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Talk:Killing of Nicole van den Hurk

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English source

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Parking a tag from an English-language source which covers the case, which may be useful for sourcing the most recent events in the case.

http://nltimes.nl/tags/nicole-van-den-hurk

Linguist111 15:21, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How was she killed, and another question

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In the course of categorizing the Nicole van den Hurk redirect, I realized the article does not describe how, exactly, she was killed. I checked the sources, and none of them go into specifics, either.

I presume then that this is some common practice, or regulation, in the Netherlands, that either the media withhold that information from publication in a case like this or they are not allowed to publish it?

Also ...

One of the grafs on the search talks about the reward being increased from "25,000 guilders to €15,000". I thought the Netherlands had stopped using guilders when it switched over to the euro along with so many other countries back in '02, as our article says ... is this a mistake or is there some nuance I'm missing?

I also want to know for certain: de G. seems to have been found not guilty of the killing, but guilty of rape. OK? But was this just because he was also found to be insane (and how is it that insanity didn't get him acquitted of the rape? Not questioning it, just wondering if the relevant Dutch law could be explained) or because he denies any culpability in the homicide? I see it's categorized as an unsolved murder; clarifying this would help because if we know who did it, then it's not unsolved even if the killer gets off on insanity. Daniel Case (talk) 04:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Daniel Case, thanks for taking some time to look at the article.
I'd like to start by saying that writing this article was quite difficult, mainly because almost all (if not all) of the in-depth sources are in Dutch – which, reading-wise, I currently understand on a casual level but nowhere near fluently. However, I do understand a lot of words commonly used in cases like this (verdween, verkracht, vermoord, zaak, lichaam, veroordeeld etc.) and I am pretty confident that I've got at least 90% of the writing right. Still, I may have translated some material poorly.
Now to answer your first question, I've just looked and found a source from NU.nl from 2014 which said that the cause of death has not been confirmed and may never be, and the Openbaar Ministerie identified two possibilities – she was stabbed, or beaten around the head with a blunt instrument. We could use this info in the article (link). I think I read somewhere that certain information about murder cases in the Netherlands (i.e. full names of suspects) is customarily not released to the public. Another example of this is the murder of Marianne Vaatstra.
I'm not too sure about the guilders. I took it from the citations I used for that statement and might have translated it poorly. Otherwise I'm not sure what's going on with that.
Yes, it is correct that De G. was found innocent of manslaughter but found guilty of rape. Now, the article's coverage of the trial is probably it's weakest point at the moment, because I haven't gotten round to writing about it in detail. When I first created the article ([1]), I'd copied it from the article from the Dutch Wikipedia, which admittedly would benefit from a substantial amount of improvement in terms of detail and sourcing if it were on the English Wikipedia. This English news article talks about how the DNA taken from the body after it was exhumed in 2011 did not help to solve the case, and that at the end of 2012 the Netherlands Forensic Institute linked the crime to De G. using evidence taken from the crime scene. I wanted to write about this in-depth for a better flow in the Wikipedia article without paraphrasing, but couldn't find any more sources. Looking at this archived dossier from Eindhovens Dagblad, articles from around that time wrote about a Derek Ogilvie episode about the case, which I wasn't sure I should include in the article, at least not in the same section as the other info, because I doubted its relevance to the case and whether or not it would lend undue weight. I think I probably need to go over this part again. I was also a bit unsure about categorising the case as an "unsolved murder", because the murder charge was completed dropped and technically a death can't be considered a murder unless a court rules that it is (hence why I opted to name the article "Death of Nicole van den Hurk" instead of "Murder of Nicole van den Hurk"). Linguist111 08:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Linguist111: Since she was definitely killed by someone, I would have used "Nicole van den Hurk homicide" (see Henryk Siwiak homicide, where I did this in a case where no one has been arrested), but I guess this is OK for now.

Yes, I looked at the Dutch article too and it seemed like we have the stronger article. Keep digging.

