[Nicky91]

Youtube video

this video is footage from a drone, showing the farm where the family was being held in basement for 9 years

The man arrested in the Drenthe farm family mystery is an Austrian national known as Josef B, the Telegraaf and AD said on Tuesday evening.

The papers described the man, 58, as a wood-worker and an odd-jobs man. He had a small workshop on an industrial estate in Meppel, a small town just six kilometres away, and believed in the ‘creative use of wood’, the Telegraaf said.

Why the family had spent nine years living in a small space in the farm B rented on the edge of the village of Ruinersvold remains a mystery.

The police have made clear that five young adults and their father were living on the isolated farm near a village of 4,000 people, but their relationship to each other and to B is still unclear.


‘Some neighbours talk of a sect, others thought that drugs were involved, but then they shrugged their shoulders and went on with their lives in the rustic village of Ruinerwold,’ the Telegraaf said.

The children were aged between 18 and 25, police confirmed. They and their father lived in a ‘small space which could be closed off’ but not a cellar as earlier reported. ‘It is unclear if they remained there voluntarily’ the police statement said.

Barman

Police were alerted this weekend by the barman of a local cafe, who was concerned about the disheveled state of a young man who came in and said he needed help.

‘The police assessed the situation and found a number of rooms with makeshift furnishings where the family lived a withdrawn existence. That is where the six were found,’ Ruinerwold mayor Roger de Groot told a press conference.

According to some reports, the young adults had no contact with the outside world and lived completely self-sufficiently with their own vegetable garden and a goat. Reports that they were awaiting the ‘end of time’ have not been substantiated.

Registration

None of the family were registered with the authorities, police said.

Locals said they saw the man thought to be Josef B driving around in an old car but had not seen anyone else.

‘He was very sharp,’ the neighbour said. ‘You only had to come close to the property and he would send you away. He used binoculars to keep an eye on everything.’

Landlady Alida ten Oever (66) told the paper that B always paid the rent promptly and that she had never noticed the presence of other people on the property. ‘We are quite perplexed about it all,’ she told the paper.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/1...rm-is-unclear/

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/1...er-mayor-says/

[Ammi]

...yeah I was reading this earlier, Nicky..there isn’t a huge amount of information atm but more will unfold over the coming days...very disturbing story...Josef F, now Josef B..?...

[Nicky91]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...yeah I was reading this earlier, Nicky..there isn’t a huge amount of information atm but more will unfold over the coming days...very disturbing story...Josef F, now Josef B..?...

i guess so, it's a very weird and disturbing story


reporters from many countries are there right now, also saw footage from german channels RTL+ and Sat.1 discussing it in their news, breakfast shows

[Nicky91]

Youtube video

apparently not the landlord but the father of the family seems like the main suspect here

and also they found a video interview from 2016 where he claimed there had been a war going on in his family, between good and bad spirits

[Nicky91]

the trial is today, where we'll find out what punishment the father of that family and the austrian landlord Joseph B will get

for robbing his children of their freedom, sexually abusing them

[Nicky91]

*One of the two main suspects in the farmhouse family mystery appeared in court in Assen on Tuesday for the first procedural hearing in the case.Josef B, the Austrian odd jobs man who rented the farmhouse on behalf of the family and is suspected of kidnapping and money laundering was in court to hear the charges against him and to hear details of the investigation. He was remanded in custody until the main case takes place later this year.‘I have robbed no-one of their freedom,’ B said in court. ‘This is a witch hunt. If someone believes in god, surely that is their own decision.’B said nothing of the case as it has been reported so far is true. ‘There was no cellar and no-one was kept there against their will,’ he said.Gerrit Jan van D, the father of the six youngsters, is not well enough to talk and remains in prison hospital in Scheveningen.The family were discovered in early October when one youngster went to the local bar, appealing for help.*

read more at https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/0...osecutor-says/