Residents of Asterstraat in Sint-Michielsgestel are extremely shocked by the incident in their street on Tuesday. Police announced Saturday that a 28-year-old man out of the blue attacked a woman and forced his way into two homes. “His handprint is still on her throat.”
On Tuesday afternoon around half past two, Joke Zandbeek (67) from Sint-Michielsgestel is about to clean her windows. Her front door is closed, but it is slightly open. Suddenly a man appears and breaks into her house.
In panic, she flees to her neighbor Jeanette’s house and knocks on the window, screaming. “Joke was crying,” says Jeanette, who immediately offered help to her neighbor. “She was upset and still is.” In addition to Joke’s house, the man also entered another house on Asterstraat.
Shortly before, the same man attacked neighbor Patricia when she was walking with her puppy Ace. “She was terribly shocked,” says Jeanette, while showing messages in the neighborhood app. “His handprint is still on her throat. Luckily she managed to escape by kicking him in the groin.”
Because of the incident, Jeanette now goes out on the street a little more cautiously. On doctor’s advice, she has to walk around the block three times a day. “I am more alert now,” she says. “This was always a pleasant working-class neighborhood, but now there is a tense atmosphere.”
Neighbor Sanne was not at home at the time of the incident, but later saw on her video doorbell images how her neighbor Joke fled from her house in panic. “It’s intense that this happens on a Tuesday afternoon in our street,” she says, while her children walk through the house. “I’m glad I wasn’t home at the time because it really shocked me.”
A local resident previously said that the situation was ‘very scary’. “Luckily the police were able to take him away with four men.”
According to the person involved, the man, who has no known place of residence in the Netherlands, was ‘crazy and very strong’ but not under the influence. He is being held for further investigation.
