To reopen his sister's case, he confessed to a murder he didn't commit.
It was a lie. But without that lie, maybe the truth would have been buried forever.
Nicole van den Hurk was 15 years old when, on October 6, 1995, she went out of the bicycle house to reach the supermarket where she worked part time.
He never came.
The bicycle was found near the Dommel River. Shortly afterwards, his yellow backpack also appeared. For weeks, research teams controlled roads, fields, woods and canals around Eindhoven.
Forty-seven days later, the girl's body was found in a wooded area between Mierlo and Lierop.
Nicole was raped and killed.
Investigators collected several traces, but in 1995 genetic analysis techniques were not advanced enough to allow an identification. The samples were kept, while the file slowly ended in unresolved cases.
Sixteen years passed.
Meanwhile forensic science had made huge progress. Nicole's half-brother, Andy van den Hurk, was convinced that those old evidence could finally speak.
However, it was necessary to reopen the investigation.
So he made an extreme decision.
On March 8, 2011, he wrote on Facebook that he would be handed over to the police for the murder of his sister. Shortly thereafter he came to the authorities and confessed.
He was arrested and interrogated.
His version, however, did not match the facts. The details were wrong and the elements collected in 1995 did not connect him to the crime.
After a few days he was released.
At that point, Andy told the truth: he never hurt Nicole. He invented confession to draw attention to the case and force the authorities to review the evidence again.
It was a risky gesture, capable of transforming it for a few days in the main suspect of the murder of the person he was trying to defend.
But the plan reached its purpose.
The investigation was reopened. Nicole's body was re-exhumed and the samples were subjected to new DNA tests.
This time a genetic profile emerged.
Comparison with databases led investigators to Jos de G., a man already known to the authorities for prior sexual offences.
In 2014 he was arrested.
The first trial led to a conviction for sexual violence, but not for murder. The prosecution appealed and the evidence was examined again.
On October 9, 2018, twenty-three years after Nicole's death, Jos de G. was found guilty of murder and sentenced to twelve years in prison.
During the process, Andy explained the reason for his false confession without using great words.
He said Nicole was his sister and he was missing every day.
His choice did not cancel the pain and did not return the lost years to the family. But he prevented silence to become definitive.
In this case, the truth came thanks to the encounter between two very different forces: a technology that in 1995 did not exist yet and a brother willing to risk his freedom to reopen a forgotten file.