The father who welcomed the murderer of his daughter as a son

The Dutch Renske Hekman fell in love with Alasam Samaria, a gentle and loving man who had arrived from Benin as a refugee. And his parents made him feel like he was part of his family. But this link was put to the test when Samaria murdered his girlfriend.

Eddy Hekman and his wife live in a village in the Netherlands, near the North Sea. They lead a quiet life there, not very different from that of other retired couples. With one exception: they meet once a month the man who murdered his daughter.

Not only that. They also talk to him by phone every Sunday. And Hekman wrote a book with the man.

Hekman told the BBC World Service Outlook program that he and his wife even considered that their daughter's murderer was part of their family.

How is it possible? Hekman told his story to Neal Razzell of Outlook.

Her daughter, Renske, was born in 1982. "She was a very happy girl, she laughed a lot but she was also a little shy, she loved nature, she was adventurous and she traveled a lot," recalls her father .

Renske studied biology and worked in a sanctuary for seals in Holland. "He always loved taking care of others," his father says.

She and her parents have maintained a close relationship. When they traveled, they would accompany him to the station to say goodbye to him.

In November 2008, the young woman in her twenties went to Switzerland where she worked as a ski instructor and her parents went to see her.

Hekman remembers that it was at that time that he had met Alasam Samaria, the man who was finally going to murder him.

"He got in the car and there was Samaria, they immediately started talking with animation and greeted us when the train started to leave," he recalls.

This is how the relationship started. "They came to visit us often on weekends," says Hekman. They all went out together to walk the dogs and shared a pbadion for football.

"My two children played, Renske also and Samaria loved it so it was a really family activity, we were like a big family."

"A great couple"

Although they come from very different universes, Hekman and his wife felt that their daughter and boyfriend were "a great couple".

Samaria was a refugee in the Netherlands. His country of origin was Benin, in West Africa. He had arrived in the European country in 2002 and, having lived in several asylum centers, he had managed to settle.

In adolescence, Samaria worked in a banana plantation in Benin. It was a difficult life and he wanted to give it up. He therefore hid in a cargo ship that traveled more than 8,000 kilometers until the Netherlands.

"Samaria was kind and caring," said Hekman, who claimed that he "had never shown signs of aggression" even when they were playing football together.

Renske continued to live in the village of Baflo, near the seal sanctuary where he worked. Samaria often visited him.

On April 13, 2011, while the couple had been together for two years, Renske's mother stayed awake late at night to watch the news and learned that something terrible had happened in Baflo.

She and her husband were quick to realize that their daughter was involved in the scary news.

"There was news on the internet that a young woman had been killed by a dreadlocks man," recalls Hekman.

"Baflo is very small and there was only one man with dreadlocks, so I knew it had to be Samaria and the girl would be Renske," he says.

He has trouble expressing in words what he felt at that moment. He wanted to wait until he confirmed that his suspicions were true. He called the police at five in the morning, but they could not tell him anything.

Only at 11 o'clock, when two policemen appeared at his door, he knew that the worst had happened.

Try to survive

"They told me that Renske and Samaria had quarreled and that he had hit her head with a fire extinguisher."

Samaria then left the house and started walking towards the station. A plainclothes policeman pursued him and, in unclear circumstances, Samaria managed to withdraw his gun and shoot him.

Other officers went looking for him and after shooting him five times, he was arrested. The doctors saved his life.

It is here that begins the most unusual and incredible part of this story. Because even in those first moments, after learning that his daughter had been murdered, Eddy Hekman never felt angry.

"What was also part of the story, is that the day before, on April 12, Samaria had received the final rejection of her request to stay in the Netherlands as a refugee," he said. .

Hekman did not find any meaning to what had happened. "I could not imagine the man I had met in this situation," he says of his daughter's violent death.

Hekman and his family tried to do their best. "We are just trying to survive," he recalls.

In an attempt to understand what happened, the couple wrote to Samaria two months later, in June. They sent him a letter to the prison near The Hague where the young man is detained, asking him to see him to talk about what happened.

The encounter

The meeting finally took place in September.

"He was very emotional, our therapist was there, just like his lawyer, we were all sitting in a small room and he came in," he says.

"We just cry," he recalls.

"We mainly talked about what he thought had happened and why it had happened. For us, it was a headache."

Hekman does not remember if Samaria used the word "forgiveness", but he did not doubt that "it was certainly what he felt".

The young man told them that he did not understand what had happened.

Hekman says despite everything that he has never felt angry, at least not towards Samaria. "I can not explain why," he admits.

But anyway, I needed to understand how a man who seemed so kind and loving could suddenly become so violent.

He visited the room where Samaria lived to gather his belongings. "It was a mess," he recalls. But among all the mess, he found pills.

"It's at this point that the pieces have put themselves in their place," he reveals.

antidepressants

Samaria took a type of antidepressant called SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and, in the days leading up to Renske's death, his doses had been variable.

Hekman believes that these increases and falls have affected his behavior.

"I'm not a doctor, but I've read a lot about it and I'm convinced it's a possibility," he says.

His theory is that the drugs, as well as the anxiety he felt for his asylum claim, contributed to his agitation and his violence.

The renowned British psychiatrist Peter Tyrer, consulted by the Outlook program, confirmed that SSRI antidepressants may have adverse effects once stopped, although he considered that aggressive violence was an extremely unusual side effect, affecting fewer people than men. One in a thousand.

The Dutch court initially sentenced Samaria to 28 years in prison. But in a second step, taking into account their mental state, they reduced their sentence to five and a half years.

"He has already served his sentence and is currently in a psychiatric institute, where he is not allowed to leave," said Hekman, who visits him every month with his wife.

The book

Hekman decided to write a book with him to give him "something positive to do" during his imprisonment.

He added that it also helped him: it was his way of "finding a structure in a very chaotic situation".

During these meetings and their conversations every Sunday, they talk about "normal things": the daily life, the programs they give on television, the food …

"At first we were talking, of course, about what happened that night, but it was fading, sometimes it comes back and we remember the past and the time they spent together, sometimes the emotions come back, but they dilute over time. "

Hekman thinks that his daughter would approve of the relationship she has with Samaria. "She was like that, she loved, she herself would not understand why everything had happened."

And despite what happened, Hekman and his wife still consider Samaria as part of their family, even though they know that it is something unusual.

"At some point, you have to make a decision: be critical or take the path that we take … This is certainly not the way most people would take but it's the way that we choose, and we believe it's the best for us "