Hans Gruyters, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Hans Gruyters

Dutch abnk robber

Date of Birth: 28-Apr-1925

Place of Birth: Boekel, North Brabant, Netherlands

Date of Death: 24-Oct-1980

Profession: criminal

Nationality: Kingdom of the Netherlands

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Hans Gruyters (28 April 1925, Boekel – 24 October 1980) was a Dutch criminal.
In the 1950s, he was a car salesman in the Dutch province of North Brabant.
His nickname was The Black Rider, because he once appeared completely dressed in black at a party. On 15 November 1954, he fatally shot Jan van Dieten, a post office executive in Ravenstein.
Gruyters was 29 at the time, and had already been convicted six times for lesser offences.
On 16 November, he robbed a bank, and on December 31, he broke into a vicar's house in Volkel (a small village in Noord-Brabant), after which he ran a man over on a bike, killing the man in the process.
By then, the police were on his trail, but this did not prevent him from trying to rob a bank in Oss some days later.
He was eventually arrested on January 5, 1955, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison in 1956.
In 1957, he escaped from the prison in Scheveningen, which was widely covered in the press, but was soon found and returned to his cell.
He was released in 1966. After being released from prison he briefly embarked on a singing career without much success. Gruyters married twice; his first wife divorced him when he was in prison.
After marrying a second time, he seems to have been a reformed character, building up a cleaning business that at one point employed more than 30 people.
The second marriage produced one daughter. Gruyters died in 1980 after suffering a heart attack while riding his horse.
He is buried in Rumpt.