Wikimedia Commons In 1995, the portrait of 15-year-old Nicole van den Hurk, the year her murder occurred.

Nicole van den Hurk went missing from Eindhoven, Netherlands on October 6, 1995, when she was only 15 years old, and her body was found in a nearby forest on November 22. For 16 years, the police made little progress in solving this horrific case until her stepbrother Andy van den Hurk suddenly confessed via a Facebook post in 2011.

This shocking confession led to the closure of the case - but only because it directed investigators to the real killer. Andy van den Hurk's confession was a trap to reopen the dormant case. His plan succeeded until the police arrested a man known as Jos de G. as the murderer of Nicole van den Hurk.

This is the chilling story of the murder of Nicole van den Hurk and the long journey to its eventual resolution.

The Sudden Disappearance of 15-Year-Old Nicole van den Hurk in 1995

In 1995, Nicole van den Hurk was a 15-year-old student staying with her grandmother in Eindhoven, Netherlands. On October 6, she left her grandmother's house early in the morning to bike to her job at a nearby shopping center.

But she never arrived.

The police quickly sprang into action and began searching for her. That evening, authorities found her bicycle in a nearby river. The search continued for the next few weeks, but the next clue emerged on October 19 when her backpack was found near the Eindhoven canal. The police searched the river, canal, and surrounding forests multiple times over the next three weeks but found no results.

Personal PhotoNicole van den Hurk had left for work on the morning of October 6, 1995, in Eindhoven, Netherlands, but she never arrived.

On November 22, seven weeks after Nicole van den Hurk went missing, a passerby stumbled upon her body in the woods between the towns of Mierlo and Lierop.

Nicole had been raped and murdered. The police determined that the cause of death was likely internal bleeding from a stab wound.

The van den Hurk Investigation Goes Awry and the Case Goes Cold

The police had very few suspects. However, a local woman named Celine Hartogs claimed to know who was responsible for the murder of Nicole van den Hurk. She had been arrested in Miami for drug trafficking and alleged that the men she worked with were responsible for the murder.

Nicole van den Hurk's stepfather initially supported Hartogs's story, but after further investigation, the police determined that her claims were unfounded and not worth pursuing.

In the summer of 1996, authorities briefly detained the victim's stepfather and stepbrother, Ad and Andy van den Hurk, but no incriminating evidence was found against them. Both were released and cleared of all connections.

Andy van den Hurk/Twitter Nicole's stepbrother Andy van den Hurk ultimately helped close the case with his false confession.

A reward was offered for any information related to the murder of Nicole van den Hurk, but it did not yield any useful leads. To make matters worse, the number of detectives on the investigation team was reduced. Over the next few years, all leads dried up, and the case went cold. In 2004, a cold case team briefly reopened the case, but they also made no progress.

Nearly a decade passed, and it began to be thought that Nicole van den Hurk's killer would never be caught.

Andy van den Hurk's Shocking Facebook Confession

By 2011, there was no resolution, and the investigation had stalled; Andy van den Hurk could not take it any longer.

Therefore, on March 8 of that year, he confessed in a Facebook post that he had killed his stepsister:

“Today I will be arrested for my sister's murder; I confessed, and I will be in touch soon.”

The police immediately arrested Andy van den Hurk, but they still found no other evidence linking him to the murder of Nicole van den Hurk. After five days in custody, he was released.

Personal PhotoNicole van den Hurk went missing from Eindhoven, Netherlands, on October 6, 1995, when she was only 15 years old.

Shortly after, he retracted his confession and stated that he only confessed to draw attention to his stepsister's case:

“I wanted to take her out of the grave and get her DNA. I had trapped myself in a way, and it could have gone horribly wrong. I had to take some steps to get her out of the grave. I called the police and said I did this. She is my sister, absolutely. I miss her every day.”

Andy van den Hurk's plan worked. In September 2011, the police exhumed Nicole van den Hurk's body for DNA testing.

Nicole van den Hurk's Killer Finally Identified as “Jos de G.”

After the body was exhumed, the police found DNA traces from three different men on the corpse: her stepbrother, her fiancé at the time she went missing, and a 46-year-old former psychiatric patient and convicted rapist known only as “Jos de G.”

Charges of rape and murder against Jos de G. were officially brought in April 2014.

Jos De G./FacebookIn 2018, “Jos De G.” was convicted of rape and murder charges related to the killing of Nicole van den Hurk.

However, the defense immediately began to question the DNA evidence and pointed out that DNA from two other men was also found on the body. The defense also suggested that Jos de G. and Andy van den Hurk may have had consensual sexual relations with Nicole van den Hurk before her murder. All of this led to the murder charges against Jos de G. becoming questionable.

Justice for the van den Hurk Family Two Decades Later

The case against Jos de G. lasted over two years. Scientists reanalyzed the DNA taken from the body to confirm that it belonged to Jos de G. beyond a reasonable doubt, but it was not possible to definitively prove that he was involved in the murder. And although a witness indicated that Jos de G. once said he had killed a young girl, the defendant's questionable mental state cast doubt on those statements.

Ultimately, after a 21-year-long interrupted investigation and nearly two years of court proceedings, Jos de G. was acquitted of murder charges on November 21, 2016. Instead, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to five years in prison.

Shortly thereafter, the prosecution appealed the acquittal. On August 28, 2018, the case went back to court on appeal, and about two months later, the state secured a conviction.

On October 9, the acquittal was overturned, and Jos de G. was sentenced to 12 years in prison; this decision was upheld by the country's supreme court in 2020. Thus, a quarter of a century after the murder of Nicole van den Hurk, the man found responsible finally received a sentence for this horrific crime.

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the murder of nicole van den hurk, andy van den hurk confession, dutch murder cases