Don't worry about the category ... I think it will take a CfD to change that and all its subcategories to "unsolved homicides" or "unsolved killings", and I'm not ready to start that since there is still plenty of resistance to this out there even with article titles (I can't remember ... were you involved in the later renaming discussion?)

As for the guilder-euro thing, I only just realized that the original reward was offered before the euro, so duh. But it seems like the idea was that when redenominating the amount in euros, they took the time to increase the reward as well (IIRC, from the one time I've been to the Netherlands (in summer 1988) there were about two guilders to a dollar, and since a euro is worth more than a dollar going from Fl25,000 to €15,000 slightly increased the amount. Daniel Case (talk) 15:52, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Daniel, just wanted to let you know I'm busy expanding the trial part with more info and will reply to you properly when I'm finished. Thanks! Linguist111 16:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case: I've now finished adding in all the most important parts of the case, and I'm now certain I've secured it's compliance with the B-class criteria. I think I should perhaps add some references from different sources to the trial section as most of them are from the NL Times (still, many of those references cite reports from other sources) and expand the article with more info from other references, but I can do this later.
I wasn't involved in the Seth Rich discussion (as far as I can remember), but I have in the past been involved in "Death/Murder of" discussions and moves (see e.g. here and here). I decided upon "Death of NvdH" as the title as I didn't think "Murder of NvdH" would be appropriate, given A) that nobody was convicted of murder, B) the murder charge was dropped altogether and C) nobody was convicted of the killing at all. I did consider another option ("Killing of NvdH", similar to Killing of Jo Cox, the pre-conviction title of Murder of Jo Cox), but I decided "Death of NvdH" was a better option because if I'm not mistaken, "Death of..." is a more commonly used title, and per point C) that I mentioned above. Still, it's pretty clear this was a homicide, and right now I wouldn't oppose a move to the title you said (still, it's better to use RM to get more opinions and a consensus as this could be considered a controversial move). Linguist111 15:46, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DNA tests in 1981?

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The article currently says her father was determined in 1981 through a DNA test. It was possible to test with reasonable probability the father of a child from a blood sample in 1981, but I don't believe that had anything to do with DNA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oz1sej (talk • contribs) 21:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the DNA part. I looked at the source again and it didn't specifically mention DNA. Thanks for pointing this out. Linguist111 21:41, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Names and copy-editing

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I was going to give the article a copyedit, but first I want to settle how to refer to certain people. Per MOS:SAMESURNAME I suggest we refer to "Nicole van den Hurk" first, then "Nicole" after that; and "Andy van den Hurk" on first use, then "Andy" after that. OK? EEng 23:38, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it. Linguist111 00:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Can we make up our mind, please? [2] I think the Hillary Clinton article is a hard case with no ideal solution. But here it's natural to refer to this 15-yo girl by her first name, plus it's much less awkward than saying "Van den Hurk" over and over and over and over. EEng 15:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not too sure here. I originally said you should do it because you cited a MoS and also per WP:BOLD, but I don't exactly see why someone's age alone means we don't follow the general naming MoS. I do agree with you that it is a bit awkward using multi-word surnames over and over, though. Perhaps we need a third opinion here. Linguist111 16:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Age was a minor consideration (if the pun may be excused). I think the overriding consideration is that it's confusing to refer to the same person two different ways. As I said, in the Clinton article that may be unavoidable, but here the solution's easy: just refer to Nicole and Andy. EEng 16:46, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Regarding the edit summary about the use of the same citation for every sentence in a paragraph, the last paragraph of WP:REPCITE explains this. I though perhaps if I only used a citation at the end of a paragraph, casual readers trying to maintain the article might think that all the other sentences in the paragraph are unreferenced and mistakenly add {{cn}} tags to them. It doesn't really matter either way, though. Linguist111 16:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you mean re the names, but I think you're jumping the gun -- better to see first if others already interested comment sua sponte. It's not a big deal, but don't you agree it's confusing to refer to Nicole two different ways? EEng 19:59, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(Yes, the names). It doesn't really confuse me, but maybe that's cause I created the article. Still, since she is the central person of the article, I would think readers would know, in sections in which family members with the same surname are not mentioned or little-mentioned (e.g. Disappearance and search), that it's her who's being talked about regardless of which name is used. In individual statements and paragraphs which concern multiple family members, use of first names will of course provide clarity (and avoid the "Van den Hurk and Van den Hurk" problem). Given that the first section (Background) uses the first name entirely, perhaps it might be better to use the full name in the first mention in the next section for a better flow (and in the first mention in the section that follows the other first-name-using section; like this)? Linguist111 20:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Response to third opinion request :
My opinion is that in most instances, the article should use given names rather than family names. The article mentions at least 6 people who would reasonably have the same surname: Nicole, Andy, Ad, Angelika, Jolanda and Tommy. It just gets confusing if we start using the surname. It’s not a problem with the length of the name, just the difficulty of understanding who the subject of the sentence is. I also suggested refreshing the details if the name hasn’t been used for a few praragraphs. For example “By 2011, Andy van den Hurk had moved to Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England.” is much more readable as “By 2011, Nicole’s stepbrother Andy van den Hurk had moved to…”

