Mark Ebbinkhuijzen (41) stabbed to death by his partner in their home on Dovenetelstraat

Mark Ebbinkhuijzen (41) worked as a cleaner and lived on Dovenetelstraat in Amsterdam-Noord with his partner Anna Marie H. According to neighbours the two had argued regularly for years and were a frequent source of disturbance in the street; both were heavy drinkers. On the evening of Thursday 11 June 2015, at around half past seven, an argument escalated to the point where H. stabbed him in the chest with a knife. A neighbour heard loud screaming from the flat and alerted the police. When officers arrived, H. opened the door herself. They found Ebbinkhuijzen seriously wounded in the hallway; H. was arrested close to the flat. He died of his injuries in hospital a few days later. A police spokesperson described it as a domestic dispute. H. stated that Ebbinkhuijzen had regularly assaulted her, but neighbours painted a different picture: in their account she was the one who did the assaulting. One witness described her as aggressive; another had seen her hit him in the face while he did nothing in return. H. also stated that the victim had laid knives out in the kitchen and had said to her: 'Go on then.' That account worked against her, because she was simultaneously pleading self-defence: if he had laid the knives out, she had had time to think. Prosecutors demanded nine years in prison; the court sentenced her to seven. The appeal went worse for her. On 29 November 2018 the Amsterdam court of appeal rejected every defence she raised - self-defence, excessive self-defence, putative self-defence and psychological duress - and raised the sentence to eight years, despite finding that the reasonable-time requirement had been breached.