MAASTRICHT - As fake clientele at a beauty salon, female detectives have managed to unravel a South Limburg murder-for-hire conspiracy.Talking over small talk, the ladies, while getting their nails done and getting a tattoo done, managed to get information needed to solve the trunk murder of drug criminal Ger Douven (51), whose charred remains were found with bullet wounds to the head, chest and torso in a burned-out BMW in Schinveld in March 2003.

In the beauty salon Douven's former life partner Rhonda K (27) was working for her friend Tiny H. (48). Yesterday she and five co-defendants appeared in court in Maastricht, accused of co-perpetrating or instigating the murder.

New friend

While Ger Douven was in prison for drug trafficking, Rhonda had gotten a new boyfriend. She wanted to get rid of Douven because he abused her. Moreover, she could not return several tens of thousands of euros, which had remained out of sight during a police search of Douven's home and which she had in safekeeping for him: part of the money she had invested in Tiny's salon. The fifteen grand she did have left, she decided to pay to whoever wanted Ger out of the way for her. Ger would come home again, on leave from the joint.

Through Tiny and her son Roy H. (31), Gunnery Sergeant Harold R. (38) was recruited with his girlfriend José P. (41). After his arrest in Bosnia, R. confessed in detail how Ger Douven was framed, killed and burned on March 12, 2003.

With Rhonda and José, he drove to a rural area right on the German border. They pulled their car over. Rhonda called Ger with the excuse that she had car trouble.

Sergeant R. hid with two pistols among the bushes in a roadside culvert. When Ger arrived and tried to lean over the engine compartment, the hitman emerged. It became a struggle in which R. fired, but in which Douven was still able to escape. According to R., bij, despite a broken ankle, had already fled forty meters away when he managed to shoot him after all. He then finished the job with a neck shot.

Harold R. yesterday: "José and I had been pressured ourselves. It had been said that Rhonda also had someone else who wanted to do it, and us along with it." José, sobbing: "We didn't want to do it at all. We had agreed that we would only pretend."

"But when Harold had signaled that night, 'Now it's going to happen,' she wasn't reeling, was she?" asked court president mr. A.M.A. Eijk. José: "I loved him. I didn't want to lose him! " The President: "In doing so, you did kill yourself. And you had also taken care of the firearm hadn't you?"

The process will continue on March 7 and 9.