Prisoner arrested in two 15-year-old unsolved sex crimes after DNA breakthrough

A new DNA research technique has resulted in the arrest of a 30-year-old man for two sexual offenses that occurred in 2008 in Spijkenisse, Zuid-Holland, police reported on Tuesday.

The man was arrested at a psychiatric detention clinic where he was serving a sentence for a similar offense committed in Belgium. The suspect was brought before the examining magistrate on Thursday and remanded into custody.

Investigators made a breakthrough in the cold case after applying a new DNA collection method to prisoners in psychiatric detention earlier this year. “The traces from the cases in 2008 have been re-examined this year, with these new techniques, so that these traces could now also be linked to the 30-year-old suspect,” a detective on the investigation said.

Another case from 2008 was connected to the same suspect due to consistent behavior and descriptions.

“Perpetrators of serious sexual offenses should not go unpunished. We do everything we can to arrest a suspect. That this has now been achieved and that we could inform the victims that we have them; that's what we do it for,” the police stated.

The lasting impact on victims of sexual crimes was also highlighted. A detective who spoke with one of the victims from 2008 reported that she was still dealing with the aftermath. “She has moved back in with her parents and still suffers from the consequences to this day,” they said.

The police stressed the importance of reporting sexual crimes, noting that it was the reports that led to this arrest.