Suspect in youth coach's death previously sentenced to treatment for attempted stabbing
The 35-year-old man from Oss suspected of involvement in the death of a 47-year-old youth football coach from Berghem on Friday has a criminal record, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) revealed on Monday. The Oss man was previously sentenced to conditional compulsory psychiatric treatment (TBS) for attempting to stab someone at the train station in Ede on August 1, 2023. The man heard voices, according to the court ruling on the Ede case.
Passersby found the victim, a youth coach at the football club Berghem Sport, in a ditch in a rural area between Berghem and Herpen early on Friday afternoon. The police believe that he was killed in a crime. The investigation is ongoing.
The police arrested the Oss man early on Saturday morning for suspected involvement in the youth football coach’s death. He is in restricted custody and will be arraigned on Tuesday, the OM said on Monday. “Due to the investigation and the privacy of those involved, no further statements will be made at this time,” the OM said.
The OM also revealed that a Dutch court sentenced the Oss man to conditional TBS on July 11, 2024, for a violent incident in Ede on August 1, 2023. Conditional TBS means that the offender is not admitted to a forensic psychiatric clinic, but remains at liberty under strict conditions and treatment. The measure was still in effect.
The ruling was made by the District Court of Gelderland. According to the ruling, the Oss man threatened someone with a knife at a train station. The screaming man ran toward the person, took a large meat knife from his bag, and made cutting motions across the victim’s stomach. The victim wasn’t injured.
Psychiatrists concluded that the man had schizophrenia and heard voices during the Ede incident. “Due to hallucinations, the suspect is not always able to fully understand the world around him, causing him to perceive it as threatening. Given the clinical picture and the degree of increasing stress, it is likely that the suspect heard a (new) voice giving him an order,” the court said in the ruling.
The victim on Friday was a youth coach at the football club Berghem Sport. Due to the man’s sudden death, the club cancelled all home matches over the weekend. Chairman Danny van den Heuvel told Omroep Brabant that the victim was a “club’s man.”
“He had been playing football here since he was young. He was a leader for several teams, both youth and senior,” Van den Heuvel said, adding that his death had a massive impact on the club. “Across all levels of the club. It is very regrettable to lose a respected volunteer in this way.”
Mayor Froukje de Jonge of Oss, the municipality that covers Berghem, attended a meeting of the football club on Saturday. “There is a lot of sadness and disbelief,” she told Omroep Brabant afterward. “People cannot believe that this has happened to him. He was so active at this football club in multiple capacities for 40 years now. You meet each other at the club about four or five times a week, and suddenly he is no longer there.”
His death also deeply impacted the entire village, she added. “Berghem is a very close-knit community. People know each other, share things, and build a life together. When someone passes away so abruptly and senslessly, it naturally affects many people.”
