is said to have confessed to killing Maria Verlinden 30 years after he was her pupil
</a>A 37-year-old man who said he had felt humiliated by his teacher in primary school has confessed to stabbing her to death three decades later
Gunter Uwents told investigators he had never got over his alleged experience with Maria Verlinden
He claimed to have lost control when he visited her in November 2020 at her home in the village of Noorderwijk
She was stabbed 101 times and died in her kitchen
Verlinden was known as a devout Christian who had a record of helping homeless people
The crime had gone unsolved for 16 months despite police taking hundreds of DNA samples to try to find the culprit
Her husband made a public appeal for witnesses
Her purse containing cash was left untouched on the dining table next to her body
suggesting she had not been the victim of a violent robbery
Uwents had admitted the crime to a friend who alerted police
Uwents has provided a DNA sample to be compared with traces found at the crime scene
he was in any case due to be caught up in the genetic sampling dragnet
I have contacted all former colleagues with whom Gunter was in class
but no one can remember an incident between him and Maria
His parents are also very good Catholic people
because they will never dare to show themselves in Noorderwijk again
Uwents told detectives that as a child he had been “bullied
humiliated and belittled” by classmates and that his teacher had ignored him
she always pointed out someone else to answer – never me,” he told police according to one account
Uwents claimed that he had only gone to his victim’s house “for a good conversation” but that she had laughed at him and dismissed him as “a dork”
He further claimed that he had not brought a knife to the house
The local prosecutors’ office said Uwents had provided “detailed explanations” for his act
Uwents appeared before a judge on Tuesday and has been placed in custody on a murder charge.