Diminished Responsibility Verdict in Bizarre Wok Murder
A bizarre trial in the Netherlands ended when a judge sentenced the defendant (identified by the press only as L.L.G) to compulsory psychiatric treatment for the October 2006 murder of his roommate, Joost Vastenhouw. In a confession made while being held in the Pieter Baan psychiatric centre, L.L.G. admitted to killing Vastenhouw, a 22-year old resident of the West Netherland town of Alphen aan Rijn, and subsequently chopping the body into pieces. He then wokked, fried and baked parts of the body before disposing of the remains in a garbage dumpster and nearby canals. When asked why he committed the murder, the defendant allegedly stated that he had done it for "spiritual reasons" and to "square a debt from the victim's previous life".
L.L.G., a 30-year old immigrant from China, had been romantically involved with the victim's father at one point but denied any personal animosity towards the victim. He described himself as a Falun Gong practitioner although clinicians at the Pieter Baan centre described him as "schizophrenic and paranoid". While declaring him to be in a diminished state of responsibility, the court condemned the gruesome way in which the man treated the dead body. "It has caused trauma particularly to the victim's sister and father. It also shocked society deeply."
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