DNA kinship investigation launched in 1992 Zaandam murder

The Noord-Holland police and Public Prosecutor decided to launch a DNA kinship investigation in an attempt to finally solve the rape and murder of 19-year-old Milica van Doorn in Zaandam in 1992. On Monday a total of 133 men received a request to give a voluntary DNA sample for the investigation. None of the men approached are considered suspects, but the investigators hope that one of them is related to the suspect.

Milica van Doorn was found dead in a pond in the Zaandam neighborhood of Kogerveld on June 8th, 1992. She had been raped and murdered. Despite 25 years of investigation, no suspect was ever arrested. "Milica's family still lives in ignorance about exactly what happened to their daughter and sister", the police said in a statement.

After the murder, witnesses told the police that they saw a Turkish-looking man cycling towards the place where Milica's body was found. Scientific research on DNA traces found on the young woman's body revealed that the DNA almost certainly came from a man with Turkish ancestors. The 133 men approached to be part of this DNA kinship investigation, were selected based on this information. They are all men of Turkish descent, who were living in Kogerveld or had relatives living in the neighborhood in 1992. The police emphasized that none of the men are suspects in the case.

The police and Prosecutor hope that the DNA kinship investigation will find relatives of Milica's murderer, thus providing a starting point for further investigation.

For this kinship investigation, the Netherlands Forensic Institute will look specifically at the Y-chromosomal profile, a DNA profile passed unchanged from father to son. The Y-chromosomal profile of the 133 men will be compared to the profile of the DNA traces found on the victim's body. The DNA samples provided will only be used in this investigation, and will be destroyed afterwards.

A DNA kinship investigation was previously successfully done in the murder of Marianne Vaatstra. That investigation involved 8 thousand men and led to the arrest of Jasper S. in 2013. Another such investigation was recently started in the 1998 murder of 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen.