A Monster in Belgium: The Dutroux Affair, with Matt Graves

In 1996, hundreds of thousands of Belgian citizens marched in public protest against an apparent conspiracy of the highest order -- the kidnapper and serial murderer Marc Dutroux was, they claimed, not acting alone. In today's interview, Ben and Matt sit down with special guest Matt Graves, the creator and host of Le Monstre, to learn more about this case. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt. Our colleague Nol is not with
us today, but we'll be returning shortly. They called b Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Ball
Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. Today's show takes us across the Atlantic Ocean

(00:46):
to Belgium, where not too long ago, a serial killer
terrorize the country. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Belgian citizens
marched in a public protest against what they saw as
a high ranking ongoing conspiracy, a genuine and horrific cover up. Matt.

(01:07):
With any kind of episode or conversation like this, we
always take pains to note this show will contain at
times graphic descriptions of violence and abuse. As such, this
may not be appropriate for all listeners. But we're not
diving into today's show alone. We are joined by the
one and only Mr Matt Graves, the host and creator

(01:30):
of the new Tenderfoot I Heart Show, le Monstra, thanks
for joining us today, Matt Hey, thanks for having me. Guys,
thrilled to be here. We couldn't be more excited to
have you on, Matt. Full disclosure everybody. As with most
of these Tenderfoot shows, i am executive producer on it,
so I've got a bit of a bias in how
killer on the show. I a couple of times, but

(01:51):
not as me, uh, just as like a random reporter
number seven, I think a couple of times. But honestly,
this is I wouldn't want to bring on any of
these shows unless I felt strongly about the story, honestly,
and this one is supremely important for everyone to know

(02:11):
to listen to the show just to understand the story
of what's going on here. Ben and I think you
share that that feeling. This story is of high importance. Agreed. Yeah,
we um on stuff that I'll wants you to know.
We often, we often go on air with things that
have personally captivated us. And this story, which you will

(02:35):
you'll often here referred to as the Detro affair. Uh.
This has been a story going on for decades and
tragically there Uh, there's still many questions that remain unanswered
in the modern day here in about this. So, uh, Matt,
you're based in Belgium now, you're from Texas originally, and

(03:00):
you are the creator of Harry as well as the
creator and host of La Monstra. Could you tell us
a little bit about your background and what led you
to investigate this harrowing case. Yeah? Thanks. Um. So, I'm
from Austin, Texas, grew up there, um, and then wound
up just by chance actually coming to Europe. I was

(03:23):
bumming around after university and there was a girl involved
and all that kind of stuff, and I thought I
would stay in Belgium for just a little while, but
ended up staying here for a very long time. And
have you know, a house, a wife, kids and pets,
the whole catastrophe. So I'm I'm completely living in Europe

(03:44):
now and have been since. And was the year I
moved to this country. And I actually moved here, I
think within two weeks of the first disappearance that we
cover in Laments the podcast. Um, and I remember it,
I I just remember it. It was a big deal,

(04:06):
this affair, and I even remember it before the perpetrator
was caught because these posters of of of these missing
girls were we're everywhere, and their parents were really fighting
to try to find them, and you you know, you
couldn't be a person living in Belgium without knowing who
these little missing girls were. Almost their parents were doing

(04:27):
such a good job of getting the posters out and
you know, being on TV and talking about it and
so forth. So it sort of literally corresponds with my
that my my entire life in Belgium kicked off exactly
when this affair started, and I've been here for the
you know, for twenty seven years afterwards, with one exception,

(04:47):
I spent one year living in the Great State of Oregon,
which was a wonderful experience. Brought my whole family there
for a year. That was a couple of years ago.
But yeah, I've I've lived here and lived through the
fair as a Belgian would have. In one of the episodes,
you describe a scene in I believe a grocery store
where a mother was desperately looking for her daughter. Could

(05:10):
you just describe that really quickly. Yeah, it was a
scene that played out a lot for quite a while here,
and to a certain extent, maybe even still because what
was going on is is you had a lot of
girls disappearing and uh, you know, Belgium is a small place.
It's a small country. It's like ten million people at

