Man facing 22 years in prison for killing two women, firing crossbow at cop

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) demanded 22 years in prison and institutionalized psychiatric treatment against the Almelo crossbow shooter Kenzo K. (30) on Thursday. K. is accused of stabbing two women to death in his apartment building on September 17 last year and shooting a crossbow at a police officer and a nurse from his balcony. The OM believes he murdered the women with a premeditated plan and spoke of a horror scenario.

The sentence demand led to extreme emotions from the victims’ surviving relatives. “You destroyed my life. God will punish you,” they shouted at K. “How can you live like this.”

The killed women were K.’s 70-year-old downstairs neighbor and her 52-year-old niece. K. allegedly stabbed the 70-year-old woman on her couch after he managed to force his way into her home. She had nine stab wounds and no chance of surviving the attack. Her 52-year-old niece was stabbed in multiple places in the home, the OM said, based on the blood evidence. She fled to the bedroom and was eventually killed in the hallway. She had 17 stab wounds.

The 33-year-old nurse was at the older woman’s home to care for her. She managed to escape via a balcony of the apartment on M. Th. Steynstraat in Almelo. Hanging from the railing, she called the emergency number 112. The nurse fell two floors and was seriously injured on the ground when K. fired his crossbow at her, according to the OM. “She escaped death,” said the prosecutor. “If she hadn’t run to the balcony to stay out of sight and call for help, she would have been the third victim. I’m convinced of that.

The police found notes in K.’s home in which he wrote, among other things, that “gross violence is good,” and “blood is required,” and “you are asking to be slaughtered.”

The prosecutor said: “In the notes on the couch with K., he wrote about a massacre, about stabbing people. This could be a script of what happened on the 17th of September.”

According to the OM, K. had been using drugs for several years, and that allegedly caused psychosis in him. A friend told the authorities that when K. took LSD, he thought he was God and became aggressive. The authorities found traces of LSD in his hair after his arrest.

He knew the dangers of his drug use, the prosecutor said. “He turned himself into a powder keg and lit the fuse himself. He cannot blame everything on the psychosis when he’s responsible himself.”