Parts of remains missing after grave of unidentified ‘De Heul girl’ reopened in Maarn
Parts of the remains of an unidentified girl known as the “De Heul girl,” named after the A12 parking area near Maarsbergen where she was found in 1976, are missing, RTV Utrecht reports.
When the grave at the general cemetery in Maarn was opened earlier this year, officials discovered that the skull was not present. A search followed, and the skull was later recovered from a separate police evidence storage location. It has since been returned to the grave. The lower jaw remains missing.
In April, it emerged that the grave had been reopened. Further inquiry showed that the Public Prosecution Service (OM) had reburied human remains that had previously been stored at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) and at police forensic departments. The material had been used in the long-running investigation to identify the girl.
A spokesperson for the OM said that until April, various bodily materials from the girl were still held at the NFI and police investigative units. That material was then reburied in Maarn alongside remains already in the grave.
When the grave was opened, the skull was not in the burial site. It was also not among the remains that had been reburied. The lower jaw was also missing.
After extensive inquiry, the OM said the skull was found at another police evidence storage location. “The skull has now been placed back in the grave,” an OM spokesperson said.
The lower jaw has still not been found. “Research is still being conducted into the location where the lower jaw is stored,” the OM said. If it is recovered, officials said the grave will be opened for a sixth time to bury it.
The OM said the missing remains are linked to decades of forensic investigation into the girl’s identity. “In the fifty years since the discovery in 1976, a great deal has been done to determine her identity,” a spokesperson said. “Bodily material has been examined at various locations in the Netherlands and abroad. Only parts of her teeth have been examined multiple times.”
Authorities said remains from the girl have been used repeatedly in international forensic testing over the decades.
The girl was found dead in a shallow grave near the former De Heul parking area along the A12 near Maarsbergen. She was found naked. Her identity has never been established. She was once believed to be Monique Jacobse, but she later reappeared, saying she had run away as a teenager and later lived in Germany.
For identification, investigators are working with DNA analysis. A so-called SNP profile, containing hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, is required for a strong identification case. The OM did not say whether such a profile exists. It said a simpler STR profile has been improved.
Earlier, Utrechtse Heuvelrug Mayor Frits Naafs rejected a request for independent DNA testing that would have required reopening the grave again, calling it “undesirable and disruptive.”