(05:30):
that time, and um, you know, and then it starts
coming out that there are you know, these awful stories
that are happening. Um. And it was sort of like
a psychosis that hit the street and people were afraid.
And I remember, I mean I told that like in
an opening I think in one of the episodes about
it's a true story about being in a supermarket and

(05:52):
just a woman looking for a kid, you know, and
it's like she's calling out for a kid, and it's like, okay, yeah,
I lost in a supermarket. I mean, I've lost my
kid in a supermarket a few times, and you know,
it wasn't that big of a deal. Um. And but
she was hysterical. I mean she was going nuts, you know.
And and then like people were like and then everyone
everyone started looking for the girl and stuff. And I

(06:13):
was like, okay, I guess I'll help find the girl too.
And I was thinking, wow, it's a big deal to
lose your kid here, you know, like um, and then
it was leaving the supermarket. There, I saw the posters
of of the first posters of Julian Melissa, who are
the first two victims in this affair, and then the
second posters were actually the last two victims, uh, Sabine

(06:38):
and Letitia, and and they were just sort of on
the same poster board and sort of hit me like,
oh wow, yeah, that's right. There is a lot of
stuff going on with Like, you know, I was twenty
something years old. I wasn't real focused on it, but
it was it was sort of like a hit me like,
oh yeah, okay, this is you know, things are going
on here. It's kind of people are terrorized about their
kids getting abducted. And before we get into the primary

(07:02):
person involved in this story, Uh, Mattter, I wonder if
you wouldn't mind just describing how these disappearances were occurring,
Like how were people being abducted? What do we know
about that? Yeah, well, at the time, we knew very
little because they were just disappearing. Um, almost no clues.
There were no clues in in this In the six

(07:25):
disappearances we cover in this uh, in this series, there
were no clues at all for any of them. Um.
It was literally girls just disappearing in broad daylight, um,
which you know is quite uncommon. There's usually at least something,
but in these cases there was absolutely nothing except for

(07:47):
the last girl who disappeared, which thankfully there was a
little something that led them to make an arrest. You know,
one of the things that stands out, and that you
emphasize in the show, through interviews and through archival reporting,
is that the there's a fact that people kept sticking

(08:09):
on with these um these appear disappearances that begin episode one,
and it's that two victims disappear at the same time.
And I believe what I believe that part of why
this became such a subject of national attention was that

(08:31):
same lack of evidence that you you describe, right at
least in the beginning, Um, Matt, you set us up
perfectly with the discussion of the the villain, the monster
for whom the Detro affair is named. So, uh, I'm
wondering if you can tell us a little bit more

(08:54):
about this character, uh, this individual Mark Detro, and how
he how the Belgian public and law enforcement first began
to associate him with this string of horrific crimes. Yeah,
and as you mentioned, two girls disappearing at once is

(09:17):
very rare and it's much more difficult to do than
kidnapping one victim. Um. And he tended to go in
pairs and um. So the true was a you know
Belgian guy who came up in a family two teachers.

(09:38):
His parents were both teachers. Uh, not a great family
like most times when you have these awful sort of psychopaths.
His mother was super protective, his dad was a bit
rough with him. And he also spent some time in
the Belgian Congo very young in his life. So at
that time it was called the Belgian Congo. Now we

(10:00):
know it is Congo um and you know African country
that was once a colony of Belgium. And so they
were there, I guess they were doing a teaching stint
for for a little while, and then came back to
Belgium and ended up living in this place called Charleroi,
which is really kind of like almost like a Pittsburgh
type of place, you know, kind of gritty, um industrial

(10:23):
and at that time very poor, uh, and lots of
crime and sort of just seedy, seed nous and underworld.
And and he kind of came up in that the
grimy streets of Charleroi as I say, um, and he was, Yeah,
he was a bad kid early on and got kicked
out of school a couple of times and was always

(10:44):
involved with just bad stuff like being a bad kid basically. UM.
And then his mother she ended up leaving his father,
and then his mother got a new boyfriend who was
basically like a year old or than the true or
something like that, and that was a real shocker for him.

