One of the “window women” by a canal in Amsterdam’s red light district is actually a hologram, and Dutch police hope it will help solve the gruesome murder of a sex worker in 2009.

Staring at passersby through a frame, a human-size doppelgänger of Bernadett Szabo — tight shorts, a leopard-print bra, a dragon tattoo covering most of her torso — taps on the window and fogs it with its breath. .

The word “HELP” appears creepily on the screen.

“Fifteen years ago Betty was murdered in a horrific way and the investigation was never closed,” Amsterdam police spokesman Olav Brink told AFP.

Just a few months after giving birth to a baby boy, Hungarian-born Betty, aged just 19, was stabbed multiple times in her brothel room in the centuries-old red-light district known as De Wallen.

Despite an extensive police investigation, the case went cold.

But during the investigation, police found “promising leads” and decided to reopen the investigation, Brink said.

They hope Betty’s likeness, created through 3D visualization technology, will jolt the memories of those with knowledge of her murder.

-‘Shocking’-

“There are still people who know what happened to Betty,” Brink said, hoping that after 15 years “people will feel freer to share information with the police.”

The initiative also aims to raise awareness about the violence that sex workers are exposed to.

About 78 percent of prostitutes in the Netherlands experience sexual violence, and 60 percent report being physically attacked, according to a 2018 report by Dutch charities and sex worker rights groups.

Concerns about violence have also increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, when loss of income has forced some prostitutes to continue working illegally and reduced their ability to report crimes to the police.

In the week since the hologram and information about Betty were displayed, police have seen “a lot of people talking about it.”

“We find it pretty special that Betty was able to bring attention to her case in this way,” Brink said.

On the streets of De Wallen, where women lined the streets watching from red-lit storefronts, groups of locals and visitors stood and chanted “Who Was Betty?” They start conversations about the unusual show titled.

Theo, 80, who lives outside Amsterdam, said he read about the project in newspapers and “came specifically to see it” while in the city.

Soyoon Jun, 34, lives near the red light district, “so it was even more shocking to me that there were neighbors who were subjected to such horrific events.”

For Jun, who works for a Christian charity, the hologram made the murder “real.”

“It wasn’t just information that was distributed,” Jun explained. “People could feel the desperation that Betty would have felt.”

Brink confirmed to AFP that police had “already received a number of reports due to the campaign”.

But they are still waiting for the “golden tip” that will lead them to the killer and comes with a reward of 30 thousand euros ($31,600).

– Relocation plans –

According to Brink, the hologram is “a special way to draw attention to this case” – including placing the hologram in De Wallen, “one of the busiest places in Amsterdam and probably the whole of the Netherlands”.

But this may not last long, as sex workers in Amsterdam may soon lose the centrality and visibility of their windows.

The local government plans to move the red light district to a purpose-built center in the south of the city, hoping to reduce petty crime and the influx of tourists in De Wallen.

The move is opposed by tens of thousands of locals and sex workers who are calling for better crowd control and surveillance in the existing red light district.

Miranda K, 57, who lives near Amsterdam and declined to give her full surname, said the relocation plan was a “pity” because she felt “safe” at De Wallen.

He said the uptown center would be in a “dark” area, whereas in De Wallen “the tourists, the people, the locals, everything is here. So I think it’s safer.”

“For me, it’s not just about finding Betty or who Betty is, it’s also about…the other ladies on the streets.”

aks/jhe/gil/bc