Woman (36) strangled in home on Leusdenhof

On Friday, 23 February 2018, a 36-year-old woman was found seriously injured inside her home on Leusdenhof in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. At around 09:30, emergency services were called for a resuscitation. The woman was found by her 18-year-old daughter and rushed to hospital, but she died later that morning from her injuries. Police immediately treated the circumstances as suspicious and carried out an extensive investigation in and around the apartment. A few days later, her brother, then 36-year-old Hristo H., was arrested. He had been temporarily staying with his sister because he had no fixed place to live. According to the court, a conflict arose on the day of her death after the woman made clear to him that he had to leave her home. Hristo H. then strangled his sister, probably using the handle of a bag. The investigation showed that he knew details about the way she had been killed, which prosecutors regarded as perpetrator knowledge. The court ruled that it could not be proven that he had made a prior plan to kill his sister, so he was not convicted of murder but of manslaughter. The court did find it proven that he had killed her by strangulation. Hristo H. did not properly cooperate with psychiatric and psychological examinations, but experts saw indications of serious mental health problems and vulnerability to psychosis. Because treatment was considered necessary and the risk of reoffending without treatment was seen as too high, the court imposed compulsory psychiatric treatment under a TBS order in addition to a prison sentence. In October 2019, Hristo H. was sentenced to three years in prison and TBS for strangling his sister inside her home on Leusdenhof in Amsterdam-Zuidoost.