A hologram of a sex worker who was murdered in Amsterdam more than a decade ago could help solve the cold case, investigators hope.
The sex worker, 19-year-old Bernadett Szabó, was born into poverty in the city of Nyíregyháza in northeastern Hungary. She did well in school and was an accomplished violin player but fled to Amsterdam in pursuit of a better life.
“An entirely different life awaits her in Amsterdam. Betty starts working as a sex worker in the red-light district,” Amsterdam Police said in a statement. “She has a striking appearance, with her friendly smile and a big tattoo of a dragon on her stomach and chest.”
Shortly after finding work, Szabó became pregnant. She continued to work throughout her pregnancy and her son was immediately placed with a foster family after his birth.
Szabó died on Feb. 20, 2009, just three months after the birth of her son. Her body was found with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood in a prostitute’s workroom on Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam’s red-light district.
“She had been brutally murdered. Alarmed by the unusual silence in her room, her fellow sex workers found her that night,” investigators said. “The case has still not been solved.”
Now, investigators have created a life-size hologram of Szabó that they hope will help trigger a lead in the investigation. The hologram sits on a stool in a window attempting to ask people who see it for help.
Benjamin van Gogh, the coordinator of the wanted and missing persons team in Amsterdam, told The Guardian that officials were cautious before creating the hologram and launching the highly public campaign to find her killer.
“Before deciding to use a hologram for the campaign, we brainstormed with different parties both within and outside the police on whether we should go ahead with this and how we should set it up,” he said. Her family purportedly signed off on the project.
Another investigator, Anne Dreijer-Heemskerk, noted that Szabó was killed at one of the busiest intersections in the Netherlands.
“It is really almost impossible that there are no people who saw or heard something unusual at the time. Or heard someone talk about the case, which doesn’t even have to have been in Amsterdam,” Dreijer-Heemskerk said. “After all, the red-light district gets visitors from all over the world.” (UPI)