Heul Girl

The Heul Girl (Dutch: Heulmeisje)[1] was a murder victim, found on October 24, 1976 at the former parking De Heul on the A12, in Maarsbergen, Netherlands.[2] Her identity has never been established.

Case summary

It was assumed for many years that the naked, leaf-covered body belonged to a missing 18-year-old girl from a neighboring village. However, said girl, now an adult, reported to the police in 2006, and that theory was dismissed.[3]

Based on later research on the epiphyseal plates, the Heul Girl would have been 12-to-15 years old at the time of death, putting her date of birth between 1960 and 1965.[1] Isotope research on her teeth showed that the decedent probably lived between the Ruhr and Eifel regions of Germany for the first seven years of her life.[2] Around 1975, the child was likely in East Germany or elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The year prior to her death, she supposedly stayed in either West Germany or the Netherlands. In that year, the girl received particularly poor nutrition, which may indicate extreme poverty or a possible kidnapping.[4]

In 2012, a witness stated that in 1976, the girl was seen being "thrown out" by two men between the ages of 30 and 40, which was seen by multiple people.[5][6]

In 2013, both the Opsporing Verzocht program and the German variant Aktenzeichen XY ... ungelöst aired episodes on the case.[3][5]

In 2016, the German judiciary gave permission to start a large-scale investigation based on the DNA. This a joint operation by both countries, in which DNA databases from both countries will be utilised.[4][7] At the end of 2018, the Utrecht police confirmed that DNA testing has not started yet.[8]

References
  1. "Maarsbergen - Heulmeisje". www.politie.nl (in Dutch). 27 November 2014. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  2. Elsbeth Stoker (February 25, 2013). "Who was this girl? The police search, to the atom" (in Dutch). De Volkskrant. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  3. "Maarsbergen - The Heul Girl" (in Dutch). Website Opsporing Verzocht (archived at web.archive.org). November 12, 2013. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  4. "Large search into Heul Girl DNA match" (in Dutch). De Volkskrant. March 14, 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2016. (subscription required)
  5. "Unidentified victim, found in 1976 in the Netherlands" (in German). BKA. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  6. "577UFNET". The Doe Network. 16 March 2016. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  7. "DNA kinship research to discover who the Heul Girl was" (in Dutch). NOS. March 14, 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  8. 'Heul Girl DNA test still not started', RTV Utrecht November 5, 2018. (in Dutch)
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