Public Prosecution Service reopens investigation into the death of Cas Steenbergen (23) from De Schiphorst

In association with

RTV Drenthe

NOS News•today, 12:45

The Public Prosecution Service has reopened the investigation into the death of Cas Steenbergen (23). The man from De Schiphorst, not far from Meppel, died last July not long after returning home from an event. Until now, the police had assumed it was a fatal accident, but now there is new information.

The new research may show that there is a different cause of death, reports RTV Drenthe.

Cas Steenbergen attended a party at a horse competition in Veeningen last July, a village a few kilometers from his hometown. When he came home on the night of July 16 to 17, he informed his mother that it had not been a nice evening and that he would explain why not the next morning. But the next day his mother finds him unconscious in bed, in a pool of blood with numerous injuries. He died a month later.

The police investigated the matter, but concluded that there was probably an accident on the way between the party site and Steenbergen’s house in De Schiphorst.

From the start, Steenbergen’s parents doubted that reading. “He had injuries on all sides of his face, a broken rib, broken knuckles and knees. It continues to amaze us that you come from a festival, as the police say, so battered,” father Luuk Steenbergen told RTV Drenthe last summer.

Friends of the man made a timeline after his death, in which they also viewed camera images of the competition site. Those images are not complete, but they did confirm the parents’ suspicion that there was more going on. “You see Cas leave the site. Then a man walks behind him, another lady pulls on this man’s shirt. Then she falls and bystanders take care of her,” the parents said. “Later you see Cas disappear behind the party tent on the camera images, the man follows him. But that’s where the camera images actually end and we don’t see what happens next.”

And now there is new information. “The new facts are part of the investigation and are reason to reopen the investigation and ultimately reconstruct what happened to Cas as best as possible,” said a police spokesperson. “With the new investigation we are trying to rule out that it was a fatal accident and to find out what led to the serious injuries with which Cas came home.”

The police do not want to say what new information this concerns. “We try to conduct the research in as much peace and quiet as possible. Also for the parents. Reopening also has a major impact on them.”

Steenbergen’s parents say in a short response that they are happy that the investigation has been reopened.