Although the quality of the biological traces left by the unknown suspect were often and again praised by forensic experts, and although the investigating police has mobilized all possible expertise to find leads, during more than a decade of almost constant forensic policing, the question of who he was remained on the table.Footnote 5 As indicated above, suspicion was directed towards the inhabitants of the asylum seekers’ center. The grim situation and the constant violence had provoked forensic genetic research that, at that time in June 2000, was explicitly prohibited by the Dutch law, research into the biogeographic ancestry of the unknown suspect, based on Y-chromosomal research. The results, officially discarded because the test was illegal, were widely publicized. They indicated that by contrast to the commonly held idea among the public that the suspect was probably from the middle east (as were most of the inhabitants of the center), DNA suggests a North-Western European, and probably Dutch, ancestry and descent. Although these results did make people think, or blink, they did not take away the suspicion against the phenotypically othered.
However, this suspicion would dissolve overnight with the find of a DNA match. Almost thirteen years after Marianne’s death, on the 19th of November 2012, the suspect was identified through a newly introduced DNA technology, namely familial searching. Familial searching is routinely conducted through a search in DNA databanks where partial matches might suggest that the suspect is a relative of the person in the databank. Since such DNA-databank searches did not produce any leads, it was decided to look for relatives of the suspect in the community.
After a small study into the mobility of people in that particular area of Friesland, and while finding that the inhabitants of those villages tend to stay put, 8.080 men were invited to donate DNA in search of a relative of the suspect. In the end 7.581 men participated in the study. Working with such a large number of samples it was expected that it would take more than nine months to produce all DNA profiles and to process the data. However, the forensic researchers were lucky, and already in the first batch two samples were found of which the Y-chromosomal DNA profiles matched that of the DNA found at the crime scene. This helped to focus the rest of the analysis through genealogical research that was based on family names (Meulenbroek & Poley, 2014). Whithin a month of genealogical mapping and targeting relevant samples from other batches, a full DNA match could be presented, leading the investigators to the suspect, the Frisian farmer, Jasper S. This find came as a major surprise. One of the forensic investigators had put it as follows: ‘Jasper was just about the last person on whose door you would be knocking, with his farm and little family and all. Because you tend to presuppose a usual criminal’. Upon hearing this news, the community in the Frisian village was in dismay. ‘This cannot be true. It must have been a mistake. If this is true, I lose my faith in humanity’ people reacted. A woman responded: ‘When everybody here believed that the perpetrator was an inhabitant of the asylum seeker center, at least that gave us some peace. You don’t want it to be a father from here’ (Trouw, 21 November 2012) (Fig. 1).
What was remarkable about the months of preparation for the dragnet and familial searching was the sense of community that emerged. Everybody wanted to help solve the crime. But to make all men participate, a carefully designed campaign was developed. For example, the main folder through which the local population was informed about the DNA familial searching does not only take readers by the hand on what the research is about and how the DNA will be handled and destroyed after this investigation, it also included quotes from local villagers, expressing their hope that this murder case would finally be solved and that all men will show up to donate DNA. But also, the cover is consciously designed. It displays a typical Dutch landscape: a dyke, a typical Dutch activity: cycling, and a typical Dutch scenario: a family enjoying leisure time. As if to say, contributing to this DNA dragnet is a normal, Dutch thing to do. The family is connected and held together by DNA, the DNA double helix. In addition, it displays a gesture of care and safety. The young girl is cycling next to her mother. They seem to be cycling behind the father of this family. One of the police investigators explained during one of the presentations he gave in the aftermath of the case, that it was important that the father was cycling in front of them and not behind them, because that would diminish the feeling of safety. The men cycling behind them, might be read as not belonging to the family and as chasing and threatening the mother and child.Footnote 6 DNA research is contributing to a sense of safety of the community, or so is the message that is projected.
But I was even more struck when this sense of community became stronger when the identity of the suspect was revealed. It was not a community of violence and aggression vis a vis the (phenotypic) other, but a community of care vis a vis ‘us’ and those who belong to us. Care was not merely directed towards the family of the victim who lived in an adjacent village, but especially towards the family of the suspect and even the suspect himself. In the turmoil of media attention, this sense of us-ness never let go of me again; and provoked my thinking about race and sameness. In what follows I unravel this version of sameness and its relation to race. I will do so based on a selection of responses in the media.Footnote 7
The very first tweet that was sent around at 5 am by the crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, disclosing the identity of the suspect, already entails the ingredients of my analysis and gives way to how race came to matter. The suspect was “Frisian”, “white”, a “local” and a “farmer”. The link between Frisian whiteness and his traditional occupation alerted me to race. While any of these markers by itself does not necessarily enact race, together they become a potent technology of racialization.Footnote 8 Upon hearing the news, the father of Marianne Vaatstra pondered: “So it is someone from our midst (van ons), a farmer, a white man”. A fellow villager of the suspect was quoted saying:
Well, DNA doesn't lie," mumbles Nycklo de Vries (19). But it remains hard to believe. He knew the arrested man. Just like everyone else, here in Oudwoude. A very normal, social man. With a lot of land and a livestock farm. Married, a son and daughter in her twenties (Trouw, 20 November 2012, emphasis added).
