Cold Case: The Unsolved Disappearance in Zeeland of Herman Ploegstra

In this episode of The Lowest Crime, we examine the cold case of Herman Ploegstra, who disappeared after a routine workout. His abandoned car held puzzling clues, and even with modern forensic techniques, the mystery remains unsolved. We talk though the investigation, the evidence, and the unanswered questions in one of Zeeland’s most haunting cold cases.

If you want to support The Lowest Crime and get early access to episodes, occasional bonus content, and behind-the-scenes updates, you can find my Patreon at patreon.com/thelowestcrime.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hi and welcome to The Lowest Crime.
Sorry it's been a little bit butlife got the better of me for a
while. But here we are back with a new
episode. Also a quick note, The Lowest
Crime now has a Patreon if you would like early access to new
episodes, give your input about future cases and get a few
behind the scenes as well as supporting me as a creator.

(00:22):
You can find the link in the show notes.
The next episode about the peanut butter murder is already
available there. Now let's get back to the
episode. Today we explore one of Ceylon's
most haunting mysteries, a disappearance that began with an
ordinary workout but turned intoa question that, 15 years later,
still has no answer. Please be aware that this

(00:45):
episode contains descriptions ofa disappearance and discussions
of possible suicide, which may be distressing to some people,
so listener discretion is advised.
And as always, I try my very best to bring you all the known
facts, but I am just an amateur podcast creator, so there is
always a chance of me making a mistake.
Without further ado, let's get into the story of Hermann

(01:08):
Plukstra. It's a cold Tuesday night,
October 27th, 2010 in the coastal town of Breskens in the
Dutch province of Seyland. 35 year old Herman Plukstra, a
crane operator from Eisendica and volunteer firefighter,
finishes his regular workout at the local gym, Way of Life on

(01:30):
the Delta Hook Industrial Estate.
After finishing his workout, he leaves the gym around 9:45 PM
and walks out to his silver greyBM WX5HE drives off.
That was the last confirmed sideof him.
By morning, his wife Sandra, realizes something is seriously
wrong. But who was Hermann?

(01:52):
To the people in Azadaika, Hermann wasn't just another
villager. He was known as reliable,
hardworking and practical, a family man, a colleague and a
firefighter who volunteered his time to help others.
He loved his daughter Anoop deeply.
She remembers him as a kind but sometimes strict father, the
sort who checked her bike tires,helped her with her school work

(02:14):
and always showed up when needed.
He was protective and steady, a loving father figure.
But there was also another side to Hermann, one that complicated
the picture of the reliable family man many thought they
knew. It was no secret that Hermann
also had a reputation as a womanizer.
Over the years, he had several extramarital affairs, something

(02:36):
he always denied to his wife, despite the rumors that
persisted in their small community.
At work, he was more open about it.
Some of his colleagues knew about his relationships outside
of marriage, and in local nightlife circles, the gossip
went even further. People joked about it, crudely
twisting his surname, Plukstra into Poopstra, a play of word

(02:57):
indicating his love for other women.
Also at the time of his disappearance, Hermann was
involved with another woman. He often spoke to her during
work hours, calling from his excavator on a separate mobile
phone, a device his family didn't know existed.
These personal choices and the secrecy surrounding them would
later add a difficult layer in both the investigation and the

(03:20):
family's grief. For detectives, they opened new
lines of inquiry for Sandra and Anuk.
They opened wounds that were never meant to exist.
By talking to Sandra, the policefound out that Hermann had not
been feeling well in the last few weeks before his
disappearance. He was struggling with his
health. He was taking pills for high
blood pressure and had an inflammation in his foot for

(03:43):
which he was taking anti-inflammatory drugs.
In the months leading up to his disappearance, Hermann had also
spoken to people about feeling threatened.
He told friends that someone hadleft a bullet under his
windshield wiper, that his tireshad been slashed, and that he
was receiving strange, unsettling phone calls.
At the time, police couldn't verify any of these claims, and

(04:07):
no physical evidence of threats was found.
Still, those comments would later take on a chilling
significance. On the evening of October 26th,
2010, Herman left to his usual gym session.
Witnesses remember nothing unusual about his behavior.
He finished training, said goodbye, and drove off around

(04:27):
9:15 PM. That was the last confirmed side
of him. When he didn't come home, Sana
tried calling him repeatedly. By the next morning, fear set
in. She contacted friends,
colleagues, and the police. Search efforts began quickly.
Family and friends retraced his route from the gym toward
Eisendica. Then they found his car.

(04:50):
It was near a Reichsvaterstadt site along the Dovohuk Sevech.
His wallet and firefighter pagerwere laying next to the car,
with his wallet missing some money and two cards.
A can of pepper spray was found on the driver's side floor
inside the vehicle, and it also looked as though someone had
quickly gone through the glove box.

(05:12):
Another striking detail was thatthe key was still in the
ignition. With the car not being in park
but still in drive, Herman himself was gone.
It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
Police launched a large scale search.
They used dogs, helicopters and divers to comb the nearby fields
and waterways. But there were no clues.

