Motorist in jogger stabbings caught after victim noted license plate number

Rene V., a 24-year-old man suspected of stabbing four jogging women from his car, was caught because a previous victim in Schagen wrote down the license plate number of his car, was revealed during the trial against V. on Thursday, AD reports.

The incident in Schagen happened in June last year. The female victim was jogging when a honking car came driving at her, the driver making obscene gestures towards her. He slapped her through the open window as he drove pass. She was not injured, but wrote down the license plate number and called the police.

After the other four women were stabbed by a man in a moving car in November last year and January this year, she contacted the police again in February. The police managed to track the man down, because the car he was driving in Schagen was registered to his mother-in-law.

On November 22nd, V. stabbed a 52-year-old jogger and then an 18-year-old cyclist in Castricum from his SUV. The cyclist sustained a collapsed lung, the jogger injured her arm. Four days later he attacked an 18-year-old woman while she was jogging in Egmond. She collapsed and spent days in intensive care with injuries to her lung and heart. Two months later, on January 26th, he stabbed a 15-year-old girl cycling in Barsingerhorn.

V. previously told the court that he can remember very little of the stabbings, because he was under the influence of drugs at the time. He confessed to the stabbings immediately after being arrested.

At that time, V. was already under investigation for threatening to rape five women and stalking another woman. He was arrested in connection with the random stabbings in April.