Yvon came into Chris’s life, poisoned him and made off with the inheritance. Chris’s family is convinced of that, as are the police and the judiciary. But Yvon denies. “They can’t come up with this script in Hollywood,” she said at one of the interim sessions. The trial for the court in Breda on this exceptional case will start on Thursday.
Chris Grinwis and his wife Mia were well-known and committed inhabitants of Halsteren. They ran the Plus supermarket in Dorpsstraat and lived opposite it. In the summer of 2020, they sold their shop and retired.
Mia was demented. That is why Chris brought in an experienced private therapist who could care for and guide her. That was Yvon K. from Tilburg.
Relation
Mia passed away in May 2020 at the age of 72. But Yvon stayed, she now had a relationship with Chris. In just a few months time they became so ‘close’ that Yvon became an heir. De Halsternaar paid for the renovation of her house in Tilburg because he had a lot of money.
But the happiness of love was short-lived. In early December 2020, Chris lay dead on the couch at home. He was 65 years old. A doctor diagnosed a natural death.
Suspicious
The family thought it was suspicious and knocked on the door of the police. Two days after his death, the remains were transferred for examination. Chris’ house was also searched for traces.
Forensic experts found a lethal amount of the sleeping drug pentobarbital in Chris’ body. This is a substance that is mainly used in suicide. But nothing indicated that Chris had deliberately taken his own life.
A detective team spoke to partner Yvon K. She was not arrested, but the detectives did dig into her life. For example, she was tapped on her phone and in her car.
Graveyard
In the course of 2021, the public prosecutor in Breda took an exceptional step. At the end of August, a team dug up Mia’s remains at the cemetery in Halsteren. To see if she too had as much poison in her body as Chris did. But it wasn’t. She died of natural causes.
After ten months of investigation, the police arrested Yvon in Tilburg in October 2021. The suspicion: murder. K. would have given her poison to Chris.
The police found more than 227,000 euros in cash and also suspect her of money laundering. Officers also found an old bottle of pentobarbital in the attic. But according to the lawyer, it had been there for years.
Police also discovered that she had searched for the poison on Google and texted her daughter about Chris’s will.
Rumors
What made it even more suspicious is that Yvon was a dying supervisor and was active at euthanasia association NVVE. She calls herself a psychotherapist, but is not officially registered.
Because of all the publicity, a remarkable story surfaced about her ex John. He took his own life in 2011. But according to his relatives, he was helped or even killed. The allegation was investigated but there was no evidence. It plays no role in this process.
Suspect Yvon is now 64 years old. After almost a year in custody, the court released her. That is exceptional in murder cases. Yvon denies all allegations. Her lawyer sees no evidence and she speaks of tunnel vision and character assassination. Yvon K. herself suggested that she ended up in a bad Hollywood movie.