A former member of the Dutch Hell's Angels who befriended a young Northern Ireland woman in Amsterdam took her back to his apartment, stabbed her to death and disposed of her body in a macabre way, a murder trial was told here yesterday.
Joanne Wilson, Ormonde Street, Portadown, was 22 when she disappeared without trace in September 1985 after meeting a Dutch man later identified by her friends as a convicted sex offender, Louis Hagamann (47).
Ms Wilson's boyfriend at the time, Mr Stephen Hampton, shared a flat with her in the Dutch capital in 1985, he told the court.
He had refused at first to believe that Hagamann had had anything to do with her disappearance, looking on him at the time as a friend whom he met during his work as a barman.
Some weeks after her disappearance, a female torso and left leg hidden in plastic bags were found in a canal in an Amsterdam suburb.
The dead woman's head and other limbs were never found, and the Dutch police investigation was held up due to difficulties in identifying the body.
Eventually the torso and leg were linked with Ms Wilson through body hair found in her flat and the imprint of a sandal.
Last year Hagamann was arrested and charged with the murder of Ms Wilson and also that of a former girlfriend, Corina Bolhaar, and her two young children in 1984.
Yesterday Hagamann denied the four murder charges and dismissed the allegations as "rumours and gossip by spiteful ex-girlfriends" .
The case is continuing, and a verdict in not expected until some time next month.