Going beyond the 3O requested, I am finding the article generally heavy going. Most of this is because of the use of sentences that deviate from the normal English subject-verb-object structure. This is especially true of compound sentences. For example “The following day, Jolande van der Graaf of De Telegraaf published an interview with the witness and another person, in which said they said they heard De G. say he strangled a girl while the three were patients in Veldzicht mental institution in the mid-2000s.” The sentence runs: Subject (day), subject (Jolande van der Graaf), subject (De Telegraaf), verb (published) object (interview) subject (witness) subject (another person) subject (they) verb (said) subject (they) verb (heard) subject (De G) verb (say) subject (he) verb (strangled) object (girl) subject (the three). I have read this sentence multiple times and even now I am not sure if Jolande is the one saying this, or the witness, or the other person. Or if the witness sf saying they heard De G say he strangled a girl, or if they claimed that De G accused them of strangling the girl. Or if De G strangled the girl while the three were patients at the hospital, or if he just spoke about a past event at that time.

It would be much clearer to not use a compound sentence. “The following day, Jolande van der Graaf of De Telegraaf published an interview with the witness and another person. In the interview, the two claimed that they were in the Veldzicht mental institution with De G in the mid-2000s. They claimed that during that time together they heard De G. say he had strangled a girl.

Similarly:

“After being closed in 1996, the case was re-opened in March 2011 after Van den Hurk's stepbrother confessed to killing her.” I had to read that sentence 3 times to make sense of it. The subject of the sentence is technically the case, but that isn’t mentioned until after the verb, closed. That is then followed by a second clause that forms the object, which itself takes a form of subject (brother), verb (confessed), verb (killing), object (her). IMO it would be much clearer if the compound sentence was avoided altogether: “The case was closed in 1996. In 2011 Van den Hurk's stepbrother confessed to the killing, leading to the case being re-opened.”


As a native English speaker, I am also getting confused by the inclusion of apparently irrelevant information interspersed with Dutch terms. For example “a platoon of policemen from the Mobiele Eenheid (nl) searched for clues in the Eckart forest near the water treatment plant and from a police plane”. Is it really relevant which unit the police were from? And do we have to spell out that they were searching for clues? Can’t we just say “Police searched the forest adjacent to the water treatment plant”? If the police unit is relevant, then we probably should give enough information that an English speaker can understand what it means: “A platoon of policemen from the riot control unit (Mobiele Eenheid)”. There’s no point including information that most readers won’t understand.

