The hologram of a younger prostitute haunts the crimson gentle district of Amsterdam.
Dressed in pale denim hotpants, a leopard-print bra, with a tattoo snaking throughout her abdomen and chest, the computer-generated 3D picture stretches and seems to faucet on the window for consideration.
He leans ahead, breathes on the glass and writes the phrase “assist.”
The hologram is designed to characterize Bernadette “Betty” Szabo, a 19-year-old Hungarian lady who was murdered a number of months after giving delivery in 2009.
His deadly stabbing has baffled police for 15 years. Dutch investigators are utilizing this modern expertise for the primary time in an try to unravel the case.
The picture of the murdered teenager is projected from behind a window, alongside lots of of younger girls who proceed to make a residing on this notoriously dangerous trade.
Investigators hope the lifelike hologram will assist jog recollections and draw consideration to the unsolved homicide.
So far, Betty’s killer has evaded justice, and Detective Anne Dreijer-Heemskerk is set to alter that: “A younger lady, solely 19 years previous, taken from life in such a horrific means.”
Szabo had a troublesome life and his story was one in every of hardship and resilience, in keeping with the detective.
She had moved to Amsterdam on the age of 18 and have become pregnant shortly after. She continued to work all through her being pregnant, returning to work shortly after the delivery of her son.
It was the early hours of February 19, 2009, when two prostitutes went to test on the teenage mom throughout a break between purchasers, as a result of they seen that her regular music wasn’t taking part in.
When they entered her brothel, a small room with a mattress lined in plastic, a conceit desk and a sink, they found Betty Szabo’s physique.
She was murdered three months after giving delivery, the sufferer of a ferocious knife assault.
Her child was positioned in foster care and he or she by no means knew her mom, a indisputable fact that motivates investigators.
Although police instantly launched a homicide investigation, her killer was by no means discovered. They considered CCTV footage and interviewed potential witnesses.
Most of the individuals gazing on the scantily clad girls behind the crimson neon home windows are vacationers. The police suspect that the perpetrator was from overseas.
They at the moment are urging individuals who might have visited Amsterdam to suppose once more, with a €30,000 reward to encourage witnesses to come back ahead.
As Amsterdam grapples with controversial plans to relocate its well-known brothels to an “erotic zone” exterior town, Betty Szabo’s hologram presents a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of intercourse staff in an space that, regardless of a sequence of measures security, stays harmful.
Sex staff have expressed concern that eradicating girls who promote intercourse from public view might expose them to even higher hazard.
The indisputable fact that such a violent crime might have occurred in one of many Netherlands’ busiest nightclubs with out witnesses coming ahead continues to baffle investigators.
In the historic crimson gentle district the place she as soon as lived and labored, the teenage prostitute’s digital presence reminds passersby that her case has but to be solved.
