The New Year’s Murder and Bureau Dupin – a brief overview
On January 1st, 2013, a passerby walking his dog in the morning discovers a horrific sight: a dead body, right next to one of the houses on the Berghemseweg in the Dutch town of Oss. It quickly becomes apparent that she has become the victim of a crime. Nobody in the area seems to know who the dead woman is, and it takes a few days before she is identified as Marja Nijholt, a 48-year-old woman from the Dutch city of Enschede, who only arrived in Oss a day earlier. But why did she end up in Oss, over 100km (or a 2-hour train ride) away from her home? As the police investigates the timeline of this murder, they discover an intricate and curious case…
The murder of Marja Nijholt, also dubbed the “New Year’s Murder”, puzzled law enforcement and civilians alike. After 18 months, the investigation was dialed way back in 2014, until a civilian initiative formed in 2020 pooled their efforts to help the police solve the case. The civilian collective, called Bureau Dupin after Edgar Allan Poe’s detective character, has since been working together with law enforcement to find a breakthrough in the case. The Bureau, fronted by former cop and data science professor Peter de Kock, has since investigated thousands of phone calls, text messages and has produced a 6-part podcast discussing the mysterious murder of Marja Nijholt. Their work, most notably said podcast, has been a huge help in creating this write-up.
There already was a write-up on this case a few years ago, but seeing all the work Bureau Dupin has done, as well as the fact this is a fascinating case, I think another discussion about it is very much in place.
Knowing Marja Nijholt
Note: taken nearly in full from Bureau Dupin podcast
Marja grew up with a brother and a sister, but at a young age her parents divorced. The role of her biological mother Kristel was filled by her new stepmom, Gemma. Soon, another sister was born. Kristel describes young Marja as “very calm, sweet child. She needed a lot of love.” Kristel eventually came out as lesbian, however this only caused a rift between her and her former husband, causing her to have less contact with Marja and her siblings. Marja’s sister Ellen: “My father made sure [Kristel] would not see her children anymore. Soon enough, he found love in my new mother, but Marja saw her as an intruder of sorts”.
Stepmother Gemma talks about the first time she met little Marja: “The first t
... keep reading on reddit ➡"Marcus" from "Invest XD" alleged I'd signed up to something to find out about bitcoin. He didn't like thinking I was recording him and hung up immediately.
I've made a note of the number so I can log it with the TPS and ICO. Apparently the UK government has called on phone companies to put a stop to these calls but the scammers are merely buying up phone numbers from British based networks instead.
Edit: Thanks to those who've pointed out it's probably a spoof number. R/laibo shared the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing
For those recommending just not answering the phone, I was waiting for an Argos delivery and live in a block of flats. It's probably good advice in most situations.
Ok so I had this thought the other day… imagine both coordinator positions had to be run by students. High school offensive and defensive coordinators would be recruited just like any other athlete. I know this would never happen, but it’s fun to think about how it would play out.
Edit: just to clarify: 1) I’m not saying this is a good idea 2) they would have the same eligibility requirements as any other collegiate football player
I miss Lour callers
I miss Ron Magill callers
I miss limited fake impression callers
I miss songs for Michael Doleac and any other singing callers
I miss when the gang would get Dan so annoyed by forcing crap sports debates with callers
And I miss when Dan would tell people to call in about something and never actually talk to anyone and leave them on hold for hours....callers
This a short but creepy one for ya'll.
Due to the nature of the call centre I work in my first and last name are listed on what we do including my email signature.
I was the third person to speak to this caller today and managed to help resolve their issue after they were frustrated with the previous reps.
As a part of this I happened to have sent them an email. They then used my signature to track me down on social media, despite none of my details being public, and sent me a message thanking me a couple hours later.
When you have to preface your message with "hope you don't get weirded out" then you're going to weird me out....
Tldr: Caller messages me on social media after helping resolve her issue and throughly weirds me out.
