In a French Country House
Monfort, France, - Examinations of the bodies of two Dutch couples found murdered in a French country house last week showed they were killed with "extreme savagery," the local prosecutor said Wednesday.
Guy Etienne, the prosecutor in the south-western French town of Auch, said autopsies on the bodies of Artie van Hulst, his wife Marianne, both aged 51, her sister Dorothea and husband Johan van Niewenhuizen, both 61, had provided investigators with "very important elements."
The two women were killed by five stab-wounds each to the throat and chest, and van Niewenhuizen by 12 stab-wounds, six in the back, Etienne said. All three had been bound and gagged with adhesive tape before they were murdered.
Artie van Hulst was shot four times, apparently with a hunting-rifle. One shot, to the chest, destroyed his heart, bringing instant death, Etienne said.
Earlier, investigators said van Hulst was apparently killed alone while the other three were dining in a restaurant last Thursday evening. The others probably died after they returned to the van Hulsts' house near the village of Monfort.
The van Hulsts bought the farmhouse in the normally tranquil Gers department of south-western France last year.
On Tuesday, French gendarmes asked colleagues in the Dutch town of Oss, where van Hulst was the chief executive of a small and flourishing security equipment company, Veiligheidstechniek Nederland, for help in the investigation.
With few clues, except that the killers did everything they could not to arouse suspicion -- locking doors, shutters and gates and concealing the household's three cars to make it look as though the Dutch occupants had gone away -- investigators are looking for a personal motive.
The mayor of Monfort said the attackers searched drawers and other places where papers might have been kept but did not appear to have taken anything of value.
In Oss, police said they had assigned two officers to answer French gendarmes' questions about the van Hulsts' life and business affairs. "As far as we know, they never received any threats," Ivo Oosterbaan, the Oss police spokesman, said.
May 26, 1999
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