Police find body of missing 17-year-old last seen heading to a Grindr date
The body of a missing 17-year-old who was last contacted as he went out on a Grindr date has been found.
The Dutch teenager, Orlando Boldewijn, from Rotterdam, had gone out to meet someone from Grindr on 17 February.
When he never returned home, his family and friends reported him missing the next day.
Authorities cited a lack of CCTV footage as one of the reasons they struggled to find leads in the investigation to find Boldewijn.
But shortly after midnight on the same day he went missing, his mother got a text message from his phone claiming he was on his way home.
But she said the message was not like he would normally write, was overly formal and didn’t contain the usual abbreviations he would use.
Friends said he had met up with guys on the gay dating app before, but he had never failed to return home and had not missed work or school before.
“Acting on new information in the investigation, the fire department and police went into the water on Monday afternoon using sonar boats and divers,” police said in a statement.
Concerns had grown in the week since Boldewijn was last seen as his phone and bank accounts remained unused.
His friend, Noha Den Hartog, told Dutch News NL: “Orlando told his mother he was with me.”
She added: “He often did that, but usually he always told me where he was. This time he didn’t.”
Boldewijn’s body was found by divers in a lake in the Ypenburg suburb of the Hague at around 10pm on Monday 26 February, near to where he was last seen.
No cause of death has been determined since his body was recovered.
Den Hartog wrote on Facebook paying tribute to her friend, and saying she hoped he didn’t feel pain when he died.
She wrote: “My dear Orlando, I don’t even know where to begin…. first of all I want to say that I really hope that you didn’t experience any pain with your death. Second of all I want to say that I hope that you don’t blame yourself for anything.
“You are such an incredible person, you fight so hard and you have so much love in your heart left to give. You have so much passion for yourself, for others and the world was not ready for your power. You are so missed. I love you so incredibly much and I know that you’re always going to stay with me. I love you Orlando, see you soon.”
