The lying Dutchman: how a crime writer confessed to his wife's murder

After his wife went missing, Richard Klinkhamer wrote a book on seven ways to kill your spouse. Then it turned out he really had

• Will Woodward - The Guardian, Friday 18 February 2000

Richard Klinkhamer in 1991. Photograph: Karel Zwaneveld/ANP

A year after his wife disappeared without trace in 1991, Richard Klinkhamer, a Dutch crime writer, visited his publisher. He had with him a manuscript which, under the circumstances, seemed a little macabre. Not to mention highly suspicious.
The novel, Woensdag Gehaktdag (a Dutch saying which translates as Wednesday, Mince Day), was a grisly, detailed exploration of seven ways in which Klinkhamer could conceivably have killed his wife, Hannelore. In one of the scenarios set out in the book, he disposes of her body by pushing her flesh through a mincer and feeding it to the pigeons.

When Hannelore Klinkhamer, known as Hanny, went missing from the marital home in the Groningen province in the north-east of the Netherlands nine years ago, her husband was the prime suspect. However, police inquiries were fruitless.

(left -Hannelore Klinkhamer. Photograph: Arnold Leenart)

The police questioned Klinkhamer at his home, one of a tiny cluster of houses near the hamlet of Ganzedijk. He denied killing her. They put him in a cell. He denied it again. They searched the house. They searched the garden. Nothing was found. Sniffer dogs searched the garden; the police dug up the garden. A Royal Dutch airforce F-16 flew over the garden with infra-red scanners. Nothing was found.
However strong the authorities' suspicions, there could not be a murder inquiry without a body. 
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