The children of Natalia Kempinska (35) were nearby when she was shot in the head by her ex-husband Jan Arie R. (41) in Breda. R. herself called the emergency services who found the deceased Kempinska in the presence of her children. On Thursday, the judge in Dord was sentenced to twenty years in prison by the Court of Appeal in Den Bosch on appeal. The court therefore imposes a longer prison sentence on him than the Zeeland-West Brabant court in 2022.
R. committed his brutal act in February 2021. He could not stomach the fact that Kempinska had ended their relationship and he had been threatening her for that reason for some time. A day before the murder, she broke up with him, followed by a death threat: “Enjoy your life for a while, because it ends. The day I see you, there will be holes in your head.”
Kempinska stayed in a shelter during that period and traveled home with her two youngest children on February 20. Her ex-partner was already there at the time. Although it is not exactly clear what happened next, according to the court it is certain that the man shot his ex-girlfriend here with premeditation. He then left the house with the two children and only called 911 after an hour.
R. stated during the appeal that it was a fatal accident. She allegedly pointed a gun at him and he wanted to take it away. During that struggle, a fatal shot was accidentally fired. Because R. was in shock, he would not have called the emergency services.
“No reason to think that R. couldn’t think clearly.”
The judge in Den Bosch does not believe R.’s statement. The court is convinced that he killed his ex with premeditation. The court finds that the murder can be fully attributed to R. and that he was thinking clearly when it happened. Experts think he has a personality disorder, but according to the judge there is no reason to assume that “he was less capable than an average person of determining his will.”
The man will also not be imposed a TBS with compulsory treatment on appeal, because according to the court “not all requirements for imposing this have been met”. The 20-year prison sentence that the man receives on appeal is higher than the court imposed. R. must also pay the surviving relatives compensation of 390,000 euros.