Son stabs father to death in Zuidoost

On 30 March 2024 police found the lifeless body of 65-year-old Johnny Ponson in the bedroom of his flat in the Gravenstein building in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, after he had been stabbed 23 times the previous night. His 22-year-old son, William P.O., initially gave a false witness statement but was arrested in the summer of 2024 after camera footage and investigation showed that he had gone to his father's home that night carrying a knife and a change of shoes, intending to kill him. At trial the son gave a detailed account of what had led him to it. In January 2026 prosecutors demanded thirteen years in prison plus TBS with compulsory treatment, but the court adjourned the case because experts at the Pieter Baan Centrum could not yet establish his criminal responsibility or whether he should be tried under juvenile criminal law. After that further examination the trial resumed. Prosecutors are now demanding sixteen years against the defendant, now 24; the earlier demand for TBS has been dropped and instead the prosecution is asking for a behavioural measure to follow the prison term. The evidence against him included his DNA on the paving stone used to smash the back-door window and a shoe print from a Primark trainer; after his arrest in Beverwijk he confessed in September 2024. Prosecutors want him tried under adult criminal law. The court will give its verdict on 29 September 2026.