Doomsday cult son ‘struggled to talk and looked so desperate’, says Dutch barman who ‘thanks God’ he called cops
CHRIS WESTERBEEK was about to call time at his bar when a dishevelled stranger wearing a baggy grey hoodie shuffled in from the street.
It was 3am and the newcomer turned heads among the 30 or so locals in the remote Dutch bar.
He ordered five Amstel lagers, downing them in minutes before vanishing into the night.
He reappeared 24 hours later and stood staring into the bar from the street. Chris felt so disturbed, he called the police before the stranger melted away into the dark.
Chris, 27, spotted the man sitting alone six days after that, head bowed in the pouring rain on the bar terrace.
For the first time, he tried to engage the stranger in conversation.
In the ten-minute exchange that followed, the young man told a story that has chilled Holland and shocked the world.
The man claimed he was the eldest of five children who, along with their father, had not left their home for NINE YEARS while they waited for the end of the world.
In a sinister twist, it transpired the family might have been held against their will by an oddball called “Josef the Austrian”, a member of a doomsday cult who believes he is “better than Jesus”.
Chris, whose Café De Kastelein bar in Ruinerwold lies 60 miles northeast of Amsterdam, told The Sun: “He looked odd in baggy clothes that appeared years out of date but there was something unearthly about him that worried me.
SPEAKING IN A BIZARRE ‘FANTASY LANGUAGE’
“We live in a village where everyone knows everyone else and he was a total stranger when he walked in and drank those beers that night.
“It’s incredible to think he lived only a couple of kilometres away with a family no one had ever seen who had been locked out of sight for nine years. I thought he was trouble the second time he appeared and called the police.
“But then I decided to find out what was wrong and will never forget that night. He struggled to communicate but he looked so desperate I knew I had to help him. Now I thank God I did.”
Police identified the young man as Jan Zon van Dorsten, the eldest of five siblings aged 18 to 25 rescued soon afterwards from the house.
They were said to communicate in a bizarre “fantasy language” that left cops bewildered.
Dutch sources say the siblings and their father Gerrit-Jan van Dorsten, 67, who was left bed-ridden by a stroke, may have become convinced they were the last people on Earth.
Austrian carpenter Josef Brunner, 58, who paid the rent for the property, was charged yesterday in a Dutch court with illegal imprisonment and denying medical care to Gerrit-Jan.
Police were last night looking into claims Brunner was linked to the Moonies. Followers of the sect, also known as the Unification Church, believe Jesus appeared to Korean founder Moon Sun-myung and asked him to finish his work on Earth.
Brunner’s Austrian origins yesterday sparked inevitable comparisons to his twisted “cellar monster” compatriot Josef Fritzl. But there is no suggestion the reclusive carpenter plumbed the depravity of Fritzl, who fathered seven children by his daughter Elizabeth while holding her for 24 years underground.
Investigators said elements of the van Dorstens’ speech were incomprehensible after years shut off from the world, sleeping and eating on the floor in a room with no windows.
Brunner is believed to have built a labyrinth of rooms behind a staircase in the red-roofed property. The house was shielded by trees and accessible only by a bridge which the controlling Brunner scanned constantly with binoculars and CCTV cameras.
It had a vegetable plot, goats and geese, which may have helped the hidden family stay self-sufficient.
Police sent forensic teams into the house yesterday and raided a toy shop which had been part-owned by the Austrian in the nearby city of Zwartsluis. Brunner was remanded in custody after arriving at court in Assen in a police van.
The bearded loner was called ”‘manipulative, greedy and self- serving” — by his own BROTHER.
Brunner is thought to have fathered up to seven children, including twin daughters he abandoned as youngsters in Austria.
FACEBOOK ACCOUNT WAS DORMANT FOR NINE YEARS
Sources said yesterday Gerrit-Jan, who suffered a stroke three years ago, was a Moonie and an old friend of Brunner.
But it is unclear whether he was complicit in shuttering away his children, who were never registered with the authorities.
Brunner is believed to have controlled the family’s every move while living alone in a caravan four miles away. Police were last night looking into suggestions he over– powered Gerrit-Jan and subjected the family to psychological abuse.
Locals say Brunner made weekly visits to a local Lidl in his blue Volvo to stock up on supplies, far exceeding the needs of a man who lived alone.
The boss of a building firm next door said: “I could never have imagined he had another home and six people in there. He never talked about friends or anybody.
“I was curious because he would buy something like 50 toilet rolls and huge boxes of food once a week, then drive off with them. But he lived here, so he wasn’t living with that family.”
Despite sharing an enclosed space with no natural light, the family were not malnourished and seemed normal physically, police confirmed. Brunner is understood to have met the family when he moved next door to them at Hasselt, four miles from Ruinerwold. Gerrit-Jan was married to the children’s Canadian-born mum Janke Geertge, who was said to have died in 2008 from colon cancer.
Neighbours said all the children were born at home and authorities have confirmed none were registered at the farmhouse after they moved to Ruinerwold.
A Dutch source close to the inquiry said last night: “There appears to be a close relationship between Brunner and Gerrit, which seems to be at the core of this tragedy.
“Investigators are working hard but are still baffled by the motive.”
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Police were left even more confused when it emerged that Jan — the eldest sibling, who raised the alarm — logged into Facebook in June. His account, which has no “friends”, was dormant for the previous nine years.
As the probe continued and the mystery deepened, Brunner’s sibling Franz added yesterday: “My brother was always only for his own advantage. He was with a sect and believed he was better than Jesus.”
He said the kidnapping suspect abandoned his twin daughters when they were young and ignored them when they tried to contact him as adults in 2017. After their father died in 2015 Brunner did not attend the funeral. And when his mother passed away 18 months ago, he failed to return calls from family in Austria.
Franz said: “For ten years, I have had no contact with him.
“The last time I saw him, I said to him, ‘I do not want to have anything to do with people like you’.”
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