Theodorus "Ted" van Berkel (6 February 1906 – 21 March 1982), anglicized as Theodore van Berkel, was a Dutch serial killer, serial rapist and child molester who committed a series of crimes in the United States and the Netherlands. After being deported from the US for several rapes committed in the 1930s, Van Berkel committed raped and murdered two young girls in 1941, but was convicted of only one and imprisoned for 15 years.
After his release, Van Berkel killed a young boy in 1960, after which he was sentenced to another 15-year prison term. During his incarceration, he confessed to his previous murder after the statute of limitations had passed, and was reportedly considered a suspect in a similar double murder from 1940.
After his security period expired, Van Berkel was released in 1981, dying a few months later at a homeless shelter.
Early life Theodorus van Berkel was born in Uden on 6 February 1906, as one of six children born to merchant Marinus van Berkel and his wife Helena "Leen" Henraat.Van den Oord The family grew up in the Kreppeneind slum, with Theodorus' dad rarely attending to them due to his nomadic lifestyle and frequent incarcerations for various violent crimes. Later rumors suggested that Marinus often beat his wife and children, with Theodorus in particular witnessing him engage in sexual acts and himself being abused at a young age by one of his dad's younger sex partners – however, none of this has been definitively verified.
At around the age of ten, Theodorus started skipping school along with his eldest brother Louis, as a result of which the pair were eventually sent off to a monastery belonging to the Brotherhood Congregation of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows (Dutch: Broedercongregatie Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Zeven Smarten), situated in Heythuysen. By the mid-1920s, Marinus, who had come a considerable number of enemies due to his criminal activities, decided to leave the Netherlands altogether and immigrate to America with his family.
Move to the United States On 21 April 1920, the Van Berkel family immigrated to the United States aboard the steamship SS Lapland, settling in St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after their move, Theodorus – known by the nickname "Ted" – began working as a mechanic and metalworker at the Raywond & Wright Experimental Works Special Machining Plant, where he would remain until 1927.
Despite moving to a new country and having a stable job, the family situation at home did not improve, prompting both Theodorus and Louis to flee in the autumn of 1922 after several violent outbursts at the hands of their father. The two brothers wandered around the Midwest via trainhopping, and started committing crimes along the way.
Initial crimes The brothers' first recorded crime took place in October 1922, when they were caught in Indiana for stealing a pump truck and imprisoned. The pair were released on 4 December of that year after the brothers' employer that the boys would not get into trouble any more and would return to work at his factory. However, Theodorus would wander off yet again, and continued to commit various crimes.
In December 1923, he was detained for on a robbery charge, but was released due to a lack of evidence. Less than a month later, on 9 January 1924, he was incarcerated for theft, but managed to escape only four days later along with three other juvenile offenders after jumping out of a third-floor window. Theodorus' next arrest was on 6 July 1925 on a rape charge, but was released on the next day due to a lack of evidence. On 17 December of that year, he was arrested in St. Louis for robbery, but as there was not enough evidence to charge with that, he instead received a one-month sentence for vagrancy.
In early 1927, Van Berkel was in Chicago, Illinois, when he met a woman named Anna Tomes, an immigrant from Moravské Lieskové, Austria-Hungary. The pair married only a couple of months later on 16 July in Lake County, Indiana, with Anna becoming pregnant shortly after their wedding. In spite of the fact that his wife was pregnant, Theodorus continued committing crimes with Louis, as on 6 December of that year, the pair were arrested for committing three burglaries in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Both of the brothers were incarcerated, and while he was still in prison, Anna gave birth to a boy named Theodore Walter van Berkel, who was also given the nickname "Ted". On 29 July 1929, Theodorus was released from the reformatory in Fond du Lac.
Sexual assaults in Wisconsin On 3 July 1930, Van Berkel was in Green Bay when he abducted 19-year-old Florence Stein at knifepoint while she walking home. He then drove to an isolated section of the nearby woods and raped her in the back of his Essex, before dropping her off in nearby De Pere, binding her hands and feet. At some point, he changed his mind and returned, untied Stein and drove back within a few blocks of her home, threatening to kill her if she told anyone about the ordeal.
Instead, Stein told everything to her mother, who then contacted local police about the rape. As a result, police quickly identified the assailant as Van Berkel and issued an arrest warrant for him. Two days after the warrant was issued, Van Berkel was caught in Cudahy and extradited to Green Bay to stand trial on the rape charge.
While Van Berkel protested his innocence, Stein confirmed that he was indeed her assailant, leading to him being charged and held on $2,000 bail. In the meantime, authorities from Milwaukee stated that they were investigating him for three rapes committed against young girls in their city the week prior to Van Berkel's capture. At the time, the father of one of the 9-year-old girls had organized a posse to hunt down the rapist and supposedly threatened to kill him if caught.
