You should never play for your own judge. That Richard seems like the kind of man who says something like that quickly. But here we go already. Seems. He killed two people. Just a little further here. Can almost see the house if there wasn’t a forest in front of it. What a drama. On Tuesday morning I read on X that there had been a violent incident in Weiteveen. Soon messages started pouring in via WhatsApp. Forwarded pieces of text from other app groups about what allegedly happened. The video in which Richard told what happened. It went through my marrow and bone. It was so close. We speak the same language. Unbelievable what happened there. But it happened. People started calling each other. We talked to him at Emmen recently. Had been in his class. Everyone agreed when you are harassed like that: “It eats at you.”
That eats at you. Many people could imagine. You protect your family. Everyone was talking about it all day. A comrade’s wife was simply upset about it. More and more stories emerged. He had a hunting license. So he didn’t have to carry any weapons. He was a really good guy. Everyone knew that too. But the more that became known about the tragedy, the more people started saying that we didn’t know exactly what happened. “Something very bad has happened.” That was clear.
Weiteveen became trending on X. News items started with “in Weiteveen in Drenthe.” Is there another Weiteveen elsewhere? In Hilversum, North Holland, people spoke of “Weitevén.” You could wait for that. But the point is: how did it get to this point? The police had… The municipality had… Maybe true. But how can someone become so mentally distressed that he does this? Keep going like that. Blur before the eyes. People around him must have noticed that he was so far gone, right? Apparently not enough to intervene. Or he is even better at suppressing feelings than we are.
Some people think he is a hero. The other thinks he is a murderer. Richard himself thinks he will go to jail for life. “If that happens, there will be a popular uprising,” one said. But that was the day before yesterday. More stories emerge every day. The drama takes on more and more sides. Just before I hand in this column, I hear that the Public Prosecution Service is talking about double murder with premeditation. Gross violence. How could it come to this? A sign of the times?