He Killed His Wife, Then Wrote a Novel About It

The police had no idea about Richard Klinkhamer's gruesome crime—even when he wrote down the details and sent them to publishers.

Photos courtesy ANP/United Photos, Just Publishers and WikiCommons

It was February 3, 2000, a cold, windy afternoon in Finsterwolde, a small village in the northeast Netherlands. At 21 G. Gernaatweg, an excavation company was redoing the backyard to make space for the new homeowners’ young children to play.

The ramshackle shed had been torn down and the concrete floor beneath it demolished. All that was left were the layers of thick clay where the shed had stood.

About five feet in, a crew member spotted a piece of plastic dangling from the excavator’s bucket. As he pulled the plastic from the bucket’s teeth, it unraveled, spilling its contents to the ground.

It was a bone, yellowed, just under 10 inches long. Shaken, the worker peered into the hole and saw more bones. It was a skeleton, and it was human.