Woman beaten to death in Noord

In the summer of 2024 a deeply disturbing incident took place in apartment building de Hagenau on the J.H. van Heekweg in Amsterdam-Noord that left the local community in shock and eventually led to a court case centred on the perpetrator's mental state. Walid C.A., 22 at the time and struggling for a long period with severe mental health problems including schizophrenia, attacked his 53-year-old neighbour Cornelia van Velzen in the stairwell of their building while in the grip of a violent psychosis. The assault was exceptionally brutal: according to the judgment he beat her with a stick and a picture frame, driven by the delusion that his neighbour was an Israeli spy and by voices in his head commanding him to kill her. The court held that his psychosis rendered him entirely not criminally responsible at the moment of the attack. He was therefore discharged from prosecution and given TBS with compulsory treatment, in line with the prosecution's demand. He has since been held in a forensic psychiatric clinic for long-term treatment.