Cold-case detectives in the Netherlands are hoping that an innovative lifesize hologram of a young sex worker who was murdered in Amsterdam 15 years ago will jog people’s memories and help bring her killer, or killers, to justice.
Bernadett Szabó, known as Betty, was born in Hungary and left for Amsterdam when she was 18. Once there, she started earning money as a sex worker in the red light district. She continued to work after becoming pregnant and gave birth to a son who was placed with a foster family.
On the night of 19 February 2009, two fellow sex workers realised they hadn’t seen her in her workroom on Oudezijds Achterburgwal and hadn’t heard the music she usually played. When they checked on her at 1am, they found her dead in her room having been stabbed dozens of times. She was 19.
A decade and a half later, police are using technology and a huge publicity campaign in a final attempt to solve the case. A house at the corner of Korte Stormsteeg and Oudezijds Achterburgwal has been devoted entirely to Szabó’s murder, with large stickers on the windows, and TV screens showing the crime scene, a documentary and the last images made of Szabó when she was still alive.
But the most eye-catching element of the campaign is the lifesize hologram of Szabó that sits on a stool in a window, trying to make contact with passersby and asking them for their help. The hologram, created using 3D visualisation technology, shows the large and memorable dragon tattoo that covered Szabó’s stomach and chest.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like this and, to be honest, we’re a bit nervous,” said Benjamin van Gogh, the coordinator of the Amsterdam wanted and missing persons team. “We want to do justice to Betty, to her family and friends, and to the case. Therefore, before deciding to use a hologram for the campaign, we brainstormed with different parties both within and outside the police on whether we should go ahead with this and how we should set it up.”
Van Gogh stressed that the project had been undertaken in consultation with Szabó’s family. “We are committed to doing this with dignity and with the clear purpose of achieving some form of justice for Betty by finding her murderer or murderers.”
He said police always tried to put a face on a victim to help with public appeals, “and the hologram is a way of taking this a step further”.
Detectives hope the hologram and a €30,000 reward will help yield new witnesses who may not necessarily be local residents.
Anne Dreijer-Heemskerk, of the cold case team, said: “Betty was murdered in one of the busiest areas in Amsterdam, maybe even in the Netherlands. It is really almost impossible that there are no people who saw or heard something unusual at the time. Or heard someone talk about the case, which doesn’t even have to have been in Amsterdam, because, after all, the red light district gets visitors from all over the world.”
Noting that 15 years had now passed since the killing, Dreijer-Heemskerkadded: “We hope witnesses who may have been afraid before or kept silent for other reasons now have the courage to come forward.”
