A court has extended the pretrial detention of the Leek man suspected of involvement in the murder of Mieke Oort, a 21-year-old Massachusetts woman who was attending college in Leeuwarden, the Dagblad van het Noorden reports.
Ms Oort was stabbed inside her apartment on the morning of March 6. Police initially responded to the home around 3:30 a.m. after receiving a report of a small house fire. After extinguishing the fire, they found Ms Oort dead inside and two men, aged 25 and 30, injured. Within a few hours, police detained Thomas R., 27, they said is responsible.
Mieke Oort came to the Netherlands in 2020 to enroll in the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. According to her friends, she met Thomas R. on a Tinder date. The suspect had reportedly been stalking Ms Oort and even placed a tracking device on her bicycle when she began dating an ex-boyfriend again.
After the attack, Thomas R. fled to Germany. On the way, he called his parents to inform them about the incident. He was arrested in Leer, not far from the Dutch border.