Investigation into 9-year-old Gino's abduction, death still ongoing

The investigation in the case around the abduction, sexual abuse, and killing of 9-year-old Gino van der Straeten from Limburg has not yet been completed, which means that the next hearing will also be non-substantive. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced this in the court in Maastricht on Monday at the sixth hearing in the case against suspect Donny M. Additional forensic research is still taking place.

Gino disappeared from Kerkrade on 1 June 2022 while playing outside. Police officers, supported by hundreds of volunteers, searched far and wide for the child in the hope of finding him alive. On 4 June, M. was arrested at his home in Geleen and not much later led the police to the boy’s body.

M., who turned 24 on Monday, has confessed that he abducted Gino, took him to his home in Geleen, drugged the boy, and then sexually abused him. M. then strangled and smothered Gino. The man is also suspected of possessing and distributing child pornography and fornication with a mentally unfit person in 2019.

The OM previously outlined that this is not a case for “loose ends.” It wants a complete picture of what happened on 1 June 2022. The forensic investigation focuses on, among other things, pillowcases in M.’s home. He stated that he smothered Gino with a pillow, but it previously emerged that no traces of the child were found on the pillowcase designated by M. “The reports are pouring in gradually,” the public prosecutor said.

All this means that the next hearing on January 15 will again be a pre-trial hearing. The OM said that, in theory, the trial could start in June, “depending on the agendas.” There will likely be more clarity about this in January.

During the hearing, the OM also said that it proved impossible to improve images from a camera aimed at a playground near M.’s home. The OM previously said that images from the evening of 1 June 2022 showed a person walking slowly. It may be that it concerned M. carrying Gino’s body, the public prosecutor said. But the person on the recording is unrecognizable; you only see shadows. Improving the quality turned out to be impossible.