(11:04):
He frequently comes back to that as being a key
moment in his life. And I think he was sixteen
and he left home after that, and then he really
that there's a real whole in terms of our understanding
of his details of his life at you know, from
sixteen until about We do know though that he he

(11:25):
was basically he studied and he became an electrician technically
on paper, but really what he was doing is becoming
a petty thief, stealing cars, uh, doing all kinds of
you know, basic street crime and all of that. Um.
And you know, that's the sort of that there was
Also when when he was eighteen, it's believed that he

(11:46):
ended up living with a pedophile UM and that it
was it's believed that during that time he himself became
a male prostitute. Um. I don't think that was his
main job, but he was just doing it. Um. So
it kind of goes from bad to worse with this guy. Um,
he's you know, living in a bad neighborhood, becoming a thief,

(12:10):
not getting along with his dysfunctional family, leaving leaving home
at sixteen years old. Uh, you know, getting into more crime,
living with some deranged pedophile, and becoming a male prostitute. Uh.
And now he's only eighteen, right, So from there, um,
he like I see, we don't know all that much.

(12:33):
But afterwards, in the eighties, he really starts getting into
crimes against women or I should say girls and young women. Uh.
And that's his first wave of crimes outside of his
regular criminal activity because he was constantly a criminal. Basically,
he was a full time criminal, mostly involved in in

(12:57):
stealing cars and not just stealing but trafficking them. Right.
There's a big there's a big sort of almost mafia
lad deal in Europe, and Belgium was a big place
where a lot of that took place. So you know,
stealing cars and thin numbers and then moving them on
and doing all that sort of car theft stuff. Uh.

(13:17):
And then but I guess he made his first forays
into into raping people and he he you know, the
first ones that we know about, which there probably were others. Uh,
you know, we're young girls. I think one of his
first victims was eleven years old, UM, and he abducted

(13:40):
her and raped her, UM, threatened you know that if
she's told me one, he would kill her, took pictures
and that's another recurring theme with him, and let her go. Um.
And then from there, you know, there were four more
girls that we know of at this time that were abducted, UM,

(14:02):
sequestered and abused up to twenty four hours I think
was the longest he would hold them. Um. They are known.
It's known that there were other perpetrators involved. And at
this time as well, his wife got involved, or his
second wife, I should say, and she was actually involved.

(14:25):
I mean she she was literally driving the van when
they would go abductive girl. UM. And so yeah, it's
really dodgy and it's really dark, but then it gets
darker after that. Let's pause here for a word from
our sponsor, and then we'll dive back into the harrowing story.
The Monstra and we're back, Matt, can you tell us

(14:54):
about the timeline a little bit like when when is
de tro Kidney happening girls or at least assaulting girls?
And then how does that lead up to the victims
that are talked about in La Monstra. Yeah, so that
that that spade that I kind of went through. That
started five when he was twenty nine years old, he

(15:17):
met his second wife. He was had a drifter who
was living in a caravan in his uh in his
shitty a house that he had down in Charlois, and
those three of them, his wife, this guy who was
a guy named Jean van Pettigum who's not real, not

(15:38):
real smart guy, basically kind of a loser. Um. And uh,
he the True and the and his wife, and this
guy went out and kidnapped and raped these five girls
um and eventually got caught and John van Petegem spilled
the beans on the True and his wife and they
were both arrested, and all three of them were arrested,

(15:59):
and and uh, you know, he was held in in
jail and then went to trial and then was convicted
um of of raping and abusing these five girls. And
they also convicted him because he had he had done
a shakedown on an elderly woman as well, and basically yeah,

(16:19):
it was violent and and and extorted money from her.
So he got sent in killed. None of them were,
none of them were. They were all left alive. And
I think you know that changed his calculus for his
future wave of crimes. But what happened then is he
was you know, he was convicted. He was since the

(16:40):
thirteen and a half years um, and he only served
a total of a belief six years. I mean, he
was convicted in nine and he was out by that.
He had time served before that, so um into the
true was let out of prison, and the week or

(17:03):
something before, his mother wrote a letter to the warden
begging them not to let her son out of prison, saying,
we're worried about what he's gonna do. Um, so she was.
I think she wrote a couple of letters. Right. Um,
So he rolls out of prison and his wife at
that time waited for him, Michel Marta. And yeah, then

(17:28):
you know that he Belgium is a strange place. You know,
you can you can get a pension or or or
social support here more easily than you could in other countries,
and he managed to you know, he was such a
manipulator for everything actually, so he really always was always
manipulating everything to his advantage. And he figured out away

