Jolanda talked with the boy who killed her son: ‘I wanted answers’

In 2021, Jolanda’s son Perry (21) was killed when his then 17-year-old friend Damian stabbed him in a parking lot. “For a long time, I had no idea what had gotten into him. Only once I got in contact with him, I got answers and peace,” Jolanda says, who talked with Damian and later also his parents.

One evening in August 2021, Jolanda’s son Perry was celebrating his birthday. He was going to turn 22 later that week. He never made it to that age. The morning after his party, Jolanda saw emergency services passing by on her way to work, not knowing that they were coming for her son. 

When she arrived at work, the community police officer called her. “He told me to come home as soon as possible. Something had happened to my eldest son. ‘Is it bad?’ I asked. ‘Yes’. ‘Bad, as in there’s nothing we can do about it?’. ‘Yes’. Only once I entered our street I realized how serious it was. The whole street was full of police, my house was full of people.”

A post had already been made on Facebook, about how a 21-year-old boy was found dead inside a car. The perpetrator was revealed to be a friend of Perry, that regularly visited Jolanda’s house. “You immediately ask yourself; what did my son do to make him lose his temper? But I also know that this boy was being threatened because of something that had happened before.”
 

Why did Perry have to die?

Why did Perry have to die? That was the question Jolanda was left with after the fatal stabbing in 2021. Even in the following trial, there was no answer to the ‘why-question’. “During the trial, Damian said that he would want to explain it to the parents one day. But I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for that,” Jolanda says. “I had already gone through my son’s phone, hoping to find something that could explain his death. The perpetrator also gave me no answer.”

During the time following Perry’s death, Jolanda received support from a case manager of Victim Support Netherlands. The case manager told her about Perspectief Herstelbemiddeling. “I dialed that number soon after our appointment,” Jolanda recounts. She ended up with mediator Silvia, and an appointment was made with Jolanda and her case manager. After that, Silvia took Jolanda’s request for contact to the perpetrator, who was in a youth prison. He was terrified, but was willing to talk. 

What was Jolanda hoping for? “Answers. Why? What was the reason that you had to stab him so many times? I also hoped to see a human face. I was looking for peace after what happened. And I was hoping that he would come out of prison better than how he went in.”
 

‘It didn’t have to happen’

On the day of the meeting, the perpetrator, Damian, was afraid to come out of his cell. But eventually, he came. He was very emotional. “That was good for me. I wanted to see that it affected him. The conversation went very naturally. I told him that I hoped he would make something of his life. I said I hoped he would forgive himself, because you can’t move on if you don’t. And he has the future and I hope he will do his best. Because then this didn’t all happen for nothing. Afterwards I heard that this had given him a nudge in the right direction.”

“I understand Damian now,” Jolanda explains. She knows that those four words may sound very strange, but for her there is a deep meaning behind them. “I now know why he did it and that my son is not to blame. That gives me peace.”

“During the meeting he shook my hand and looked at me. ‘It didn’t have to happen,’ he immediately said. And I got the answers to my questions,” Jolanda recounts about the conversation she had with Damian in the youth prison. 
 

‘Permission to live on’

After the conversation between Jolanda and Damian, his parents also wanted to talk with Jolanda. “At first, I put a lot of blame on the parents. I thought his upbringing was the problem.”

The moment that Jolanda heard that her son had been killed, Dave saw his son in the back of a police car. “I can’t explain what went through my head in that moment,” Dave says. Minutes earlier, when he had seen the police car pull up, he had been convinced that his son Damian had become the victim of a crime. “And then your son turns out to be responsible for the death of someone else. That is an enormous slap in your face.”

“It places an enormous demand on your parenting skills,” Dave recounts about the time following the stabbing. “All emotions come to the surface. But I told him immediately: ‘I am here for you’. I do not approve of the crime, rather the opposite. But I also know that he is a good guy.”

Dave and his wife talked with Jolanda through Perspectief Herstelbemiddeling. “I wanted to say so much at once, that I started rambling. Then my wife spoke the magic words: ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ It shows how much you have to deal with,” Dave says. 

“At first I thought: I am going to tell those parents how it is. Why did you raise your son this way?” Jolanda recounts about the meeting. But that changed quickly. “In the end, you are both the victim of the same crime and you both got a life sentence. That’s just how it is.”
 

More similarities than differences

“Over the years, you reach a ceiling in your journey of recovery. In some way, you are looking for permission to move on with your life, even if you haven’t realized it yet. And who better to give that permission than the surviving relatives, in this case Jolanda?” Dave says. 

Both Jolanda and Dave and his wife discover that they have much in common. “We basically lost our entire social networks. People that thought you were a cool guy, who now hide in the supermarket isle to not have to look you in the eye. And people who still give a friendly wave, but crush you on social media,” Dave says. 

“In the beginning there was a lot of attention and a silent march. But after that you’re being avoided. That feels very lonely. People ignore you and don’t want to talk about Perry with you. Even thought I really need to keep talking about him,” Jolanda says. 

And both parents noticed the same impact in their other children. “That’s the worst thing for me, that even the friends of your kids fail to show up,” Dave says. “The same goes for the friends of my youngest son,” Jolanda nods. 
 

‘Make something of your life’

Jolanda regularly sends postcards and visits Damian in the prison every now and then. “He’s not a bad guy, really. I want him to make something of his life, then at least this wasn’t all for nothing.”

“Damian is doing well,” Dave says. “He’s following a PIJ-treatment (youth forensic psychiatric treatment) and is cooperating well. But of course, a prison is not a good environment for him. Luckily he’s staying out of trouble. After his incarceration he’s coming to live with us again. We will make sure that everything is taken care of for him.”

Still, Dave would have preferred his son to have received help earlier, instead of afterwards. “The year before his crime we were raising alarms and knocking on doors, but we got no response. Not from a psychologist, not from youth care. Rejection after rejection.” Jolanda also thinks a lot more should have been done earlier on. “If Damian had been helped, my son would still be here.”

Jolanda gives lectures for Perspectief Herstelbemiddeling. Dave advocates for the needs of relatives of convicts in prison, through Stichting SANG.

Listen to the conversation between Dave and Jolanda (in Dutch) in the podcast ‘Ik heb levenslang’.

This article was published in collaboration with Tom Veldhuijzen and was also published on the Pointer website.