Family offers $50,000 reward for info on Dutch model's fatal fall
The family of deceased model Ivana Smit offered a reward of 50 thousand dollars for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the young Dutch woman's death.
In December last year, Smit's naked body was found on a 6th floor balcony of a skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She'd fallen from an American couple's 20th floor apartment. The Smit family is convinced that her death was not an accident.
"The relatives hope that the amount [of the reward] is large enough to persuade people with useful information who have hitherto been silent to come forward", Sebas Diekstra, the lawyer representing the family, said, according to RTL Nieuws. "The next of kin find that there is too little progress in the case and they are therefore taking this step."
Dutch forensic pathologist Frank van der Groot did an autopsy on Ivana's body and concluded that the model was already injured before she fell from the balcony. She had an 8 centimeters large bruise on the back of her head. According to Van der Groot, she could only have sustained this bruise before her death. "Something happened before the fall. She may have slipped, or got a blow to her head. To get a bruise under the scalp skin, you need a beating heart", he said according to the broadcaster.
The family also hired a private detective to look into the case. He concluded that the case should be handled as a homicide. He shared his findings with he Dutch and Malaysian authorities.
In April the American couple that spent the night with Ivana before she died told British newspaper Mail Online that they had a sexual relationship with the Dutch model in the months before her death, including a threesome on the night that she fell. According to the private detective, the couple said nothing about this to the police.