In another account of what the villagers were going through, we read:
Yesterday people in Oudwoude responded with dismay to the arrest of the friendly fellow townsman, who was always in for a chat with everyone. His family was quickly relocated to a quiet area. His nearly 100 dairy cows are being looked after (Dagblad van het Noorden, 20 November 2012).
It is in fact remarkable that the suspect is addressed as a white man. Since whiteness is the norm, it hardly ever gets articulated. However, in this case, despite the huge investment in familiar searching and by consequence the possibility that the suspect is related to the local population, the whiteness of the suspect still sparked disbelieve and surprise. It thus marked the persistent suspicion that was placed on migrants and refugees, a group that was phenotypically othered. But whiteness was also related to the occupation of the suspect, being a farmer who takes care of his dairy cows and someone with lots of land. On the evening of the rape and murder of Marianne Vaatstra, the suspect and his father went out at eleven’o clock to milk the cows, we learn from his statement.Footnote 9 He is one of us, from our midst as the father of Vaatstra said. This coupling between whiteness, land and relation to the land, as well as activity or occupation, is a classical way of racializing a community.Footnote 10 However, though the suspect was made member of a community of us-ness through his colour, occupation and relation to land, the accounts above also make space for him as an individual. He is somebody everybody knows, he is kind, normal, a social man, and as we will see below, has a friendly word for everybody. Also, in a long and calm interview with his lawyer the viewer is presented a portrait, not of a monster or beast, but of a torn person, full remorse and shame for his uncontrolled behavior on that night 13 years before.Footnote 11 In an interview about this TV appearance, his lawyer Jan Vlug said: “There I have tried to portrait Jasper as a human being, as a nice man who had done something horrible” (Meulenbroek & Poley, 2014: 452). This room for individuality, I want to suggest, is a key element of this version of sameness in relation to us-ness. Whereas the coupling between sameness and otherness takes away all individuality and reduces individuals to a homogenous and othered group, by contrast sameness in relation to us-ness makes space for individuality. In this case the suspect-ness of the suspect came as a surprise because he was so normal and kind, which explains why this room for individuality in other cases leads to the proverbial “rotten apples” that do not impact on the identity of the whole group.Footnote 12
Sameness in relation to us-ness makes room for individuality but it does more. Above, the suspect was referred to as a family man, he is married with a son and a daughter in her twenties. The family figured prominently in the care articulated by the local villagers. The municipality organized a meeting for the villagers after which the interviewed mayor was reported saying:
About 300 residents showed up in the village hall. Bilker [the mayor] speaks after a 'modest and heartwarming' meeting. The village will not let the family down, he says. The mayor knows the parents of the arrested man. "They are overloaded with cards, phone calls and best wishes expressing support. That gives a good feeling (Trouw, 21 November 2012).
This excerpt makes clear that the family aspect of sameness is not only the fact that the suspect has children, but that he himself is a child of parents who are also part of the same community. The mayor of the village Oudwoude continues:
Everyone knows the parents; they are very well known in the village. Imagine: you lead a very normal life and then suddenly something like this happens. It was my pleasure to convey the commonly shared feeling among the inhabitants of Oudwoude. The feeling of: ‘You belong here, you belong.’ (Jullie horen hier, jullie horen erbij). The parents were very happy with that. They responded very emotionally, in tears. They are doing reasonably well under the circumstances. …. I did expect that something like 'we stand by and around the family' (we staan om de familie heen) would arise, but I am pleasantly surprised that it is so strong (Dagblad van het Noorden, 22 November 2012).
It took me some time to understand how this care for the parents of the suspect was relevant to my analysis and to see that it signals a particular family relation. Here the suspect is not merely a family man, with his own household and children. Crucially, he is addressed as a child, the child of. Thus, by caring for the parents, the suspect becomes a child. This obviously evokes a sense of innocence, even if the child is a man who is forty-five years old, he is still addressed as the object of care and concern for his parents. In addition, the attention to the parents puts the suspect in a genealogical relation, a relation of kinship. In this way we come to realize that not only does the suspect have a family and children of his own who deserve care and attention, but he has parents, and probably grandparents, thus a history in that place. The continuation of kinship produces a long durée and a historical connection to the place, to Friesland and the village Oudwoude. “You belong here”, says the mayor. A version of autochtony and nativism (Geschiere, 2009).
In fact, this belonging to the place was the very reason that this large scale, drag-net-based, familial searching could take place. It was determined that in this region of the Netherlands there was not much mobility and that people tend to stay put. Moreover, as indicated above, after finding the two Y-chromosomal DNA matches, genealogical research showed the way. The Dutch Central Bureau for Genealogy was approached to help search their data and construct the family trees. The two Y-chromosomal profiles represented two families with one common ancestor, a man called Jasper Jans, who was an innkeeper in 1748 and lived in the nearby village Westergeest. The investigating team then worked their way from this shared ancestor back into our times looking for relatives and determining not just their Y-chromosomal profile but also autosomal DNA profiles.Footnote 13 And on November 14, 2012 a full match could be reported by the forensic geneticists to the investigating police team (Meulenbroek & Poley, 2014: 446).
Based on the account above I want to suggest that the coupling of sameness and us-ness entails three specific elements: the individual, the family and the place. In the case I discuss here, sameness racialized the community through a mobilization of markers, such as, whiteness, tradition and occupation, as well as rootedness, a nativism of sorts. While this version of sameness was racialized, it still allowed for individuality, humanness, or goodness and thus for space within the community.