Tinder Date Stabs, Kills Winchester Woman In Netherlands

WINCHESTER, MA — A woman from Winchester was stabbed to death on Sunday by a man who was stalking her while she attended school in the Netherlands, police say.

Mieke Oort, 21, of Winchester, was stabbed inside her apartment in Leeuwarden, a city located about an hour and a half outside of Amsterdam.

Police first responded to her apartment after 3:30 a.m. Sunday for a report of a fire, once inside, they say they found an incendiary bomb against the house, apparently used for distraction while a man went in to stab Oort with a sharp object.

Two other men living in the house, ages 25 and 30, were also injured in the stabbing, police say.

The suspect in her killing - only identified as 27-year-old Thomas R., a man Oort had met on the dating app Tinder — was detained in Germany later Sunday, the Leeuwarder Courant newspaper reported. The news outlet called Thomas an old "jealous Tinder date" of Oort's.

"As soon as the suspect is in the Netherlands, he will be taken into custody and will be interrogated," Netherlands police said of Thomas.

In 2020, Oort moved to the Netherlands to attend NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences and later moved to her apartment in Leeuwarden following a breakup with her boyfriend, Boevennieuws, a European news outlet reported.

Oort's sister Danique told WCVB Thomas R. started stalking her sister after she got back together with her ex-boyfriend, and stabbed her out of jealousy. "He put a tracker on her bike because in the Netherlands, you bike everywhere," Danique Oort told WCVB.

Oort grew up in Winchester and graduated from Winchester High School in 2019 before moving to the Netherlands to study at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. Oort's father is Dutch, and the family still has ties to the Netherlands, WCVB reported.

The family was reported to have flown to the Netherlands to deal with the aftermath of her death.