The story of the father who hosted the murderer of his daughter in his family and together they wrote a book about the crime

Every Sunday, Eddy Hekman converse by phone with "the Beast of Baflo"nickname with which the press baptized an immigrant who murdered a young Dutch woman. Once a month, Hekman visits him at the center where he is being held. They talk about many things, it's a loving relationship, but sometimes it's inevitable to talk about the night the murderer He killed Renske, Eddy's daughter.

The girl was 26 years old when, during a train trip in Switzerland, she met Alasam Samaria, a refugee from Benin, a country in West Africa. They quickly fell in love and the asylum seeker was well received by the parents of his new girlfriend.

"They were a great couple. They came to visit us a lot on weekends", Hekman told the Outlook radio program, of the BBC. Everyone shared a pbadion for football and Samaria was treated like another child. "We were like a big familyHekman added, without ignoring the couple's sharp cultural differences.

The young man had arrived in the Netherlands in 2002, six years before meeting Renske. As a teenager, after working in a banana plantation, he boarded a cargo ship in which he traveled more than 8,000 kilometers. He lived in several refugee centers until he managed to settle in, working six days a week to distribute newspapers.

"Samaria was kind and considerate, never showed signs of aggression", said the father. But when his wife learned that a crime had been committed in the village of Baflo, near the seal sanctuary where his daughter was working, she then knew that it was her..

"There was news on the internet that a young woman had been killed by a man with dreadlocks.Baflo is very small and there was only one man with dreadlocks." J & ### I knew that it must be Samaria and that the young woman would be Renske, "said Lieuwkje. The tortuous suspense ended when two police officers appeared at his door to confirm the news.

"I was told that Renske and Samaria were disputed and he hit her on the head with a fire extinguisher"It was April 13, 2011, when Renske and Alasam were together for over two years.

After the crime, Samaria left the house and went to the station. In a puzzling fact, an agent intercepted him, but the subject took the gun and shot him. A police hunt allowed his arrest after five more shots that nearly killed him.

But for Eddy Hekman, it is incomplete to tell the facts this way. Torn by tragedy and troubled by the unknown action of a man he trusted, he began to prepare a puzzle of explanations.

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

Moreover, when he visited the room where Samaria lived, he found antidepressant pills. "That's when the coins are put in their place," he said. He is convinced that the fact that he changed the doses in the previous days has affected his behavior.

With this mind map, Hekman says that he never felt angry. Two months after the crime, the couple wrote to the prison where he was being held to request a meeting, which was finalized three months later.

Meeting and back page

Innumerable emotions have swept away the visiting hall of The Hague prison. They were accompanied by a therapist and the author's lawyer when Samaria entered.

"We just cry"We mainly talked about what he thought and why he had arrived," he added.

In principle, Samaria was sentenced to 28 years in prison. The case has been widely followed by local media. However, in a second case, the sentence was reduced to five and a half years, a sentence already expired. He is currently detained in a psychiatric institute where his ex-girlfriend's parents often visit him.

"At first we were talking, of course, about what had happened that night, but it disappeared. Sometimes it comes back and we remember the past and the time together. Sometimes the emotions come back, but they dilute with time"said the father.

Although they understand that the situation is abnormal, they consider that their daughter would approve of this connection and continue to consider Samaria as part of their family. "At some point, you must make a decision: be critical or take the path we take. This is certainly not the path that most people would take, but it is the path we have chosen and we think it is the best for us. "

Even Hekman and Samaria are co-authors of a book on the circumstances of the murder entitled "A compartmentalized más", referring to the father's suggestion to his daughter during the train trip and allowing him homicide

"The circumstances of my daughter's death are so extraordinary that I had to find a way to put them in words", he explained in a column published in The Guardian. In addition, he thought that Samaria would need "something positive to do" during his imprisonment.

"What has happened can never be erased, neither for him nor for us. I can understand that people think it's amazing that we can even look it in the eyes, but It's our way of dealing with the subject"