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It’s been 15 years since she was murdered, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Her name was Bernadett Szabó, she went by Betty. At 18, she left her native Hungary for Amsterdam and started earning money in the city’s well-known prostitution trade. Sex work was legalized there in 2000, when the government opted for a “you can’t regulate what’s forbidden” policy in the hope of reducing crime and improving labor conditions. The latter has indeed improved, but sex trafficking hasn’t waned — and crime still occurs, of all sorts. Like Betty, who was murdered. Within a year of arriving in Amsterdam, she became pregnant; she had the baby and gave her son to a foster family. But one night early in 2009, some fellow sex workers realized they hadn’t seen her in a while. They checked on her room in the Oudezijds Achterburgwal and found her dead, stabbed multiple times. Betty, though, has haunted investigators for 15 years. The murder occurred in one of the city’s busiest spots, which indicates a likelihood of witnesses. Even all this time later, someone may remember something that would assist the case. So a kind of shrine sprang up on a corner of the Red Light District, full of stickers and visuals related to the case. TV screens loop images from the crime scene and a documentary about Betty’s short life. There’s info about a €30,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Now, Betty herself haunts the space — as a digital hologram.
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Welp, I really don’t feel as fine as REM assured me I would in this particular circumstance.
I have pursued two separate but related careers in my half-century thus far: journalism and education. Neither pays well literally but they afford great riches figuratively — and both have been driven by an inherent urge to (as my late father drummed into me) leave this world better than I found it, and to inspire others to do the same. The impending ruination of this nation’s universally applauded human rights, everyday protective regulations, and overall basic dignity will not divert me from this work, and in fact will energize it. |
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I'm THOMAS CONNER, Ph.D. in Communication & STS, and a longtime culture journalist. Categories
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