) was a Dutch girl whose rape and murder became a high-profile criminal case in the Netherlands.

Vaatstra, then sixteen years old, was last seen alive cycling from Kollum to her parents' house in De Westereen.

Her body was found the next day, in a field close to Feankleaster, her throat slit.

Traces of the perpetrator's blood and semen were also found at the scene.

The blame was quickly pointed to inhabitants of the local asylum seekers' refuge, and a riot against asylum seekers ensued.

At a municipal information meeting in October 1999, about the opening of a new center in the town, locals rioted, with Kollumer youth egging the mayor.

At least one woman, who had incited the riots, was convicted for a racist offence.

A first suspect, a 32-year-old man from De Westereen, was arrested in late May 1999, but was subsequently released because his DNA did not match that found at the crime scene.

He would become the first in a series of twelve suspects who were similarly arrested and released.

From August 1999, police investigation of Vaatstra's murder focused on the asylum seekers' center near Kollum.

The center's guards had reported that an Iraqi refugee had left the center on the night of the murder, and had been missing since.

He was tracked down by Interpol and arrested in Istanbul in October, but the investigation became a national controversy after an official of the Public Prosecution Service had stated the arrest was made under political pressure.

The Iraqi was found innocent of the murder by DNA evidence.

A DNA sweep was started in December 1999, initially targeting 170 men in the area, of whom 162 cooperated.

No match was found.

The following year, investigators published a psychological profile of the perpetrator, who they suspected to be a white, Western European male, living less than 15 km from the crime scene.

On the night of May 1, 1999, Steringa saw Vaatstra on her bike.

In 2002, a final decision was made to open an asylum seekers' refuge at the planned location, without drawing local protests.

Eventually, the case was closed, then reopened in 2002 for a year before closing again.

The public prosecution service had arrested at least 12 suspects.

DNA was collected from more than 900 people as part of a DNA investigation.

The murder got a lot of attention from the local press.

A theme that was mentioned a lot was that they suspected that the murderer could be a civilian from the refugee camp nearby Kollum.

Two asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan became suspects, but based on the genetic fingerprints DNA-profiling they were no longer the suspects.

In May 2006, member of parliament Hilbrand Nawijn called to reinvestigate the police-analyses.

In June 2007 and in June 2010, member of parliament Fred Teeven (VVD) asked questions about the case during a meeting.

Also the television program Peter R. de Vries, misdaadverslaggever took a lot of time to investigate on this case.

The murder was a cold case until it was reopened in 2012 with large-scale DNA profiling in the area around the crime scene.

This led to the arrest of local farmer, Jasper Steringa, on 18 November of that year.

He confessed to the rape and murder, and was sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment.

The case was one of the first in the country to be resolved mainly using DNA evidence and led to widespread debate about the use of DNA for criminal investigations.

The population of Kollum was quick to blame inhabitants of the local asylum seekers' center for the murder.

The center's security was upgraded, and riot police were readied in the weeks following the murder, to intervene in the case of fighting between locals and refugees.

On 29 September 2012, a DNA test was started in a 5 km radius of the crime scene, in which about 8000 males participated.

This investigation was all based on free will, they were looking for men with a Y-chromosome DNA-profile like the perpetrator.

This resulted in a DNA-match.

On 18 of November, Jasper Steringa, a 45-year-old man from Aldwâld, only 2.5 km from the crime scene, was arrested.

He did not immediately talk to the police but within 10 minutes of meeting his lawyer, he admitted to murdering Vaastra.

The next day police announced it had found a match.

On 6 December, Jasper Steringa confessed to Vaatstra's murder.