The Ducth prosecution announced the foster parents of Willeke Dost are no longer suspects.
The court in the city of Assen had told the prosecution that if they wanted to prosecute the foster mother and foster brother, it had to do so before Jan 1, 2012. Right now there does not seem to be enough evidence against the two. However, if the still ongoing investigation uncovers new evidence or, if new leads come in, the prosecution can continue building a case against them.
Willeke Dost was only 15 years old when she went missing. Now, she is presumed dead. This switch in theory did not come easy. In fact, it was an uphill battle that reached the highest politicians in the Netherlands. Due to Dost’s “missing status” her case never got the priority it would have gotten if the assumption had been “possible homicide.”
In 1992, the theory was that most likely Willeke had run away from her foster home but now police think that she was murdered shortly after she disappeared. They also still believe that the original crime scene is near the foster parents’ farm.
On January 15, 1992, Willeke left her foster parents’ farm early in the morning by bike. After that, she vanished. Willeke’s biological parents died in a fatal car crash in 1976 when Willeke was an infant. She was temporarily placed with her grandmother but grew up in various foster families until in 1986; she was placed with the foster family in Koekange. They already had a daughter and two sons.
A week before she disappeared, Willeke allegedly told a girlfriend, Geke Crediet, that she was pregnant, according to Geke’s mother who repeated that statement on national television in 2004. Her foster father denied that that statement held any truth. He has since passed away.
To be continued.
H/T Clouseau!
