For more than three years, Marja West has devoted her life to the business of Willeke Dost, the fifteen -year -old girls who disappeared without a trace in 1992 at Koekange. And she put that story on paper in her new book The girl who disappeared without a trace.
A tear rolled down her cheeks when West got hold of the first copy of her book this week. “On the one hand, I am happy that the egg has been laid, on the other hand it is of course a very sad story and my life has been a roller coaster for the past 3.5 years. But it is also as if you are falling into a hole after so much work,” she says in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata.
When West started years ago with the story about Dost, the idea was to map out what influence the business had on the village of Koekange. That impact has turned over over time. “In the beginning it was an anecdote about a girl who had disappeared on the bike. But in the end the case exploded in my face and I started to focus more on the story behind Willeke. And that turned out to be many times more complex than I could have estimated in advance. The story sat under my skin.”
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