20 years demanded for dismembering girlfriend, dumping remains in Amsterdam
The Public Prosecution Service demanded 20 years in prison against Bart B. on Tuesday. The 57-year-old man is suspected of killing his partner Miranda Zitman in December 2018, then cutting her into pieces and hiding her body, NU.nl reports.
B. claims that he did not kill Miranda, but found her dead at the bottom of the stairs at their home in Soest. He could not explain exactly why he did not call police. According to RTV Utrecht, the man told the authorities that he decided to cut Miranda's body into pieces and bury her in the two places where she was the happiest.
An autopsy of the woman's remains showed that she had sustained injuries before her death that were not consistent with a fall down the stairs. According to the prosecutor, a blow to the head caused Zitman's death. It was not possible to definitively prove whether the blow was an attack or an accident.
Zitman's torso was found in January 2019 in a suitcase along the Zuider IJdijk in Amsterdam. Three months later, more of her body was found in the garden of the home she shared with B., after the man had gone to the police and told them where to look.
B. concealed the fact that Zitman was dead for months. He sent messages to her friends, posing as the woman, saying that she had gone to Canada to start a new life. After her death, B. transferred a total of 116 thousand euros out of Zitman's account and into his account or their shared account, so that he could access the money, the Prosecutor said.
"It is chilling to see how soon after Miranda's death he started hiding his traces," the Prosector said. "Transferring money and putting up a smoke screen by fooling everyone into thinking she's alive."