For me, hands down it’s Ann Hodges!! Which episode though? I think The Ann Who Came to Dinner. Julia Sweeney is just too good and acts this part so well, I can’t take her! LOL
OMG! This caller claimed that he abstained from any sensory input (TV, phone, computer, etc.) for 27 days. Then, Jesus and angels appeared & he cried tears of bread. This proves God is real!
He now makes YouTube videos sharing his experience to help others find God. I have no words. Like, I'm literally speechless,
I think the guy needs to seek psychiatric help, not go to church or proselytize to others!
Why do religious people claim to have to have had this crazy experience that brought them to God? Like, do they think that helps their case? Because, if I was struggling with faith, listening to this guy say he cried tears of bread would just not get me there. It would actually push me further away due to how crazy that sounds.
I just do not understand religious people.
Mine are John Lithgow and John Cusack
Short back ground story:
I was working at a large BPO-IT service desk company for 4 years. During that 4 years we were a voice account, meaning we get calls to troubleshoot and as mush as possible to resolve the issue on the call, we can also remote in to the computer if need be. This happened before the pandemic of covid-19
Fortunately we only support employees of client company, so most of the caller are calm and collected. The company is considerate and also employs senior citizens and usually works at home, and depends on their role/job they will be using either personal or company provided computer.
Main Story:
Okay to add a little more info for the story, this is about being sent secure emails cause since the end user is not using a company computer and doesn't have yet a company email, they are being sent to her by secure email.
FYI if not familiar with secure email. if one is sent to you you will have to log in to their company's secure email site to view or read the email.
Now on with the call. right off the bat the caller is already an irate caller. I was trying to deescalate the call so that she can properly explain on what her is issue is and why is already irate. The issue here is that when she is trying to log in to the company's secure email site/page she keeps getting the message "Session Expired, please log out and back in to get/refresh session"
From the error I seem to know some causes of that but just to make sure I ask "how were you opening the site" and she answered me as if is should know the answer "where else from the computer". from the tone and how she answered I know this caller is stubborn and some time does trust IT support and seems making it hard on purpose. So I calm myself down and rephrase my question "I mean like how are you opening the site ? like is it saved on the computer or a link from an email" and still in a irritated tone "it saved in the computer"
From much probing from her. The issue is that she bookmarked the login session of the secure email and keeps using the link to view her received secure mails but (don't know if all company secure email sites does this) the login session last for like a few hours after that will say that's expired and you need to access the home page and either login again manually or reset your password.
I tried to explain to the caller the issue and how to fix the issue in a permanent way but she said shouting at me "I am not tech savvy, so i don't want to login and ent
... keep reading on reddit ➡Better half got a call from the “local police department”, who wanted to let him know his national insurance number had been compromised. To prevent this from happening, they needed to know his banking information IMMEDIATELY.
He thanked them for calling and (Unbeknownst to me), he told them has £102,963.42 pence in his bank account and he needed it protecting right now however they could. They were both very specific about the Pennies for some strange reason.
His name was Jonathan Michael Huntington Smyhth, which took at least 5 minutes to get right. Post code kept changing every time he repeated it, sometimes because he was super quiet for some of the characters, most of the time because it was made up.
I don’t know how but through a series of “i am so sorry, I didn’t quite hear you”s, a bunch of repeating the number back incorrectly (like he was Consuela from Family guy), and a few interruptions from me about who he was talking to, he kept them on for around 15 minutes. That may not sound like a lot but it’s 15 minutes they weren’t scamming everyone else.
Eventually when giving a phone number, he told the woman that he doesn’t use the number 7, and whenever he sees it, he uses the number 1 because 7 is not a real number. He then told her it was invented by the Greeks to confuse people.
Eventually the woman lost it with him and ended up hanging up.
A minute later, he gets another call and he’s ready to do it again, except this time it’s a guy with a thick Indian accent telling him to go F**k Himselves…
We don’t take pleasure in annoying these people, but letting them trick the elderly out of their savings is something we want to prevent.
