Marlon B. (41) has been in prison since Saturday for the death of his girlfriend Silvana Heber (36). For days, the police had no concrete clues where Silvana was, until Tuesday. Then the police started a targeted search in the outskirts of Vessem and Silvana’s body was found. Former police officer and detective chief Sander Schaepman explains how such an investigation works.
Schaepman worked as a police commissioner for 25 years and worked as head of detective departments and core teams on, for example, investigations. He was not involved in the search for the missing Silvana, but can explain how such a case works.
“In Silvana’s case you start with a missing person. That is very different.”
“Normally, in a murder case you start at a crime scene,” explains Schaepman. “There is a body there and you quickly find many clues there. For example, how someone was killed. But in Silvana’s case, you start with a missing person. That is very different.”
Soon after Silvana’s family raised the alarm that she was missing, her partner Marlon B. was arrested. Saturday morning he was seen with his and her children on the football field and at the bakery. “So he did not report the missing himself,” notes Schaepman.
He suspects that the police did not quickly arrest Marlon B. for nothing. “Such a disappearance is worrying, because there is a high chance of a crime.”
“Why would you lie when your wife is missing?”
Then the police will interrogate him. Tightening the thumbscrews by waking him up at night or interrogating him for twelve hours straight is not allowed. But how do you get a confession?
“You are not going to confront the suspect with every detail, but you are trying to build a case. Two detectives interrogate him, while a psychologist or team leader watches from a distance. He can keep an eye on the big picture and, for example, keep in touch with the detectives via a screen.”
“Then you ask, for example, whether he always has his phone with him. If he then replies that he regularly leaves it at home, while several people say that he is always busy with that thing, that is strange. Because, why would you lie about things like that when your wife is missing?”
“The suspect must pretend he knows nothing.”
For example, the police are using more and more elements to build their case. “If a suspect lies, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to persevere. You have to remember a lot when you lie. Who were you with then? With Pietje. And a little later not with Pietje but with Jantje. It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain that consistently. What is also difficult is that he knows that she is no longer alive. And then he has to pretend that he knows nothing about it.”
According to Schaepman, the found body will tell a lot about how Silvana died. He does not think that Marlon B. will eventually be convicted of murder.
“Usually this amounts to manslaughter, so without a preconceived plan. And without a plan you also make a lot of thinking mistakes. If he had really planned to kill her beforehand, he would have done it differently. Now he has to come up with everything on the spot. What are my tracks, where do I leave the body?”
“But partner murders are almost always solved,” says Schaepman. “There are many traces and connections within a relationship, so the resolution rate is close to 100 percent.”
