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Clinic refuses to disclose suspected mass-murderer's details by Adriana Stuijt.
Dutch police believe that a specific patient of the psychiatric/medical institute Parnassia in The Hague may have killed four people -- all found drowned to death near the institute. However Parnassia refuses to release the man's dossier.
Detectives of the Haaglanden police station who conducted the investigation say they are now forced to close their investigation because they can't follow up any more leads without cooperation from the medical centre.
They believe that a specific patient is responsible for the sinister murders of Mark and Maya de Vries, a mother and son who were found choked to death on 6 December 2007 in a drainage canal next to Parnassia, 59-year-old Fotiena Toet and 79-year-old out-patient Lientje Mastrig, found choked to death on 18 April 2008.
Mark de Vries and his mother had failed to show up for an appointment which the son had made at Parnassia.
After the alarm was raised, police found a 'sizeable puddle of blood' near a shack on the terrain, together with a piece of human scalp with some hair still attached. The first body which was found in the drainage canal next to the clinic was that of 60-year-old Maya de Vries. She had 'drag wounds' on her knees. A few metres away, 32-year-old son Mark's body was also floating in the canal. His body bore 'considerable signs of violence', said the police.
59-year-old Fotiena Toet was also found drowned in a very similar way on the terrain. And in 2008, the 78-year-old out-patient Lientje Mastrig, who had gone missing after an appointment at the centre, was found choked to death on 18 April 2008 in a fen in the nearby sand-dunes.
"Any links cannot be proven as yet, but we are certainly finding all these close similarities very suspect,' said the unnamed investigative team leader of the Haaglanden police.
This police station uses the most advanced preventative policing methods in the country, even patrolling the suburbs and the Dutch capitol city with beat-cops on bikes, who are equipped with camera-helmets and can hand out on-the-spot fines for minor offences. Many citizens say that the cam-helmets do work as a deterrent and keep the streets safer. see Dutch YouTube report
The police are understandably frustrated that they aren't getting cooperation from Parnassia even though four people have already been murdered and the killer could strike again any time.
The police team said in their own newspaper this week that they now have to close the investigation because they can't get any help from Parnassia. They had already sued the clinic to get a court order for opening one specific medical dossier -- but the court has found in favour of the clinic, ruling that the patient's privacy rights were more important, even though four people's deaths are involved.
Parnassia spokesman Pieter van Ieperen confirmed that they were indeed in a 'terrible quandary'. "We want to solve this, because it's terrible what has happened here. But we must protect our patients' rights to medical privacy.'
The police and the institute have meanwhile, set up a new cooperative programme however to help police and medical staff gain a better understanding of one another's working conditions. see
Meanwhile the killer could strike again at any time.
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