Suspect accused of escaping institution, stabbing ex-girlfriend to remain in jail for now

The pre-trial detention of the 31-year-old man accused of escaping from the custody of a forensic psychiatric institution last week, and then stabbing a 27-year-old woman in Soest, was ordered to remain in jail for at least 14 more days. The Public Prosecution Service suspects the man of attempted murder or manslaughter.

The man reportedly attacked his ex-girlfriend in front of her four-year-old son to prove his dedication to his current girlfriend, according to Rijnmond. Three people from Bergschenhoek allegedly helped the prisoner escape. Those suspects are a 38-year-old woman, a 19-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, the police reported on Friday.

A source close to the investigation told Rijnmond that the current girlfriend is the woman who police arrested. Her 19-year-old son was allegedly the getaway driver, and her 16-year-old son entered the victim's apartment with the suspect.

In a hearing on Monday, the examining magistrate at the district court in the central Netherlands region heard investigators’ details about the suspect slipping away from his guard while on supervised leave from the Pompekliniek in Nijmegen. He took off while visiting a shop in Nijmegen last Wednesday. His supervisor ran after him, but the suspect jumped into a waiting car with someone else and disappeared.

After the stabbing incident in Soest, a special police investigation team managed to arrest the man in Bergschenhoek near Rotterdam. The police assumes the incident is a case of domestic violence, because of the shared history between the suspect and the victim. The woman was stabbed several times. She is no longer in life-threatening danger.

The man was sent to prison in 2018 in a manslaughter case. He was convicted of killing a woman in Rotterdam and was sentenced to eight years in prison and additional mandatory time in a guarded psychiatric institution.