The public prosecutor has demanded a 19-year prison sentence against Tilburg therapist Yvon K. For the Public Prosecution Service, it is inevitable that K. murdered her partner Chris Grinwis ‘in a cold and sophisticated way’ with poison. With the aim of obtaining his inheritance. The suspect denies.
Chris Grinwis (65) was a supermarket owner in Halsteren. Because his wife Mia was suffering from dementia, he sold everything and became a wealthy man. He hired a private care lady, Yvon K. (64) from Tilburg. Mia had barely died when Chris and Yvon started a love affair. Chris paid everything for her and she became the sole heir.
On December 8, 2020, Grinwis died suddenly, aged 65. It turned out he had been poisoned. With pentobarbital. A wine glass had Chris’ DNA and that toxin on it. Moreover, Grinwis had eaten yogurt containing the same poison.
Medicine cocktail
There was a whole cocktail of medications in his body, such as antiemetics, painkillers, sleeping pills and an antipsychotic. Yvon acknowledged that she had ordered those medications via the internet, at Chris’s request but reluctantly, according to her own words.
It is striking that this combination of pills is recommended for self-chosen death. K. was then a consultant at the euthanasia association NVVE. She repeated on Thursday that Grinwis took his own life.
Obituaries
The Public Prosecution Service saw more suspicious behavior from K. On the day of his death, Yvon K surfed obituaries without giving a clear explanation. According to the Public Prosecution Service, there was also a striking phone call the evening before Grinwis was found dead. The suspect called someone from the walking club and said: ‘a good friend of mine has died’. Grinwis was not found dead until the following morning.
Shortly after Chris’s death in December, a friend told them that the police thought she had put something in Chris’s glass. But the poison on that wine glass only became known to the police months later. ‘Knowledge of perpetrator’, says the Public Prosecution Service.
Then there was the way Yvon reacted with restraint to Chris’ death. She couldn’t leave right away because she had construction workers in the house. The family felt left out. According to the family, Yvon K. showed no emotion whatsoever. She had the locks changed on his house on Dorpsstraat the day after his death. The exclusion of the relatives increases the punishment, the officer said.
‘Broken’
The police discovered that K. deleted dozens of telephone conversations from her call history around the date of death. The police eavesdropped on K.. Officers heard her say, “It’s good that it’s broken.”
A grandchild of Chris Grinwis told the court that Yvon was well received by the family in the beginning. “No sane person could imagine what harm she was about to do. It is incomprehensible how it could have happened.”
Motive
The police and the judiciary know for sure. “It must have been someone from his environment. She was in that house, had the opportunity. She knew ways to obtain resources, there was a motive and the relationship was anything but roses.” In the approximately seven months that they were together, the Public Prosecution Service counted 31 arguments.
The simple motive was money, according to the Public Prosecution Service. Police spoke to her ex-husbands. They all stated that K. was in financial trouble. She kept asking the partner for money, sometimes a lot of money.
Yvon K. answered a large number of questions all day long, mainly from the judges. For a moment it became too much for her. “It’s my boyfriend, I’m devastated. We were deeply in love. My life has been destroyed. I swear I didn’t do anything. Everything is destroyed,” she said, sobbing.
She did not want to respond to the requirement of 19 years. “Monday” she said. Then the process continues.
Read also: Poison murder in Halsteren: the relationship between Yvon K. and Chris was also toxic