A quarter of a century after the gruesome murder of 24-year-old Antoinette Bont from Groningen, the Public Prosecution Service is conducting new DNA research into the case. A man who was convicted of the murder of a Groningen coffee shop owner in the same period has been asked to provide cell material. Is there a connection between the murders?
Drug addict Antoinette Bont disappeared from the pub track in Groningen in August 1995. A few days later, rowers on the Winschoterdiep on the edge of the city saw a package with plastic and ropes floating around it. It turned out to be the torso of a woman. The woman had been severely tortured before her death: numerous air rifle pellets were discovered in the torso. The police were able to determine her identity based on a tattoo on her body.
A few days later, a bag containing Bont’s limbs turned up in the Peizerdiep in Drenthe, about thirteen kilometers away from where the torso was found. Her head was never found. Because it was a bag from energy company Edon that had been provided to employees at Christmas, about four thousand people from the company were asked to show the bag. Rarely have so many citizens been asked to cooperate in a murder investigation. It did not result in a breakthrough.
Coffee shop owner
In the same period in 1995, Groningen coffee shop owner Harry Roo was murdered. His body was also found in parts in the water. Two men had kidnapped and murdered Roo, after which they demanded a ransom. Henk E. was convicted of manslaughter. The case became best known because of the tough Zaanse interrogation method that the police used. A second convicted perpetrator died in 2017.
Rope and plastic were also used in this murder. Because both bodies had probably been cut into pieces with a sabre, the cold case team of the Northern Netherlands police took into account a connection. Extensive research has already been done, for which Roo’s bone remains were excavated in Staphorst in 2014. Metal residues in the bones of Roo and Bont were examined. The comparison study then yielded nothing.
On February 19, Henk E. received a letter from the Northern Netherlands Public Prosecution Service. Whether he wanted to voluntarily provide DNA as a witness for DNA research in the Antoinette Bont case. Police and Public Prosecution Service want to compare his DNA with DNA found in the investigation into Bont’s murder, according to the letter that De Telegraaf has seen. “I donated cheek swab because I had nothing to do with Antoinette’s death and hope that the murder will be solved,” E. said.
The Public Prosecution Service confirms the DNA collection and makes no further statements about the content of the investigation.