Man convicted of randomly stabbing jogging, cycling women; Six year prison sentence
A suspect accused of randomly stabbing four exercising women from a moving vehicle in separate incidents was convicted on Monday. Rene V., 24, was sentenced to six years in prison and additional mandatory treatment at a psychiatric facility.
The attacks took place between November 2018 and January 2019. The suspect was arrested on April 24 and confessed in court. "I wanted to frighten them, I didn't want to hurt or kill anyone. And that gave me a thrill," he said in a previous court hearing.
Aside from the convictions for attempted murder and assault against the four women, he was also convicted of making multiple rape threats to five more women over the phone. He was also found guilty of stalking another victim by telephone.
V. was ordered to pay restitution to eight of the ten victims.
The first attack took place on November 22 when a 52-year-old jogger and an 18-year-old cyclist were stabbed separately in Castricum, Noord-Holland. The latter recovered from a collapse lung, and the older victim took an injury to her arm.
Days later, an 18-year-old jogging in Egmond suffered from severe lung and heart injuries after she was stabbed. A young girl, 15, was stabbed on January 26 while cycling in Barsingerhorn.
He was acquitted of punching another woman from his SUV in a fifth violent incident that took place around the same time the women were stabbed. The court said that intent was not proven in that case.
He was caught because in June 2018 a female jogger was slapped by an unidentified motorist after the driver honked repeatedly at her while making obscene gestures. She was not hurt, but wrote down the license plate number and filed a police report.
The Schagen woman contacted police again in February after she heard about the stabbings. The car was traced to V.'s mother-in-law, leading to the arrest.
Castricum and Egmond practically border each other along the Noord-Holland coast. About 30 kilometers northeast of there are Barsingerhorn and Schagen, which border each other.
V. said he was under the influence of drugs during the stabbings, and remembers very little about what took place.
