It still happens to Silene Frederiksz-Hoogzand after more than eight years. Walking down the street, she will see a girl with long, dark hair or a young man in a baseball cap and think, that’s my son Bryce or his girlfriend, Daisy.

But the grim reality quickly kicks in. Bryce and Daisy were among the 298 people killed on July 17, 2014, when a missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 above conflict-torn eastern Ukraine.

“Sometimes, when you are low, you hear them. ‘Pap, pap. Dad, dad,’ and then you remember that this fake. But you feel it,” said Silene’s husband, Rob.

The couple have attended almost every day of a drawn-out trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian charged in the Netherlands with murder for their alleged involvement in shooting down the Boeing 777 that was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

On Thursday, they will be in court again as the panel of Dutch judges delivers its verdicts in the case. While the outcome is unclear, one thing is certain — none of the four suspects will be there as they have not been arrested and are being tried in their absence. That means that even if they’re convicted, they’re unlikely to serve any prison sentence.