The boy had been missing since last Wednesday after he was taken away by De Kock, who was sentenced to ten years in prison by a Belgian judge in 2010 for the death of a toddler.
A possible crime scene came into the picture on Monday evening. “The detective team, with the support of several officers, went to search the area around Vrouwenpolder. The police helicopter was also deployed to get a clear picture of the area. Around 10 p.m. they came across a lifeless child’s body.”
Arrest in Meerkerk
Monday it became clear that it was suspected that De Kock was in the south of the Netherlands with the child. The Belgian himself was arrested on Monday afternoon in Meerkerk in Utrecht. He had left his car at a demolition company in Gorinchem. The police then searched for the boy with all their might. An Amber Alert was also sent.
On Monday evening, the lifeless body of the child was found ‘at a location in Zeeland’, as the police report.
Concerns about the disappearance were great among the investigative services in Belgium and the Netherlands. All the more so because in 2010 the Belgian was sentenced to ten years in prison for the death of 2-year-old Miguel van Kiekinge from Ravels. De Kock allegedly abused the child so badly that he died on July 2, 2008 from his injuries in hospital. The then 21-year-old Belgian is said to have beaten the child relentlessly after which he himself took the toddler to the hospital where serious head injuries and injuries were found all over the body. The Belgian knew the child because of his relationship with the mother. At the time, he was unemployed and addicted to drugs.
Babysit
De Kock was last seen with 4-year-old Dean on Wednesday, January 12 at half past ten in the Belgian Sint-Niklaas, not far from the Dutch border near Zeeland. The Belgian regularly looked after the boy and is not the father of the child. The mother of the toddler filed a report on Dean’s disappearance last Saturday after she had spoken to De Kock.
In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, the mother said on Monday that the man claimed to be in Hasselt, but that he had a flat tire and had to wait for a tow truck. For medical reasons, she brought the child to a friend in Sint-Gillis-Waas on Wednesday who is in a relationship with De Kock to let him sleep there for the night. According to the mother, Dean often visited her friend and knew the two well.
On Thursday, the couple announced that they would stay with them for another day. Although the woman was not happy about that and told her friend that she had consulted her mother, she left it at that. But afterwards, as she tells in the Belgian newspaper, that turned out to be a lie. “When I arrived at my mother’s on Friday evening, it turned out that Dean was not always there. I was in all states.” She heard that De Kock and his girlfriend had an argument after which he was thrown out on the street. “He left Friday night and he took Dean with him,” the mother says. Why he did that is unclear. The girlfriend did not dare to tell the mother that.
Searches
The police already took into account that the man and the child would be in the south of the Netherlands. Monday there were several searches, including in Sprang-Capelle and Vlissingen. At least ten police cars were on the lookout on access roads. A police helicopter was deployed over Vlissingen.