The Corona Murder Case

The most commonly used argument against both the lab leak and aerosol theories is without a doubt: the Deventer murder case. Because Ernest Louwes has been in prison for 9 years and because even a book by a renowned NRC journalist (yes that one) has been filmed about it, therefore the lab leak theory is not good and that of those aerosols is not true either. Let's argue with the substance of that, because people who rely solely on 'reliable sources' don't understand what an 'ad hominem' fallacy is. They judge whether the content is correct or not based on the source.

Let's take a look at the main substantive point of criticism of the lab leak and aerosol theory. Then we first ask ourselves the question: Why did Ernest Louwes spend 9 years in prison? I will do it very briefly, only on main points.

• He has been designated as a suspect because he would benefit financially from the death of the victim. Reason to ask for an alibi.
• He lied that he had not been in Deventer on the night of the murder and therefore had no alibi.
• A smell test confirmed that Ernst Louwes had done it.
• His DNA was found on the victim's blouse.

The motive: to take inheritance

As a financial advisor, Louwes handled notarial and tax matters for the victim and he had been doing so meticulously for many years. It soon became clear that he could not expect any financial benefit and there was nothing to indicate that he had directed it to that end. Accelerating the inheritance made no sense to him, he was not in need of money and the money was not intended for him.

At the time, the question was not asked: how did he actually come into view? After all, the reason was that he had a financial motive and that motive had disappeared. So why did he still have to have an alibi? Are you allowed to subject random people on the street to a questionable smell test?

Some substantive points

The dog team that carried out that scent test did an exceptionally excellent job. Their success score was 85%, where the average is 55%. Were those dogs that good? No: it turned out that they were systematically cheating there. They knew, contrary to the rules, which scent samples belonged to the suspects, so the dog handler knew what the dog would have to point out for a positive result. The scent testing team in question was disbanded years later due to their decades-long fraudulent way of working.

The police have not been able to establish that the knife that was linked to Louwes by the scent hounds was the murder weapon. Traces were missing and the size did not match the marks on the victim's blouse. The knife was found at a salvage 1.5 kilometers away from the crime scene, that was all.

The incriminating odour test was ignored by the court from that moment on. It was seen as an isolated incident in a court case in which only the dog team felt that Louwes would be designated as the perpetrator. It was never seen as a signal of a possible biased attitude on the part of the police and the Public Prosecution Service.

Actually, it should have stopped here: no motive and no traces on the murder weapon that had been used as such for a false smell test and that later turned out not to be even the murder weapon. Then there is not much left. But the Public Prosecution Service went ahead and the review turned out differently than many had thought.

Louwes was convicted again in 2004 on the basis of additional DNA evidence and – still – lying about his alibi.

That DNA had only been found four years after the murder of the blouse on the victim's now crumpled, non-sterile and temporarily missing blouse. The fact that the DNA could also have been found during the first investigation (in which the entire blouse is dabbed with special adhesive foil to collect DNA traces), due to the careless way of storing it or during the visit of the perpetrator to the widow on the morning of the murder, was ignored.

The weighty alibi later turned out to be correct: he was driving 25 kilometers away from the crime scene around the time of the murder. According to the police at the time, that could not be true because the telephone call had gone through a transmission mast in Deventer. However, this turned out to be not impossible at all, after the final conviction. Under the right atmospheric conditions, even more than 100 kilometers can be reached and radio amateurs reported that this was the case that evening. The transmission mast in question was also facing in the direction of the traffic jam in which he said he was at the time. This traffic jam was never mentioned in the traffic jam reports, so Louwes could not have known about that traffic jam if he had not been in it himself. But it's getting too detailed now.

The bottom line: He had no motive and a valid alibi. According to various experts, the DNA traces do not prove perpetratorship.

There are several exculpatory pieces of evidence in the entire file, which never made it into an official report. They have been systematically kept out of it.

You may be wondering how someone with such meager evidence can end up in jail for 9 years. Well, me too. And the CCT, a cold case team of the Amsterdam police, has been wondering the same thing in recent years. That team consisted of three investigators who, at the request of Advocate General Aben of the Supreme Court, re-examined the case for three years. Seenu.nland the final report (Summarized on maurice.nl, with link to the final report).

But the Advocate General Aben, of the Supreme Court, has gone through the CCT report and advised that the case does not need to be revisited. And that is what the Supreme Court has decided.

This drama deserves a re-enactment

What makes the case even more interesting is that a whistleblower has revealed that the 'handyman', who was removed from the list as a suspect early in the process, was a police informant. It would not look good if it were to come back into the picture if Louwes turned out to be innocent after all. Or rather: would be declared innocent, because there is really no doubt that he is innocent and should never have been convicted on the basis of what is before him. The whistleblower reported that De Jong had been removed from the informant file and removed in such a way that he could no longer be found, plus that important documents relating to this informant had been modified and removed.

Literature

Bookshelves of detailed information are available about this notorious case.

Several independent researchers have formed an opinion after analyzing the available information. Take a look at http://geenonschuldigenvast.nl/. It also contains, for example, a detailed substantiation of emeritus Prof. Ton Derksen. It's a chapter from his book The O.M. at fault from 2008. In 2011 he wrote Lies about Louwes: Deventer murder case and in 2023 The Deventer Character Assassination. Injustice remains unpalatable to many people.

Wikipedia has a reasonably accurate story, although it does not quite correspond to facts such as retracted witness statements and exculpatory reports, which are not included in the official file. You can listen to all about this in the podcasts on the websiteoordeelzelf.com, including the text of this article, also as a Dutch version.

In short: because of all of the above, many people are still convinced that Covid infections go through droplets and that the lab leak is a fabrication to make donation buttons ring. Because the 'source' of that information was also wrong about the Deventer murder case.

This article has been in draft for a while. Last week, Part 1 of the conversation between Flavio Pasquino (blckbx) and Maurice de Hond was published, in which reference is made to the film The Conviction, based on the book by Bas Haan. That is the one who also staged the character assassination of intended MP Ronald Plasterk. A specialist in the genre, in other words.

I'm already looking forward to part 2.