The disappearance of Nymphe Poolman

 

The disappearance of Nymphe Poolman

Back in 1991, a time when some readers may not have been born even, The Netherlands was shaken up by a very haunting disappearance. In the north of the country, the angelic looking Nymphe Poolman (almost 7 years old) asked her father if she was allowed to walk back home alone, after buying some groceries in  the village of Vriescheloo. Peter Poolman was with the car and because it was only a short walk to get back home, he allowed his daughter to walk alone for the first time in her life. It is November 28th of 1991 and in the middle of the day. He drove past her in the village street and waved at her. She waved back at him. But back home they waited in vain for Nymphe to arrive.

Nymphe's father got back in the car and drove back and forth between the village shop and their home, looking for Nymphe. Her mother Jacqueline told interviewers that she was out calling her daughters name, but that she felt deep down that her daughter would never come back. And that she almost had the feeling that Nymphe herself had a foreboding. "She had slept in my bed for three nights in a row. Because she couldn't sleep. She was very restless. And the day she went with Peter in the car to get some groceries, she waved with two hands, the way you do when you go and make a long journey. I had had a stomach ache all day already and that afternoon when she didn't return, I instantly had a nagging feeling of 'Oh no, surely it won't be... And I was looking for her on the little road between the village road and the house and I walked around while calling her name. But once I did so, I knew that she wouldn't come back. That was the first reaction I had. But then you go back inside and tell yourself, of course she will come back."

Nymphe's father Peter decided to call the police. They came with a search dog initially. All sorts of other people showed up and actively started searching for the blonde girl. Not just friends and other villagers, but also complete strangers, it was later revealed. Nymphe's parents recalled how police units searched systematically through the wheat fields. It was beautiful weather. They used sticks to see if Nymphe's body was somewhere in the fields.

Nymphe (1984) was Peter and Jacqueline Poolman's firstborn. Her mother describes her as a very sensitive girl, even as a baby. When she was sad, Nymphe would pick up on this. She was also direct and disarming. Unafraid and she easily stuck up for herself. Nymphe also loved adventures. The family saw all the zoo's in the country with her and she also loved theme parks and steam trains, like her father. She also had a little game she played often, pretending to be a stray. In retrospect her mother found it peculiar that Nymphe already invented such a game. "Unfortunately she also ended up as a lost child."

 

The parents started to appear in the media, in an attempt to spread the news of their daughter's disappearance, in the hope that this would lead to the golden tip. But the eccentric and sensitive couple were sometimes considered "odd' or accused of talking in a 'strange and distant way' about Nymphe. Especially Jacqueline Poolman's comment on TV that despite all the misery, she found it quite an interesting time, did not sit well with many viewers. A journalist of Dutch newspaper Trouw wrote for instance: "Jacqueline Poolman appears to be a rather isolated woman with a strong interest in anthroposophical and paranormal matters. She concludes that the drama has a purpose. For her it is a test from God: Jacqueline has to get to know herself and get more in touch with earthly life."

In 1992, 29-year-old German pedophile Georg Adler confessed to having snatched Nymphe. He admitted that he had raped and strangled the girl and the dumped her body in an oil barrel, together with hospital waste, at his workplace. The drum was transported to England he said, and destroyed there. A German court sentenced him this same year to 11 years in prison plus detention under a hospital order, a type of compulsory treatment. But because Nymphe's body has never been found, her parents have doubts about Adler's confession. Father Peter instead suspects that his daughter ended up in the child pornography circuit. Georg Adler is, according to him, at best indirectly involved. "The police came and told me about this Adler. And I thought; what sort of shit story in this? It did nothing with me. This is not what happened." Jacqueline: "The first sentence that went through my head was: this is not correct. But then the policeman starts to elaborate and then your heart starts beating fast, because he [Adler] did see her. Or else he couldn't know some of the things. But it felt like too simple an explanation."

