Body of missing Dutchman identified in U.S. 18 years after disappearance

The body of a Dutch man who vanished during a trip to the United States in early 2008 has been identified nearly 18 years later, ending one of the longest-running missing-person cases in Almere. Police said Eric Engers, 59, disappeared during his travels and was later found dead in New York City, where he remained unidentified for years.

Engers, a former taxi driver from Almere, left the Netherlands on Dec. 18, 2007, for a vacation in the United States and was scheduled to return on Jan. 29, 2008. He never came back. Friends reported him missing after all contact stopped at the end of January 2008.

Before leaving, Engers put his affairs in order, police said. He sold most of his belongings, including his car, television, computer, and DVD player, canceled insurance policies, and left his home cleared out. “Everything was arranged, sold, or stored elsewhere. As if he already knew he would not return,” Dutch police said in a statement Monday.

Engers was an experienced traveler to the U.S. and maintained a detailed travel blog. His final post, dated Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008, read in full:
“Because I am leaving my laptop behind with Kevin in Monterrey, I am unfortunately no longer able to continue this travel report in the final days. I enjoyed doing it, and judging by the many readers and reactions (during the trip I had sixty visitors a day on my weblog), you did too. Thank you all, and goodbye. Eric.”

Investigators later found a single financial trace: a payment made with his American Express credit card at the airport in Newark. The transaction stood out because Engers had written that he planned to fly from Monterrey, Mexico, to Houston, then travel the next day via Atlanta back to Amsterdam.

For years, there were no answers. Dutch police opened an investigation and revisited the case seven years later as a cold case, but both efforts failed to determine what happened. Complicating the case was the lack of available DNA and the deaths of Engers’ two brothers.

A breakthrough came in January when Sander Meyer, director of Stichting Coldcasezaken, contacted the Dutch police’s Team Cold Cases after conducting independent research. “I compared his details with information about unidentified persons found in America,” Meyer said. “Eventually I came across a man whose body was found shortly after Engers went missing. It concerned someone who had jumped from a bridge, not far from where he gave his last sign of life.”

Meyer said he noticed multiple similarities between Engers and the unidentified man, including clothing described as Dutch in style and facial features such as the corners of the mouth and the distance between the eyebrows. The comparison was made using photographs of Engers and images from a U.S. database showing the deceased, whose face was badly damaged.

Meyer also traced a relative living in South Africa who was willing to provide DNA. That step ultimately proved unnecessary. After Dutch authorities contacted U.S. officials, American justice authorities confirmed they still had the man’s fingerprints. A dactyloscopic comparison—matching unique skin patterns of the hands—confirmed within two weeks that the unidentified man was Engers.

Police said Engers’ body had been recovered from the East River in February 2008. He had been found dead years earlier and listed as unidentified, often referred to as “John Doe.”

In an earlier missing-person notice, police described Engers as having brown hair, a normal build, a mustache, and glasses. He was known to have a heart condition and required medication. “The family feared that something had happened to him,” police said at the time.

Following the identification, police concluded that Engers ended his own life after completing his travels in the United States. With the identification confirmed, authorities have formally closed the case after nearly two decades.

“Thanks to the golden tip from Stichting Coldcasezaken, the uncertainty about Eric’s fate has come to an end,” police said. “After almost 20 years, the case is closed, and relatives can finally give the loss of Eric a place.”