Father tells Dateline he knew daughter’s alleged suicide from penthouse window in 2015 was murder

The father of a woman who plunged to her death from a seventh-story penthouse in Belgium said he knew it was not suicide and was convinced that her American sailor husband had tossed her from the window.   

For seven years, John Hove has been determined to find out what happened that night in 2015 when his daughter Johanna ‘Hanna’ Hove-Becker, 32, fell to her death in Mons, Belgium. 

Hove-Becker’s husband, Navy Lt. Craig R. Becker, told the authorities she had taken her own life. But Hove tells Dateline NBC in a recent interview that he knew it wasn’t suicide, and he ‘was convinced’ that his son-in-law had killed her.

Hove-Becker’s death was initially believed by authorities to be a suicide, but her family and friends refused to accept it. In the spring of 2022, nearly seven years after her October 2015 death, a U.S. military jury in Belgium found Becker guilty of her murder.

Dateline NBC’s Dennis Murphy speaks to Hove-Becker’s family and friends in a new two-hour report that will air at 7 p.m. on Sunday. 

Johanna ‘Hanna’ Hove-Becker, 32, (left) died after she fell to her death from a seventh-story window in Mons, Belgium. Her husband Navy Lt. Craig R. Becker was convicted in her murder

For seven years, John Hove has been determined to find out what happened that night in 2015 when his daughter Johanna ‘Hanna’ Hove-Becker, 32, fell to her death in Mons, Belgium

In the spring of 2022, a U.S. military jury in Belgium found Becker guilty of ‘premeditated murder, assault consummated by a battery and conducting unbecoming an officer and a gentleman’ in connection to his wife’s death, the Navy Times reported. 

It was a verdict that Hove, president of Buffers USA in Jacksonville, Florida, had been waiting for after he had been ‘determined to find out what happened to his daughter after her fatal fall from a penthouse apartment,’ according to NBC News. 

‘I never really liked him,’ Hove told The Florida Times-Union. ‘He was standoffish … So full of himself.’ 

Becker was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole and a dismissal from the service. 

His other charges stemmed from Hove-Becker being poisoned the day of her death with tramadol, an opioid, and zolpidem, a sleeping medication, according to the Navy Times. 

He also was charged for ‘impersonating Hove-Becker on text messages on the day of her passing and for lying to local police when he told them he didn’t know the passcode for her phone.’

Becker maintained his innocence and continues to claim that his wife’s death was a suicide because of mental illness. His appeal is pending.

Hove-Becker, a psychologist who was born in Sweden and raised in Florida, moved to Mons, Belgium in 2013 with her husband Becker was in the U.S. Navy. They have one daughter, Isabelle, who was born in 2014. 

An investigation by the Belgian authorities which included a crime scene reconstruction later concluded that Hove-Becker could not have committed suicide but rather was pushed, and was unconscious at the time, through the window to her death, the Baltimore Sun reported

Navy Lieutenant Craig Becker (right), now 36, was turned over to American authorities last week, and Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) will take over the lead in an investigation into the 2015 death of his wife, Johanna Hanna Elizabeth Hove-Becker (left)

Hove-Becker worked as a psychologist before her death at age 32 in 2015 in Belgium

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The view from the window Hove-Becker either fell or was pushed from is seen at left. The window is highlighted in the photo at right

Becker retains parental rights as long as his appeal is pending, and has not allowed Hove to see her. 

Hove, who said he does not even know where she lives, said: ‘I haven’t seen her in eight years. She would not know me.’

When Hove’s daughter plunged to her death from their Belgium penthouse on October 8, 2015, her parents John and Yvonne Hove rushed to grieve with Becker, who was serving at NATO headquarters in Brussels at the time. 

Belgium officials told Dateline that Becker had told them that his wife was upset and mixed wine and medicine before jumping to her death from the window. 

‘For us what we see, what we heard, it was a suicide,’ another official said.

‘When the circumstances are clear, the case is closed,’ the officials concluded. 

But Hove said he looked out the bedroom window where his daughter allegedly jumped and noticed the marks on the walls which prompted him to ask ‘Have you seen these marks?’

Family and friends questioned the ongoing investigation before Belgium authorities eventually charged Becker in the homicide.  

One of Hove-Becker’s friends, Ida Birk Blomqvist, told Dateline that it didn’t make sense that her friend would kill herself and said that there were ‘no signs.’

‘She didn’t say any goodbyes, you know, there was no note. There was no nothing.’

One of Hove-Becker’s friends, Ida Birk Blomqvist, told Dateline that it didn’t make sense that her friend would kill herself and said that there were ‘no signs’

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Hove-Becker was born in Sweden and raised in Florida, before moving to Belgium in 2013

An investigation by the Belgian authorities which included a crime scene reconstruction later concluded that Hove-Becker could not have committed suicide but rather was pushed, and was unconscious at the time, through the window to her death, the Baltimore Sun reported.  

Becker remained in Belgian custody for more than two years after Hove-Becker’s death, before the U.S. Navy finally took over jurisdiction. 

Becker’s defense attorney Jeremiah Sullivan had filed a complaint in court which led to former Defense Secretary James Mattis ordering the Navy to take over in 2018. 

At the time, Becker had been in Belgian custody, either in jail or under house arrest. 

He told San Diego Tribune in 2017: ‘It’s pretty unfortunate and frustrating … You don’t expect, as a U.S. service member on active duty, to find yourself confined to your apartment building. I really don’t have any support from the Navy and it’s been like that for a significant period of time. I spend a lot of time thinking about when it’s all going to end. When is someone going to come and assist me?’ 

The Navy Times reported that the ‘junior officer’s conviction marks the end of a long legal saga that saw the Navy initially unwilling to prosecute one of their own, even though Becker was assigned to a NATO command in Belgium at the time and fell under the alliance’s Status of Forces Agreement, which allows the military to take jurisdiction over cases involving personnel overseas.’

The Navy had previously argued that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service had no authority for an independent homicide investigation on non-military property in Belgium.