A suspect in the brutal 1998 killing of a young Dutch boy has been arrested in Spain, police said on Sunday after one of the most extensive murder investigations to date in the Netherlands.
Eleven-year-old Nicky Verstappen disappeared during the night of Aug. 9, 1998, while at a summer camp at the Brunssumerheide nature reserve in Brunssum, near the German border. His body was found the next evening, close to the camp site.
He had been sexually abused before he was killed.
“Jos B, 55, a suspect in the death of Nicky Verstappen was arrested in Spain on Sunday afternoon. He was taken into custody and will be handed over to the Netherlands,” said a police statement issued in southern Limburg Province, where the boy disappeared.
Suspect Jos Brech, a former scout worker who is believed to be a survival expert, was reported missing in April and police had thought he was hiding in the French mountainous eastern Vosges Department, where he owns a chalet.
Brech was arrested “thanks to a witness who recognized him after seeing his picture in the media in recent days” investigators said, hailing the “good cooperation” with the Spanish police.
“We got him! Jos Brech was arrested in Spain near Barcelona!” crime reporter Peter de Vries, spokesman for the boy’s family, wrote on Twitter. “The family is very relieved. Justice will be done!”
Police at the time of the murder mounted a massive search closely followed by local media and the Dutch public, but the boy’s killer was never found.
As time ran out to catch the suspect, police earlier this year appealed to more than 20,000 men to donate DNA samples in a bid to close in on the perpetrator.
Police said new digital techniques helped them to develop a DNA profile in 2008, from traces found on Verstappen’s clothing, but there had been no match.
Earlier this year, about 16,000 men living in the area where Verstappen was murdered volunteered to hand over DNA samples after a call by detectives.
Brech, who was 35 at the time of the murder, was not among the volunteers, but as he was previously interviewed as a witness, police became suspicious.
When his family reported him as missing, Dutch and French police searched his cabin in the Vosges region.
“We found traces of DNA on his personal belongings. It was a match,” Limburg Chief Prosecutor Jan Eland said last week, when Dutch police announced they had identified a suspect.
A warrant for Brech’s arrest was issued on June 12.
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