Other examples:

“Van den Hurk's rucksack was found in the berm between Eindhoven's DAF-complex and the Kanaaldijk-Zuid”. As an English speaker, all I get from that sentence is that a rucksack was found somewhere near Eindhoven. I have no idea what a DAF-complex is or what a Kanaaldijk-Zuid is. To me a berm is mound of earth, and I am confused about how a rucksak could get inside of one. Please remember, this is English Wikipedia and should be accessible to someone who only reads English.

“he told Omroep Brabant that he believed.” Who is Omroep Brabant? I know there’s a link, but they are supposed to be for deeper information, not context. So “he told the newspaper Omroep Brabant that he believed…” is much preferred.


I know this has gone way beyond the original 3O request, but I think that while the article is confusing, it’s not primarily because of the way that names are used. If I have some spare time I may have a go at cleaning up this article. It’s actually a good article as far as information goes, but the writing style lets it down. 1.124.106.26 (talk) 07:49, 18 August 2017 (UTC) 1.124.106.26 (talk) 07:49, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. I've performed copy-edits with the versions you used. Still I don't see how the use of surnames is confusing. In each sentence where multiple family members with the same surname are mentioned, first names are used. They're also used in paragraphs which largely concern multiple family members. For paragraphs which immediately follow the first-name-using paragraphs, but only concern one family member, the full name is used for clarity in the first mention, so readers should not have a problem identifying who the paragraph is written about. The only person with the surname "Van den Hurk" who is referred to by just their last name in any instance is the victim. It should be clear from the title of the article, the lead and the first mention of the paragraphs that concern only (or mostly) her, that it is her that is depicted. I don't see how it is any more confusing than Hillary Clinton's article, and it is more compliant with MoS than the use of the first name. Linguist111 11:55, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think this idea of treating each paragraph as a new isolated situation for name usage creates a very, very confusing presentation for our readers. I agree with the OP that given names should be used primarily – what I proposed in the first place.
I also agree that the article is very much in need of a good copyedit, and that's what I was planning to do until we ran into this problem. EEng 17:40, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not seeing it. I don't understand how users would not be able to comprehend the article. The use of first name is largely considered unencyclopedic by the community. As far as copy editing goes, what else do you intend to copy edit? Linguist111 18:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What's confusing is the usage you yourself described above: In each sentence where multiple family members with the same surname are mentioned, first names are used. They're also used in paragraphs which largely concern multiple family members. For paragraphs which immediately follow the first-name-using paragraphs... – a jumble of shifting modes of reference for the same person or people depending on who else is mentioned in the same sentence, or same paragraph, or something, with possibly different modes of reference for the same person in the next paragraph or even the next sentence.
Everyone knows that MOS calls for people to be referred to by surname in general, but what people forget is that MOS also, at the top of each of its pages, calls itself a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Here, where we're talking about several members of the same family, common sense dictates that we refer to these people by given name, in general, with full name on first use (and maybe again where someone hasn't been mentioned in a while). Our overriding concern should be what makes things easiest for the reader, not slavish adherence to some rule (and MOS:SURNAME makes it clear MOS contemplates flexibility in this particular area).
I intend to copyedit the entire article. The IP has done a good job of exemplifying what's needed, and see WP:ASTONISHME. EEng 19:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've done copy editing per the IP's opinion (see here). I think what you should do is perform your intended copy edit without changing the naming structure and then when you've finished I can go over it and see if the naming structure or anything else needs changing then. Linguist111 04:57, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You asked for a 3O and you got it: given names should be used. Can you not just accept that? EEng 11:22, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm fine with first names. Linguist111 11:26, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've condensed and copy-edited the article (using first names), removing irrelevant and excessive info that is not germane to the topic. Linguist111 12:56, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you'll agree the article's far more readable now. EEng 18:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks very much for your help. I only realised after looking at it again (before the major revamp) how rubbish my writing was. It's much better now thanks to you. Linguist111 20:42, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your writing's as good as anyone else's, but no one's work is at its best until fresh eyes come along to take a machete to it. In the words of the great Sydney Smith, "In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigour it will give your style." EEng 21:17, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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