A report by the police surgeon that examined the body of the murdered Antwerp woman Britta Cloetens states that she did not die from a blow to the head. At his trial the man convicted of her murder, Tijl Teckmans, insisted that he had killed the 25-year-old from Wilrijk by slamming the boot of a car shut on her head. However, Public Prosecutor Björn Backx of the Antwerp Judicial Authorities has said in a VRT News podcast that the police surgeon’s postmortem report contradicts this version of events.
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Britta Cloetens didn’t die from a blow to the head
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On 23 April 2011, the then 25-year-old Britta Cloetens was seen for the last time on the Boomsesteenweg in the Antwerp district of Wilrijk. On that day she had visited a Honda dealership where Tijl Teckmans was working as a salesman. He had made sexual advances while showing her a car. As Britta Cloetens didn’t respond to his advances, he claims to have slammed the boot lid of the car down hard onto her head.
Tijl Teckmans said at his trial that Ms Cloetens didn’t survive the blow. He said that he then put her body in the car and then drove to the Ardennes where he dumped Britta Cloetens’ remains. However, he couldn’t (or didn’t want to) remember the exact location.
The Antwerp Federal Judicial Police and the Federal Police Missing Persons Unit made extensive efforts to find Britta Cloetens’ body. However, it was a man that was out hunting that eventually found her remains in a forest near Dinant (Namur Province) in December 2022.
Public Prosecutor Björn Backx of the Antwerp Judicial Authorities told VRT News that "We asked the police surgeon that had been appointed during the initial investigation to examine Britta's skull," He's certain that there was no impact, so Tijl Teckmans' story can't be proven."
In 2015 the Court of Assizes in Antwerp sentenced Tijl Teckmans to 30 years in prison for Britta Cloetens’ manslaughter.