Tennis coach googled 'stab wound in head' before business man's murder

After numerous delays, the trial against tennis coach Mark de J. for the murder of business man Koen Everink started in the court in Utrecht on Monday. Several details about the business man's murder were revealed in court, including that De J. googled a number of suspicious terms on his iPad before the murder. These included 'stab wound in abdomen', 'stab wound in head', 'diagram of organs', 'explosive in car', 'Blokker knife set', 'bullet through brain stem', 'bullet through head', 'where is the brain stem' and 'strangle with rope', the Telegraaf reports.

De J. explained the suspicious search terms as follows: "I travel a lot and sometimes I get bored. Then I watch movies and sometimes look something up. I'm quite curious and type everything in. If you looked at my iPad three years ago, you would have found the same search terms." He added that the police can't show when the search terms were typed and that his iPad does not have an access code, so anyone could use it.

It was also revealed that De J. asked his parents to throw away his shoes. "Because all the guests wore Nike schoes." He was worried that the police would link that to him, instead of the real perpetrators, he told the court.

According to the Public Prosecutor, the evidence points to De J. murdering Everink. He was at Everink's home on the night of the murder, Everink's blood was found in De J.'s car, he owed Everink money and De J. asked his family to hide Everink's watch.

Everink was stabbed to death in his Bilthoven home in March last year. His body was found by his now 7-year-old daughter. The statement she gave to the police was read in court on Monday. The day of the murder, the girl was picked up at school by her father. They watched television and ate something before he put her to bed. During the night she woke up because she heard her father screaming. He screamed for a long time, she said to the police. "A hundred seconds." She was afraid and stayed in bed. She heard the back door slam shut and fell back asleep.

Around 7:00 a.m. the next morning, she woke up and went to her father's room. When she found the bed empty and unslept in, she went to the kitchen. There she found her father lying in a puddle of blood. She ran to the neighbor. The neighbor noticed that both front and back door were unlocked. When he arrived home at 00:30 a.m. that night, the Everink home was dark.

Mark De J. vehemently denies any involvement in Everink's death. He claims he was abducted by three men as he left the business man's house that night, while Everink was still alive. On Monday his lawyer threatened to leave the defense after the court refused another delay for further DNA investigation. According to the lawyer, insufficient investigation was done on DNA found on Everink's close and in De J.'s car. The lawyer claims that traces were found that supports De J.'s story that Everink was murdered by unknown men while the tennis coach himself was abducted.

De J. told the authorities that he had a number of mysterious encounters with unknown men in the months before Everink's murder. The first time, in August 2015, two men approached him during a tennis tournament in Volendam. They asked questions about tennis, but also about Koen Everink. Two months later, a man on a bicycle approached hi during a training session and asked De J. if he wanted to work with him, but would not say what work.

At the end of 2015 two men came up to De J. after an evening training session and told him to tell Everink that "he had to stop", De J. said in court. Later another two men addressed him in a side street in Almere, telling him to tell Everink to drop his business and giving De J a thousand euros. "I had to take the money", he said in court. According to De J., he gave the money to Everink to settle his gambling debt. And finally, three days before Everink's death a man with a "Moroccan appearance and a scar on his face" said that Everink better not come to Amsterdam again.

The Utrecht court set aside Monday to Thursday for this trial. The Public Prosecutor's sentence demand is expected on Tuesday. The court is scheduled to rule on June 13th.