Thousands offer DNA, solve case

Police find boy’s alleged killer nearly 20 years later

Police thought Jos Brech was only curious when he rode his bicycle past an active crime scene in a forest in the Netherlands in August 1998.

The officers had just recovered the body of 11-yearold Nicky Verstappen, who, on a summer camp trip, had disappeared from his tent the night before. The boy had been raped and killed, police said, in a case that would haunt the nation in the decades to come. But, that night, Brech said he didn’t know anything. Police took his name and let him go.

They kept his name for a long time — until finally, this year, it came up again.

In October 2017, authorities in the Netherlands launched a massive DNA investigation ahead of the 20th anniversary of Verstappen’s death, seeking DNA samples from more than 20,000 men, including Brech, that they would compare to DNA left behind at the crime scene. If police got lucky, they could identify the alleged killer’s family members through partial matches. It was the largest such DNA kinship investigation in the country’s history, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported, and more than 14,000 men agreed to voluntarily offer up their genetic information to help police.

But one man was conspicuously not among them.

Brech, in fact, had disappeared the same month the testing began. Police had grown increasingly suspicious of Brech after his family reported him missing in April, the NL Times reported. He had left on a hiking trip through the Vosges Mountains in France in October 2017, and told his family he would comply with the DNA request once he returned.

He didn’t come back. But authorities still found a way to seize his DNA anyway.

Brech was arrested Mon- day on charges of murder and grievous bodily injury after two of his relatives’ DNA turned up in the massive screening and after his own DNA, taken from his cabin in the Vosges Mountains, turned out to be a match, according to Dutch police. Police compared his DNA sample to that found on Verstappen’s pajamas in 1998, leading them to publicly identify Brech as the suspect in Verstappen’s killing.

The announcement kicked off an international manhunt for the 55-year-old Brech, who according to Europol spent much of his time teaching wilderness survival skills called “bush crafting.” He was apprehended in Spain, where police believe he had gone into hiding once the DNA investigation began.

A witness had tipped off police after recognizing his picture from police and media reports, police said.

Officials were so pleased with the DNA investigation that some are considering the possibility that the familial DNA testing be mandatory.