Road manager (60) kills thief after chase and gets four years in prison

The big question for the judges was whether you can pursue the thief after your phone and wallet have been stolen. That seems like a logical response, but what the public prosecutor seemed to have a lot of difficulty with during the hearing was the manner in which this was done. According to her, John made the wrong choice by stealing Wil van G., but the roadside manager made an even worse choice by driving dangerously for miles through Eindhoven to ‘get his stuff back at any cost’. Legally speaking, she said, he accepted ‘the significant chance that he would kill someone’.

Driving behavior went too far
The court agrees with this. “It is unjustifiable that he pursued the thief in this way,” the verdict said. “The van is a deadly weapon, especially if you drive so close behind a cyclist,” says the court, which understands that Wil van G. was angry and certainly did not want John’s death. “But his driving behavior went beyond all limits,” the court said.

Van G.’s lawyers did not think that he was driving too dangerously and argued for his acquittal two weeks ago. Of course the highwayman was angry about the theft by repeat offender John, but he was not speeding, for example. Moreover, John suddenly drove off the sidewalk onto the road and unexpectedly ended up in front of the roadside assistance bus. Several witnesses, who knew John well, are also said to have made incorrect statements out of revenge.

Theft during roadside assistance
The fatal story started when Wil van G. helped a woman with a breakdown at the Lidl on Urkhovenseweg on May 16, 2024. While he was repairing the car, his phone and wallet containing six hundred euros were stolen from his van. A witness saw this and warned Wil. He went after the grinning thief, who fled on an electric bicycle, but could not track him down.

When his son later reported that he saw Wil’s phone a few kilometers away on a location app, the highway patrolman still went after the thief. And at a playground on the Kempensebaan he found three men and he recognized one of them as the thief.

Wil got out screaming with a fifty centimeter long tire lever in his hand. The thief quickly took off on his bicycle and Wil van G. chased him again. Images shown in court showed the highway patrolman driving briskly through an intersection, while John rode his bicycle on the other side of the green strip on the Kempensebaan.

Fatal collision
When Wil van G. crossed the lawn, John drove into Van Minderhoutstraat. Van G. hit him from behind at a speed of 23 to 25 kilometers per hour and John ended up under the wheels. When Wil van G. saw this, he quickly reversed the car, but ran over the victim again. John was seriously injured and taken to hospital, but he died two days later.

Read all the stories from Omroep Brabant about crime and criminality here.

After the collision, a very strange situation arose: at least three of John’s acquaintances, the two men from the playground and a friend, took money and the telephone from the pockets of the seriously injured John. A bullet was also fished from his pocket, “because the police had nothing to do with that.” According to the police, both men were homeless, the girlfriend was described as a repeat offender. They stated that the highway patrol took that money.

Objections rejected
The court also dismisses the lawyers’ objections. They stated, among other things, that Wil van G. was not driving too fast, sounded the horn to make him stop and that John drove onto the road unexpectedly. He also immediately provided first aid, but according to the court, this does not detract from the seriousness of the facts.

Wil van G. does not have to surrender his driving license for five years, as the justice department had demanded. According to the court, the risk of recurrence is not great.

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