Last week, the Dutch police arrested a 42-year-old Amsterdammer on suspicion of involvement in the death of 34-year-old Jody. The woman was found dead in 2003 in the bushes in the vicinity of a sports park in Amsterdam. The police tracked down the suspect after a new DNA test, the police reported on Monday. Last Friday, the man was brought before the examining magistrate (the Dutch equivalent of an investigating judge, editor’s note), who decided that he would remain detained for another fourteen days.
On June 23, 2003, Jody’s body was found in the bushes of the Sportpark Spieringhorn on the Seineweg in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. She was a transgender woman from Ecuador who lived illegally in the Netherlands and worked in prostitution. She had multiple injuries and was found to have died of strangulation. At the time, no suspect was apprehended for her death. The investigation team suspects that the perpetrator had sex with her before killing Jody.
In 2014, the NFI (Dutch Forensic Institute) conducted a DNA study into the traces found at the crime scene and on and near Jody’s body. At that time it yielded nothing. By means of new techniques and a so-called relationship test, it was now possible to determine that the DNA found belongs to the arrested suspect. DNA kinship testing involves comparing DNA profiles to determine whether persons may be related to each other.
Local football club
The police call the DNA match “a huge breakthrough”, but are still looking for people who have more information about the case. Jody was a sex worker and on Sunday evening, June 22, 2003, probably working near the grounds of a local football club. “There may be visitors to that association who saw or heard something around that time that may have something to do with this,” the investigators think.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and don’t miss a thing of the stars.