He may be a yank, but it had elements of Monty Python. This is going down as a British success.
(Potential content warning, but no graphic details)
As a hotline advocate I worked 12-hour shifts, either 6pm-6am or 6am-6pm. I just had to have my phone nearby and a car readily accessible if I had to go to the hospital to sit with a survivor.
10 months into volunteering was the prank call. I had heard that people sometime did this but I didn’t realize it had happened to me til after the call ended and I called the shift supervisor. It happened during an overnight shift at maybe 11pm.
It was a man who said his step mom was sexually abusing him. Every time I tried to give him resources he gave more graphic details. I didn’t know it was a prank call so I couldn’t just hang up on a survivor who potentially really needed my help. The call went for 45 minutes and he made me more and more uncomfortable but wouldn’t stop when I tried to steer the conversation towards resources. He gave a fake name and call-back number and then when I called my supervisor to give her the information, she told me that was a repeat prank caller and I just cried. I felt violated by this creep who got off on forcing me to listen to graphic details of abuse (which I hope was fake). I was so angry that he tied up the hotline for 45 minutes for a fake story (only one hotline advocate is on call at a time) and I was upset that he had done this to other volunteers.
I quit not long after that due to the anxiety I felt every shift, going to sleep and thinking I might be woken up by a hotline call and it would be this creep again. I’m still upset that this guy took something I was passionate about (helping survivors) and made it into a nightmare for me.
December 1, 2021
Vancouver, BC: Stunned is the word being used by 9-1-1 call dispatchers who have been informed that, effective today, 9-1-1 Operators transferring calls to the ambulance service will no longer be waiting on the line with the caller until ambulance dispatchers pick up – a wait that can be many minutes long.
“This decision goes against everything we’ve been trained to do, and every common-sense approach to 9-1-1 service delivery,” says CUPE Local 8911 President Donald Grant. “Until now, our operators have never disconnected before voice contact is made, because our role is to ensure that critical information isn’t lost during the transfer.”
In its media release today, E-Comm said that the change will “free up” call-takers to handle more incoming emergency calls more quickly. But Grant says, this amounts to a stop gap measure when what is urgently required is an immediate infusion of funding support from local governments and development of a new funding model to avoid catastrophic failure. A recent report commissioned by E-Comm by Price Waterhouse Coopers concluded that the organization cannot be successful with an understaffed system, suggesting the current roster of 153 full-time call takers needs to increase by 125 to meet operational demands.
E-Comm further stated that the decision was necessary because 9-1-1 call-takers are not medically trained or authorized to give medical advice.
“This is not about being medically trained—it’s about being on the line and available to reassure callers in distress. We’re talking about human beings experiencing real emergencies, and to abandon them during their time of need is simply unacceptable,” says Grant. “You can imagine the worst-case scenario that can happen while waiting alone on the phone in your time of need.”
Since the inception of the 9-1-1 service in British Columbia and other regions of Canada, protocol has dictated that the dispatcher stays on the line until a service-specific dispatcher is picked up, in this case ambulance. Today’s decision means that British Columbians seeking ambulance assistance will wait in a hold queue. Until ambulance dispatch picks up the call, there will be no one on the line but an automated voice—a wait that, due to severe understaffing, has been more than 20 minutes in some cases.
Dispatchers point out that circumstances during calls change very quickly, making it imperative that operators stay on the line with callers until the ambulance
... keep reading on reddit ➡Everything turned out okay, it was B9.
Someone called into the Hour 3 block of BMitch & Finlay claiming to have sources that the general contractor hired by the Raiders for the Vegas stadium is in advanced talks with Washington FT with planning around the RFK Stadium site.
Another caller backed this and said his company does urban development fiber distribution (did Baltimore's stadium) and said their current proposal work includes an outdoor mall, hotel, and stadium at the RFK site.
)