Hostage taker wanted to cuddle with daughter

The two dead in the Reuver home in Limburg are the hostage-taker and his three-year-old daughter, confirmed the mayor, Petra Dassen, Thursday afternoon at the press conference.The alleged offender had taken charge of the family home of his ex, where she and the 3-year-old girl lived. The hostage taker had contacted the police himself. The man had told the police he was armed with an Uzi and a grenade. He threatened with violence if the police would invade the house. The father was frustrated about the visitation rights and thought he saw too little of his daughter.

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Shortly before the man took his daughter hostage, he had shot his ex. The woman was wounded in a leg. She was operated on in a hospital. At the time of the press conference the mother had not yet been notified  of the death of her child and her ex-partner, reported the mayor.

Initially the offender seemed to regret his actions and asked the police for half an hour to cuddle with his daughter. He would leave the house at 12.30. When the negotiators tried in vain to contact the man, the police invaded the house around 15:00, where they found the lifeless bodies of the man and the girl.

The man and the girl were both killed by bullets. Between the last contact with the father and the invasion of the police SWAT team two muffled sounds were heard, which were not identified as shots. Therefore, the police did not enter the house at that time.

According to the prosecutor the alleged offender, who lived in Roermond and was born in 1969, was known to the police. His last conviction was in 2005, the charge is unknown. In September this year the family came in the picture, because of  requests to several emergency services , mostly including domestic violence.

It became clear the mother of the girl, who was taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, moved in with her parents on the Zonnedauw, because of relationship problems. The parents were not home at the time of the incident.

Reports of the invasion of another property in Roermond, in connection with the kidnapping, were neither confirmed nor denied during the press conference.