The man who killed Els Slurink from Groningen in 1997 has also been sentenced to a ten-year prison sentence on appeal. Jahangir A. was already sentenced to the same sentence by the court last year, but maintained his innocence and appealed.
According to the court, decisive evidence was the DNA mixed trace that was found under Slurink’s nail, which ultimately led to A.’s arrest, writes RTV Noord. According to the court, a statement from a neighbor who said she heard screaming and a bang coming from Slurink’s house supports the DNA match.
Cold case
Slurink was found dead on March 21, 1997 in her home in Groningen. The 33-year-old woman did not appear for an appointment and that aroused suspicion among her colleagues. Two of them went to Slurink’s house and saw her lying on the floor. She turned out to have been stabbed in the heart the night before. The murder weapon was never found, and the case went unsolved for years due to lack of evidence.
The death of the Groningen woman was a cold case case that the police drew attention to again in January 2021. For example, a poster campaign was launched calling on people to share information. The posters asked the question: “Who killed Els Slurink?”
New DNA techniques led to arrest
On February 5, 2021, three weeks after the start of the poster campaign, A. was arrested. However, the campaign was not decisive; he came into the picture through a DNA match.
With the DNA mixed trace that was found under Slurink’s nail in 1997, only suspects could be excluded at the time, and not actively traced. Thanks to new techniques, more than twenty years after the murder, it was possible to track down the suspect. His DNA was in the DNA database due to previous convictions.
- Ten years in prison for man who killed Els Slurink in 1997
