The uncle of a young woman found raped and murdered in a nature reserve last year has been jailed for 20 years for her killing, the Telegraaf says on Wednesday.

Mariska Peters left her parents’ home in February to visit a friend but never arrived. Two days later her car was found abandoned in a residential street. On February 22, her body was found by sniffer dogs in the Hatertse Vennen nature reserve. She had been raped and strangled.

Judges in Arnhem on Wednesday jailed her uncle Johan P for 20 years, to be followed by detention in a secure psychiatric unit.

P’s DNA was found on the young woman’s body and there was blood in her car, the court was told. Telephone evidence suggested P had approached Mariska to deliver a package for him, thought to contain drugs, on the evening she disappeared.

P was living in an open unit of the Pompe psyschiatric clinic when Mariska vanished. He was in the last stage of his treatment for an earlier sex offence, news agency ANP says. P also helped carry Mariska’s coffin at her funeral.