(05:34):
No footprints, no personal belongings, no phone signal.
Just the car and the empty spacewhere Herman should have been.
Later, small blood traces were found inside the BMW, but the
initial investigation failed to properly analyze them, and they
could not be conclusively linkedto a crime.
For years, those traces would remain a question mark in the

(05:56):
file, one of many. And as the search dragged on
without results, speculation grew.
Some believed Herrmann walked away voluntarily.
Others suspected an accident, suicide or foul play.
Rumors spread quickly in Zeeland's small communities, but
answers stayed out, and within months the official search was

(06:19):
scaled down and the case grew cold.
For Sandra and Anuk, life changed completely.
Anuk was only 8 years old at thetime.
She remembers the morning her father was declared missing.
The confusion, the worried faces, the feeling that
something enormous had broken inher life.
At school, her teacher told her classmates that her father was

(06:42):
missing. At that age, she didn't
understand what missing really meant.
But as she grew older, the reality slowly sank in.
At secondary school at Osburgh, she became that girl from the
Plutstra case. It wasn't until she switched
schools that she could be Anuk again, a normal teenager without

(07:03):
the story following her. In small towns like Eisen, Dyke
and Preskins, stories travel fast.
People speculate it endlessly, sometimes trying to help, other
times just feeding the rumor mill online.
The theories multiplied. Anuk tried to follow the
discussions at first, curious ifanyone knew something.

(07:24):
But eventually she stopped reading.
It hurts to see what people write, she said.
People are so quick to judge. It really bothers me.
As the story unfolded, the rumors surrounding Herman's
extramarital affairs added a painful layer to the family's
grief. While these details revealed
that he was unfaithful and flawed, they didn't erase the

(07:47):
man his daughter knew. To Anuk, he remained a loving
father, a man who, despite his secrets and flaws, cared deeply
for her. In 2018, eight years after
Hermann's disappearance, police received a new tip that prompted
them to reopen the case. A full cold case team, led by

(08:07):
investigator Rolf Nahu Gherke and prosecutor Kim Bayers, was
assembled. Their goal was simple but
immense. To find out what had really
happened to Hermann, they started from scratch, reviewing
every file, every photo, every interview.
The team examined Herman's BMW again, this time more

(08:28):
thoroughly. The car was seized from its then
owner and examined for new DNA or forensic evidence.
Every possibility, no matter howsmall, was reviewed.
If we close this investigation, Prosecutor Weyer said, We want
to be able to tell the family that we truly examined
everything. In 2024, the Peter Erdefries

(08:51):
Foundation, founded by Peter's children Kelly and Royce,
selected Hermann's case as one of the unsolved disappearances
they would support. The foundation offered €1000
reward for any tip that would lead to finding Hermann or his
remains. The renewed attention brought
hope and anxiety for Sandra and Anuk.

(09:12):
It meant reliving the nightmare but also a chance, however
small, to finally know the truth.
A little while after the campaign launched, a new tip
came in by letter specific enough for a targeted search.
A-Team led by investigator Rolf Nachokerke, together with
foundation representatives KellyDefriese and Anamik Fonspania,

(09:34):
went to the location. Sandra and Anuk were also
present as the ground was searched.
But once again, nothing was found.
The hope they had built was replaced by the familiar silence
of disappointment. By now the €100,000 reward
expired, but the foundation emphasizes that anyone with

(09:55):
information should still come forward and the case remains
open. The cold case investigation
ruled out several long circulating rumors, and the
police now firmly believes that he was the victim of a crime.
No evidence suggested Hermann had disappeared voluntarily or
had taken his own life. Although they do not know what

(10:15):
happened, they do say that suicide is highly unlikely
because if that were the case, they would have found his body
by now. Investigators confirmed that
Hermann had indeed shown a threatening letter to someone
shortly before he vanished, supporting his earlier claims of
being harassed. They also concluded that while
blood traces were found in the car, there was no indication

(10:37):
that Herman had died inside the vehicle.
And yet, despite all the evidence, his body has never
been found. For Anuk, the years since her
father's disappearance have shaped her entire sense of self.
She has spoken about the difficulty of trusting people.
Meeting new people is hard, she said.

(10:58):
They know your story before theyeven know you, and you wonder,
can I trust them? Every milestone, her birthdays,
exams, moving into adulthood carries the same quiet thought.
He should have been here, she says.
I find it hard that my memories of him are fading.
I can't really remember what it felt like to hug him or how his

(11:20):
voice sounded. For Sandra and Anuk, not knowing
what happened to their loved oneis unbearable.
All they want is answers. Cold case investigator Rolf
Nacho Kerka has said that the truth probably lies close to
home. The question is, he says,
whether people in this communityhave the sense of responsibility

(11:40):
to come forward. Do you stand behind a girl like
Anuk who's been living with thisquestion for years, or do you
stay silent? For him and the prosecutor
vayers, the case is not just a police matter.
It's a test of conscience. Dozens of officers have worked
on it, often in their free time.Every tip is checked, no matter

(12:01):
how small. The team says that they have an
idea of what might have happened.
They speculate that maybe somebody confronted Hermann
about his extramarital affairs, and maybe it was a confrontation
that got out of hand. But without evidence or a body,
they cannot prove anything. 15 years have passed since that

(12:22):
October night in 2010 and Herrmann Pluckstra has never
been found. The case remains open.
The family continues to live with the same question that
began it all. Where is Papa?
For Anuk, there has never been closure.
No funeral, no grave to visit. Only memories that fade a little

(12:43):
more each year and a hope that one day someone will speak.
If you know anything about the disappearance of Herrmann
Pluckstra, no matter how small, you can contact the police or
the Peter Erdefries Foundation. Even after all these years,
every small detail matters. And that's where we'll leave it
for today. What do you guys think happened

(13:04):
to him? Leave it in the comments below.
Thank you all so much for listening and I look forward to
seeing you in the next one.