A Dutch man has been jailed for 15 years for murdering his Irish wife at their home in the Netherlands.
Passing sentence on Arnold Viguurs (63) on Wednesday, the three-judge court in the city of s’Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) described the death last November of Martina O’Brien Viguurs (64) as “a shocking act of violence”. She was bludgeoned with a hammer and then strangled by her husband.
The court said a severe punishment was necessary because of “the immense pain, suffering and loss her death had caused to her eight children and 11 grandchildren”.
It said a kind, warm-hearted woman devoted to her family, and looking forward to moving back to Ireland to be near them, had died needlessly at the hands of a callous coward of a man whose only way out of telling her the truth about their severe financial problems was to plot and carry out her murder.
Ms O’Brien Viguurs, a former nurse and airline cabin crew member, was killed shortly before she believed she and her husband were going to catch a flight to Ireland to visit family and view houses for sale. They had recently sold their Dutch home.
Viguurs, a former estate agent, told his trial two weeks ago he killed her because he was desperate and afraid to admit they could not travel to Ireland because there was no money to pay for the tickets nor enough to buy a new home there.
He had lived a lie for years telling his wife, a native of Rathkeale, Co Limerick, they would have enough money to retire comfortably and move back to Ireland after selling their home in Den Bosch, a small city 100km south of Amsterdam.
Before killing her, he told her debts had eaten up their entire savings and there was nothing left for the air tickets or a house in Ireland. He claimed it was a spur of the moment action, but during questioning he admitted he had thought about ways of killing her the previous night as an escape from coming clean about their financial meltdown.
When he told her he planned to end his own life in 2014 because he was so desperate about money she begged him not to do so, saying she could not live without him.
He wrote a suicide letter two days before the killing, saying: “Tina I have always loved you. I am sorry I have made such a mess of our life. I hope you can forgive me. I can’t leave you behind in the trouble I’ve caused. I hope you find peace in heaven”.
He told the court he “realised that if I was to kill myself I had to take her with me”. After killing her, he went upstairs and put a noose around his neck but was unable to kill himself. Instead he called the emergency services.
Forensic evidence showed Ms O Brien Viguurs suffered injuries to her hands and elbows consistent with an attempt to defend herself. She died as a result of strangulation on November 9th last.
After killing her, Viguurs dragged her body into their living room where he placed a cushion under her head and pushed a set of rosary beads into her hands.