“It is still so unreal”, Kelly Schepers looks back on the violent death of her younger brother. Jimmy Schepers, 21, was stabbed to death at the end of May during a house festival in the Westelijk Havengebied in Amsterdam. In court today, the Schepers family will be confronted for the first time with the three men who are held responsible for that fatal stabbing.
“I want to look the suspects in the eye,” says Kelly Schepers prior to the hearing. “It is very double, but you want to know who is capable of such a thing.”
Brawl
At the end of May, 21-year-old Jimmy Schepers, from Diemen, was with his group of friends at a festival in the Westelijk Havengebied when a violent fight broke out around 9 p.m. Schepers’ group of friends got into a fight with another group of men, with Jimmy trying to calm down the escalating row.
But the confrontation between the group of which Schepers was part and the other group ended in a drama. While young Jimmy wanted to calm the quarrel, he was attacked and stabbed. He tried to escape the violence, but later died of his injuries in the AMC.
“Everyone deals with it differently. The days go by with ups and downs”
A few months after his death, sister Kelly looks back on the past few months. “Everyone deals with it differently and the days go by with ups and downs. Fortunately, I am back to work myself. That gives some distraction. But it remains an unreal situation, everything is double and you are powerless.”
She also talks about the bizarre situation that arose after the fight on the festival site. It was clear that two people from Jimmy’s group had been injured, but the 21-year-old Diemenaar himself had not yet been found. Jimmy was separated from his friends due to the chaos and he also lost his ID. “I thought he might have started partying again,” his mother said earlier in a broadcast of Discovery Requested.
“We tried to reach him and his phone rang, but when we heard there was a third victim, it didn’t feel right,” says his sister Kelly. In the end, she and her younger sister felt they had to go to hospitals to find their brother. There they were told that he was no longer alive.
Three 20-year-old Amsterdammers have so far been arrested for the stabbing, they are suspected of co-perpetrating manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, open violence, theft with violence and extortion. Two of the three suspects allegedly stole sunglasses and threatened the owner.
Support for family
Jimmy Schepers comes from an Amsterdam catering family. Two days after the stabbing, people arrived at the family restaurant in East dozens of people together to commemorate the 21-year-old Diemenaar. The restaurant was closed shortly after the incident and a sea of flowers was created in front of the door.
Since the doors of the restaurant were closed, friends of the family started a fundraiser to help them financially. There was more than 50,000 euros raised to support the family.
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