Dutch mother kills children, then commits suicide

7 January 2005

AMSTERDAM — Police  found the bodies of two young children in a house in the Dutch town of Zoetermeer on Friday morning. The victims’ mother killed herself hours earlier by jumping in front of a train.

The bodies of the girl, 6, and her brother, 3, were discovered at about 6am in the family home on Kikkersloot in Zoetermeer, north of Rotterdam. The 38-year-old mother of the children had killed herself on Thursday night. 

Police spokesperson Frans van Rijnswou told news agency Novum that the case had all the signs of a family drama. But he said the family was not known as a “problem family”.

“It appears the the mother killed the children and then committed suicide,” Van Rijnswou said.

Police held a special meeting with neighbours and teachers of the local primary school on Friday in relation to the tragedy. The police say local people did not known much about the dead woman or her children as they had just moved to the area.

This is the latest of a series of grisly family killings in the Netherlands in recent months.

News website Nu.nl reported that a man, 23, surrendered to police in December 2004 shortly after his ex-wife was stabbed to death in Ruurlo. Her mother also died of stab wounds a short time later in hospital.

Two months earlier, a mother died and  three of her four children, aged 1, 2, and 12, were seriously injured in a stabbing incident in their home in Naaldwijk. A 39-year-old man was arrested.

Three children, aged 5, 7 and 8, were stabbed to death in Berghem. Police believe the mother was responsible. She committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

A man, 41, killed his 14-month-old son in Zwolle last May before committing suicide.

[Copyright Expatica News]

Subject: Dutch news