Dutch policeA hologram of a young prostitute haunts Amsterdam’s red light district.
Wearing faded denim pants and a leopard-print bra, with tattoos running across her stomach and across her chest, the 3D computer-generated image reaches out and taps on the window to attract attention.
She leaned forward, breathed into the glass and wrote the word “help”.
The hologram was designed to represent Bernadette “Betty” Szabo, a 19-year-old woman from Hungary who was murdered months after giving birth in 2009.
Her fatal stabbing baffled police for 15 years. Dutch cold case detectives used cutting-edge technology for the first time in an attempt to solve the case.
Images of the murdered teenager are being shown from behind a window, along with hundreds of young women who continue to make a living in this notoriously risky industry.
Investigators hope the lifelike hologram will help jog memories and draw attention to the unsolved murder.
To this day, Betty’s killer still eludes justice and cold case detective Anne Dreijer-Heemskerk is determined to change that: “A young woman, just 19 years old, had her life taken from her in a brutal way. So terrible.”
According to the detective, Szabo had a difficult life and her story is one of hardship and resilience.
She moved to Amsterdam when she was 18 and became pregnant soon after. She continued to work throughout her pregnancy and returned to work shortly after her son was born.
It was the early morning hours of February 19, 2009, when two prostitutes came to check on the teenage mother during a break between clients because they realized her usual music was not playing.
When they entered her brothel, a small room with a plastic-covered bed, dressing table, and sink, they discovered Betty Szabo’s body.
She was murdered three months after giving birth, the victim of a brutal knife attack.
Her child was placed in foster care and never got to know his mother — a fact that motivated detectives.
Although police immediately opened a murder investigation, her killer was never found. They went through CCTV footage and questioned potential witnesses.
Most of the people eyeing the scantily clad women behind the red neon windows are tourists. Police suspect the culprit is from abroad.
Now they are urging people who may have visited Amsterdam to think again, with a reward of 30,000 euros to encourage witnesses to come forward.
As Amsterdam grapples with controversial plans to relocate its famous brothels to an out-of-town “porn zone,” Betty Szabo’s hologram offers a poignant reminder of vulnerability The vulnerability of prostitutes in an area that, despite many security measures, remains dangerous. .
Sex workers have voiced concerns that removing sex workers from public view could put them in greater danger.
That such a violent crime could have occurred in one of the Netherlands’ busiest venues without any witnesses coming forward continues to perplex investigators.
In the historic red light district where she once lived and worked, the teenage sex worker’s digital presence reminded passersby that her case remained unsolved.