(17:48):
with him and his wife to get this state pension
um and then he got them to prescribe him powerful
sort of tranquilizers and including rypnol. And it's sort of like,
you know, suddenly here you got a guy he raped
five kids and and not just raped them, I mean
it was bad. It was like he raped them and

(18:10):
you know, abused them and held them for twenty four
hours and warehouses and took pictures and you know, awful stuff.
And then he gets out with a really light you know,
spend six years in jail in prison, and then he
gets out and gets a punt pension which is enough
to live on because he gets it both for him
and his wife. And then uh, they gave him a

(18:31):
bunch of for hypno and it's like okay, so now
he's he's collecting his for hypninal and he gets right
back into the game. He starts uh stealing again, getting
involved in the criminal networks and Charle Wau and then
he gets you know, called out a few times for

(18:51):
he was molesting girls at like ice ice rinks. Um.
You know, he got caught for that as well, you know. Uh.
And he then at that time started going to Slovakia
as well, Uh, Slovakia and Eastern Europe. And I think
he had thoughts that he could do good, you know,
dodgy illegal things between Slovakia and and Belgium involving probably

(19:16):
human trafficking. Um. And it's known and he was known
that he did rape at least two victims in Slovakia
and he actually had to um girls who visited him
in Belgium with his wife, you know, almost like as
exchange student type of things, and he raped them too, um.

(19:38):
And he he drugged them and raped them. And in fact,
one of the victims never knew she was raped until
after he was arrested the second time, and they found
a cassette of him raping her. So he was a
he was a real piece of ship, uh, this guy.
And he then what was started started putting together his

(20:01):
plans for his next big crime spreef or or or
sexual crime spree if you will. This is again this
is incredibly dark and disturbing stuff. But folks listening along
at home believe it or not. This is only the
beginning of the larger story. And one thing that you

(20:24):
point out there, Matt is not just his activities going
abroad regarding the abuse of children, but he was still
doing the petty crime you described throughout this period as well,
which we mentioned in no way are we drawing an
equivalency between the gravity of those uh those crimes. We

(20:48):
mentioned this because it is further evidence that someone at
the very least dropped the ball in in the course
of this investigation and when when Matt, Frederick and I
were getting familiarized with this. Of course, you know we

(21:09):
are not Belgian legal experts, right, We don't know, We
don't know the Belgian justice system. But it does seem
astonishing just from the outside looking in that someone could
commit any sort of crime at such regular intervals, right,

(21:31):
let alone sexual abuse, torture and kidnapping and you know,
later murder. It seems astonishing that someone could continually go
through the system and then come back out. And one
thing you point out in the Monster is that he
Detroit Detroit is the pension he and his wife were

(21:54):
receiving at this point is higher than the average Belgian
salary at that time. Yeah. So here's a guy who's
on pension now and then he sets about buying houses.
He was a clever person. He likes to think he's
in a super intelligent person. Maybe he's, you know, decently intelligent,

(22:15):
but he's very clever. He's very crafty and manipulative. He
ended up on this state pension together with his petty crimes,
buying five different properties. He bought these run down, shitty
houses and then he would become a slum lowered and
rent him out to people. Um. So he built up
a whole sort of life despite having already you know,

(22:39):
I think about it. You got you got a guy
who rapes five kids, gets thrown in jail for six years,
comes out and start buying houses. And he didn't have
any money from to start with. He didn't inherit any money,
this guy. Um, and then you talk about dropping balls.
Well that's where this gets really really crazy, right, So
we only talked about the first crime spree. The second

(23:00):
rhyme spree is what we're covering in the most and
there we have starts with the disappearance of two girls, um,
and then uh, there's more disappearances and then more and
then another one Um. And the crazy thing about this
is just so crazy, is that these parents were so

(23:21):
convinced that their kids were still alive. Now, most parents
usually are they don't want to give up. But these
particular parents of the first two victims, Julie and Melissa
were their names. They were eight year old girls who disappeared.
They were only away from their mother for fifteen minutes.
They wandered off for fifteen minutes and wound up being abducted, abducted,

(23:44):
and you know, it was like it was a small
you know, it was not that big of a deal.
Wasn't a national story. You got two missing girls, right, So, Um.
The thing is though, and they did a campaign. They
never gave up with their campaign, and for fourteen months,
fourteen months they they they were still in the media,
still fighting, and police and justice sort of abandoned this family.

