Suspect who killed herself before verdict in boyfriend’s murder might inherit his estate

The criminal case around the murder of wealthy supermarket owner Chris Grinwis has come to an end with the suicide of Yvon K. The court will not rule on the question of whether she murdered Grinwis, her partner, by poisoning him in 2021. The court declared the case inadmissible with K.’s death. The fact that she died without being convicted could mean that K.’s family could inherit Grinwis’s fortune, experts told RTL Nieuws.

Grinwis died in his home on Dorpstraat in Halsteren, Noord-Brabant, on 9 Decemer 2020. Investigators found a high dose of a suicide drug in his system. The same substance was found in the home of his partner, Yvon K., who also researched the drug online.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) believed K. poisoned Grinwis to get to his fortune. Grinwis changed his will two months before his death, making K. his sole inheritor. Earlier this month, the OM demanded 19 years in prison against K. The ruling was scheduled for Wednesday. On Monday, she was found dead. According to the authorities, she had taken her own life.

With the suspect’s death, the court declared the case inadmissible. The court called the outcome of the criminal trial “sad news” for the surviving loved ones, “including Yvon’s daughter.”

The question now is what happens to Grinwis’s fortune. Two inheritance law experts told RTL Nieuws that, according to the law, K.’s daughter will keep the money. But Grinwis’s family can fight the matter in court.

“In principle, K. retains the inheritance,” lawyer Koert Boshouwers, who specializes in family and inheritance law, told the broadcaster. “According to the law, you must have been irrevocably convicted in order to lose your inheritance rights. And according to Dutch criminal law, the deceased cannot be convicted. That means that K.’s family can claim the inheritance.”

Lucienne van der Geld, director of the Notary Network and lecturer at the Center for Notarial Law at Radboud University, said the same. “The age-old principle in the law is: the bloody hand does not inherit. This would also apply to K. if she had been convicted.” The fact that the court didn’t convict her before her death causes the problem because the law’s condition for not receiving the inheritance is a conviction.

Both experts said Grinwis’s family could fight the matter in court, claiming that it would be unreasonable for K.’s heir to receive the inheritance. It will be “a very challenging case,” Van der Geld said.