Adler also stated that Nymphe had died in a car accident after he sexually assaulted her, which according to Nymphe's father cannot be true. This, because several people declared to have seen the child at a later time. Peter Poolman appeared in court and stated that there were witnesses who had seen Nymphe the day after she went missing. But that the Dutch police never gave any attention to this. Jacqueline confirms that someone trustworthy from the village had declared to have seen Nymphe walking on the road at a later time than when Adler confessed to having snatched her. Adler later withdrew his statement about the car accident. Problem is also that only Adler's statement is available as evidence; nothing else. No body, no forensic DNA traces or anything of the likes. There was also no car to inspect, in which Nymphe could have theoretically been transported, because Adler's own brown Mercedes car was so thoroughly cleaned by the time the police found it, that no trace could be found whatsoever. The saying "One witness = no witness" could be used here; normally judges prefer to base their sentencing on more than one single witness statement. But Adler had raped and assaulted more young victims in previous years and he also knew a detail about the hair clip which Nymphe wore on the day of her disappearance. But at the same time he gave a wrong description of the clothing she was wearing, including the wrong colour of the tights she wore.

Both parents did not believe that the case was solved and urged the police to do more investigation, especially into a bigger child pornography circuit of which Adler was a member in their belief. He is strengthened in his beliefs by a letter they received from the German, Georg Adler. In it he writes that he denies being involved and that he can refute everything that has been said about him. Another reason why father Peter suspects a bigger operation behind his daughter's disappearance, is because he says Eastern European people had talked to Nymphe and one of her sisters at the school yard of their school, prior to the disappearance, giving them sweets while the other kids in the yard did not. Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries started an initiative to raise money with the help of Dutch businessmen, so that a reward of 100.000 gilder (around 45.000 euro in these days, but worth more at the time) could be raised for the golden tip.De vries agreed with the parents that the Dutch police stopped their investigation much too soon and prematurely. The Dutch Public Prosecutor's office reacted as if stung by a bee and snarled at De vries that the search for missing persons is exclusively done by professionals and not by the un-schooled (aka: De vries).

 

Over the years, Poolman collected boxes full of papers and documents from the judiciary investigations. For fifteen years he kept investigating, where the police had long stopped their search. But last year he thought it was enough. "I burned it all, it's gone now." He still hopes that he will one day have more clarity about what exactly happened. But it gave him peace of mind to draw a line under it all and to 'move on with real life'. Jacqueline told in a later interview that it took her four years to accept that her daughter would never come back. The birth of her daughter Elaine at the time marked this realization. "Elaine also looked a lot like Nymphe. Very strange." Jacqueline still feels a connection with Nymphe: "It's hard to describe, but I have the feeling that she is still around us. That umbilical cord will never be broken and she is my child and will always remain my child. Although I do say by now that I have five children, and not six." The family also still has a little spot in the house with her photo. And sometimes when Jacqueline sees girls pass by of around Nymphe's age, she wonders what Nymphe herself would have been like by now. Jacqueline Poolman also wrote a book with diary entries, as well as a fairy tale, in which Nymphe plays an important role. With the story about two children who have adventures on the other side, she wants to convey to children that they do not have to be afraid of death.

Nymphe vs Kris and Lisanne

Can any comparison be made between this case and the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne? Seemingly not. But reading up on the decade long battle of Peter Poolman with the Dutch authorities, I had to think of the parents of Kris at times. Nymphe's father was called an idiot often in the national press, but he was sincerely convinced that the Dutch police stopped the investigation much too soon. He felt that they took Adler's confession too eagerly as fact, without investigating his statements and without researching the possibility of a larger network being behind it all. He believes Adler was made a scapegoat and that Nymphe died in the porn circuit. The fact that both of Nymphe's parents had a cool way of talking about the tragedy, combined with their statements about 'just feeling' that it wasn't the right conviction, caused a lot of criticism. Both parents felt they weren't taken serious by the Dutch police, officials or in some cases not even by the media. I don't know if their suspicions are correct or not. But reading how poor Peter drew a line under a 15 year long private investigation at some point, ending over a decade of court cases against the authorities, I had to think of Hans Kremers, who has said on more than one occasion how let down he feels by the shoddy investigation and approach Dutch authorities and how they treated him like a troublemaker. It must be very difficult to want justice for your daughter, but to run into concrete walls every turn you make.

 Dutch videos about the case: