Research reveals hunger Heul girl

The police assumes the Heul Girl was possibly kidnapped and held captive for some time. They came to this conclusion because the girls suffered from hunger for a long time before she died. The evidence for this theory came from research of her hair, explained Professor Gareth Davies. Together with researcher Laura Font and their team they performed a so-called isotope research on the Heul Girl.

The isotope study makes it possible to trace a subject's diet, for instance whether they eat more meat or more fish. If the person does not get enough to eat, the body will start to eat itself. That is also what the study showed in the case of the Heul girl, explains Davies.

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The study also showed her original diet was typical for Northwest Europeans, before she went hungry. How long she suffered from hunger, Davies could not say because of the ongoing investigation.

The girl was found dead in October 1976 in a shallow grave on the Heul parking along the A12 motorway at Maarsbergen. A cold case team of the Utrecht police reopened the case last year.

The team spoke to a witness who said many people at that time knew the girl was dumped in Maarsbergen by two Dutch men. The Utrecht police, who takes this information very seriously, are looking for the two men who were last seen with the girl in 1976. At that time the men were between thirty and forty years old, now they should be between seventy and eighty years old.

The victim was left naked under a layer of leaves. Until 2006 the police thought they knew her identity, but it turned she was mistaken for another woman.

In June of this year, her remains were exhumed for new DNA research. The results are not in yet.

The TV program Opsporing Verzocht highlighted the case again Tuesday. Because the girl possibly came from Germany, the case will also be broadcasted Wednesday on German television