News report | 14-01-2026 | 12:30
Today, the Public Prosecution Service demanded a 10-year prison sentence against an 80-year-old man from Eindhoven suspected of stabbing his 75-year-old demented wife to death. The incident took place on March 10, 2023, in a house on Troyeshof in Eindhoven. According to the public prosecutor, this is a very serious crime: “This is not an act of impulse or love. It is the cold-blooded decision of the suspect to end the life of his wife, the woman he had been with for so long.”
The man had been taking antidepressants for a long time. The Eindhoven resident later claimed in his interrogations that he could not remember the incident and that the medication might have led him to his act. However, several experts involved in the investigation consider this unlikely. It was also examined whether the man might have been sleepwalking and therefore did not know what he was doing. Although this scenario cannot be completely ruled out, it cannot be conclusively proven either. Moreover, it contradicts the mans report to the emergency room in which he immediately confessed to killing his wife and said nothing about not knowing what he was doing. He did say that his wife was demented and that he could no longer cope.
Manslaughter
The file makes clear that there is no legal and convincing evidence for a premeditated plan to murder his wife. The use of medication or sleepwalking that caused him to commit a terrible act is also excluded by the Public Prosecution Service. “And then there is only one conclusion left: the suspect deliberately and intentionally stabbed his wife multiple times in the chest and thereby deprived her of life.”
Appropriate prison sentence
Although the suspect is an elderly man, this case concerns one of the most serious crimes a person can commit. For killing someone, a prison sentence is the only appropriate punishment. The Public Prosecution Service does take into account that the suspect is elderly, which means that imprisonment will be harder for him than for others. Given his age, it is possible that he will spend the rest of his life in detention. “Not only from the perspective of retribution is it necessary to come to a punishment that does justice to all facts and circumstances, but also which punishment sends a clear signal to society,” said the public prosecutor. “A signal that taking someones life will never be tolerated, regardless of how old you are and what your motives are. That there will always be consequences for those who think they can commit such a drastic act.”