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Outlook: My daughter’s killer feels like ‘family’

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Renske, her boyfriend and a dog

18/03/2019 GMT

My daughter’s killer feels like ‘family’

BBC World Service - Outlook, My daughter’s killer feels like ‘family’

Eddy Hekman has forged an unlikely relationship with the man who killed his daughter

After his daughter was killed by her boyfriend, Eddy Hekman did more than forgive the killer. He now meets Alasam Samarie every month and they talk on the phone each week.

In April 2011 in a small village in the Netherlands, Eddy Hekman got the worst news of his life. His daughter Renske had been killed by her boyfriend Alasam Samarie. But this didn't square with how Eddy knew Samarie - as a kind and gentle person. Eddy went on a quest for answers about Renske's death, and the results pushed the limits of his tolerance. He's stayed friends with Samarie, and they've even written a book together called Een Coupé Verder. Eddy tells Outlook's Neal Razzell why he considers Samarie to be part of his family. 

The Vaquita is a tiny porpoise that's made headlines around the world because it's on the brink of extinction. Its rise to fame is in part due to one Mexican man, Dr Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, who's been studying these mammals for over 20 years. His work has put his safety under threat from cartel-supported poachers who work in the areas where the porpoises live. Dr Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho met our reporter, Clayton Conn.

Harriet Glickman is a teacher from California who changed comic book history. In 1968, after the assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, she wrote a letter to Charles Schulz, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts and asked him to add a black character to the story. Outlook's Regan Morris went to meet Harriet to find out how Franklin was created. 

Image: Eddy Hekman's daughter Renske and her boyfriend who killed her
Credit: Eddy Hekman

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