Search for Jeffrey and Emma: Bodies found in car pulled from water in Winschoten
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In the search for the missing Jeffrey (10) and Emma (8), the police found multiple bodies in a car in a lake near Renselweg in Winschoten on Tuesday night. The police still have to officially identify the victims, but believe they are the missing children and their father, who abducted them on Saturday.
The authorities pulled the car out of the water just after midnight. Photos from the scene show that the license plate matches the father’s car. The police previously reported that they found a letter indicating that the 67-year-old man intended to kill himself and the children.
The children have been missing since Saturday afternoon, when their father drove them away from his Beerta home in his gray Toyota Avensis. Over the past few days, the police and volunteers searched for the children in several places in the province of Groningen.
Earlier on Tuesday, the police shared a timeline on the investigation program Opsporing Verzocht. It showed that the father was seen driving through Winschoten at 9:40 a.m. on Saturday. Between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., he was at a gambling hall in Bunde, just across the German border.
He then drove back to pick up Jeffrey and Emma in Beerta, where a friend was watching them at his home. The car was last seen at 3:45 p.m. on the A7 near Winschoten. The police issued an Amber Alert for the children on Sunday.