First prison escape and capture Van Berkel's trial for the Stein rape was scheduled to take place on 6 August, after he failed to pay off his bail. On 30 July, Van Berkel used a small metal saw hidden in his shoe to saw through the cell's bars and escaped from prison, leading to a state-wide manhunt.
Just two days later, two farmers from Rockland reported to sheriffs that they had spotted what appeared to be Van Berkel hiding in some shrubbery behind the farm of a man named Francis Thomas. They claimed that the man was seen with a fruit basket containing some partially eaten food, some matches, and a water bottle, with another local woman confirming that she had seen that same man claiming that he was fishing for minnows in the nearby Devil River.
An ambush was set in the designated spot, with the hopes that Van Berkel would return. In the meantime, sheriffs learned that he and Thomas were acquaintances, as they met while in the reformatory, where they both worked in the machine shop. After Thomas returned from a family vacation in Greenleaf, he was questioned by Sheriff William Nickolai, but claimed to have no knowledge about the case.
Once the cache of food was found near his farm, Nickolai and Assistant District Attorney Cletus Chadek decided to question Thomas again. During the questioning, Nickolai asked for a match, with Thomas giving him one that matched those found at the stash belonging to Van Berkel. Once he was called out for his lies, Thomas agreed to show where his friend was hiding, but after he finished his lunch. Sheriff Nickolai then left to retrieve two other officers stationed at the hideout to help out, while Chadek stayed behind with Thomas.
At some point, Chadek noticed that Thomas appeared to be stalling, after which he ordered him to show where Van Berkel was hiding. Thomas then guided him to an oat field behind the farm, where Chadek commanded him to signal Van Berkel to come out of hiding. Although initially hesitant to do so, Thomas relented, prompting Van Berkel to pop his head out from his hiding place. Chadek then took out his gun and ordered him to surrender, but Van Berkel refused, attempting to run away.
Chadek then fired in his direction, causing Van Berkel to stop, turn around, and run in his direction. Chadek then fired at his feet, forcing him to kneel, but Van Berkel refused to lie down. Chadek then ordered the two men to go towards the road at gunpoint, with Van Berkel bargaining for a plea deal along the way. At one point, he attempted to approach the officer, ostensibly to shake his hand, but Chadek fired a third shot between his ankles, prompting him to back away. The trio eventually reached the road, where Van Berkel and Thomas were taken into custody by Nickolai and the other two officers.
Investigation and convictions At the police station, Van Berkel was initially reluctant to confess, but then admitted that he had been given the saw by six vagrants he had met at the county jail. When asked about how he managed to escape, he admitted that a trusty named Fred Desmond brought him a piece of a pipe that he used to bend the cell's bars. Van Berkel then crawled out of the cell and waited for the area to be deserted, then simply walked out and telephoned Thomas from a store to come pick him up.
In his version of the story, Thomas claimed that he had picked up Van Berkel from the St. Vincent Hospital, assuming that he had paid his bail bond. Once he questioned him about that in the car, Van Berkel simply shook his head, prompting Thomas to tell him to get out. Supposedly, Van Berkel then said that he had a gas pipe with him and forced him to continue driving towards his farm. There, Thomas said that he only provided with him two loaves of bread and some matches, after which he left him to fend for himself. As for Desmond, he denied any involvement, claiming that he had simply gone to deliver food to Van Berkel as instructed, and that he was wrongfully accused.
For their roles in the escape, Thomas pleaded guilty to harboring a fugitive and concealing a felon, for which he was fined $200 and given an alternative option of spending 60 days at the reformatory. Desmond, who was on probation for a burglary change, had his probation revoked and a stayed sentence of two years imprisonment imposed. Desmond's attorney attempted to argue that the only real evidence against his client was Van Berkel's own claims, but this was dismissed, and Desmond was then transferred to serve his sentence at the Waupun State Prison.
Van Berkel was placed behind three locked doors on the jail's second floor, while the cell he had sawed through was covered with heavy wire netting to prevent any objects from being passed through.
Second prison escape Van Berkel's rape trial was scheduled to begin on 18 August. On that very morning, however, he used a second saw hidden in the soles of his shoes to saw through the bars of his cell, escaping together with another inmate named Joseph B. Neale, who was detained on a robbery charge. The pair separated shortly after escaping from the jail, but were reunited later that day on the west side of Green Bay and decided to stick together for some time before separating again.
After learning of the escape, a posse of more than 100 volunteers were organized in order to capture the fugitives, with Sheriff Nickolai using a helicopter to search from above. In the meantime, highway patrols were set up, with the volunteers being veterans from the United States Army who were equipped with rifles. The escape attracted the attention of many spectators who wanted to help search for the two men – among them were Van Berkel's own family members, who had traveled from St. Louis to attend Theodorus' trial. At some point during the day, Marinus van Berkel even pleaded with a sergeant at the sheriff's office for the safe capture of his son, promising that he would have him returned to the Netherlands.