(24:08):
And all that time, all that time, police is number
one suspect. After two weeks after the girls went missing,
was marked the true And then this whole thing becomes
really like very It's it's hard. I mean, if balls
can be dropped at that level, then this is the

(24:30):
you know, ultimate ball drop in the history of police work.
But it's so blatantly awful that you think maybe there's
a reason they didn't want to find him. I think
we need to arm our listeners with a little bit
of context around the police or the authorities at that time.
Matt Um, just tell us really quickly, what is the

(24:50):
gender marie and how does that different from the local
police force. Yeah, so in in Belgium at the time,
you had technically three police forces. You have the municipal police,
you had them the judicial police, and then you had
the Gendarmerie, which was like our FBI, and the judicial police,
which is like sort of a big national police, but

(25:12):
separate than the separate from the FBI. Uh. The Gendarmerie
is a military structure, so um. You know, the heads
of the genemie were colonels and whatever generals or whatever, um,
and so you had and you definitely had a backdrop
of strong rivalry between jurisdictions, and so the genre marie,

(25:33):
we're constantly trying to undermine the judicial police and vice versa.
And so you know what kind of happened here is
that the Gendarmerie were the ones who kind of started
picking up on the true as a possible suspect here
and what they did is they went off in secret
and decided to start trying to surveil him and and

(25:57):
to do their own little secret operation normal Lee. They
needed to ask for a warrant and to and to
do that you have to go to a judge, and
that judge works with the judicial police, not the gendamerie, right,
so the gean Marie. Uh didn't want to give up
the scoop, if you will. They wanted to be the
guys who caught or a lot of people think they

(26:18):
wanted to be the guys who caught these girls because
they're these girls. Faces were plastered all over the media,
and you know, suddenly they've caught on to market the
true as a possible suspect. But they never arrest him.
They never arrest the guy I'm talking fourteen months later
their bodies were found, those two girls two weeks after
they disappeared. He was already a suspect, and then a

(26:40):
month after that he was their number one suspect. And
and they never issued a warrant, they never did a search,
they never did anything. And it's just it's just mind boggling.
It's mind boggling, Yeah, it is, Uh And and the
idea of jurisdictional turf wars makes sense. That's that's a

(27:01):
very real thing. But also we have to, you know,
we have to objectively ask ourselves some really difficult questions
when we talk about what what you describe as the
biggest ball drop in the in the history of policing. Um,

(27:22):
I tend to agree, and it's it's quite understandable, even
if you consider yourself a died in the wool skeptic,
it is quite understandable how so many members of the
Belgian public would begin to suspect that there was something
beyond incompetence that could explain some of the missing steps

(27:44):
in these investigations. And what what you're saying now here
about the jurisdictional police relationship with with justices, it makes
me wonder without sounding too conspiratorial, hopefully it may makes
me wonder whether the Jenda Marie was concerned that they

(28:05):
would get shut down by the judges if they asked
for a warrant. Would you say that would is that
a possible motivation for them. It's very interesting that you're
asking that question, because what they ended up doing was
this state did this stupid surveillance operations so they think

(28:26):
the true could be involved, and so they do this
secret literally secret Operation a Fellow they called it. And
they started surveiling his house, but only during daylight hours,
which is odd, um, and they were filming it and
they were taking you know, uh, license plate numbers of
people driving it out of the neighborhood and that kind

(28:47):
of stuff. But it's sort of the next logical step
would be you have to do a warrant or make
an arrest or something, but you can't do that legally
without going to the judge. And as soon as you
go to the judge, the judge is going to say, Okay,
let's get the judicial police on this, right or you know,
or maybe okay, gendarme, you need to work together with

(29:09):
the judicial police and and and go in and do
this together. But they didn't want to do that. They
really wanted to keep it as their own. But keeping
it as their own made it such that they had
to keep it a secret. And so it gets so
ridiculous at some point after the surveillance, and it's one
of the saddest parts of the whole story is that, um,

(29:31):
they don't ever go into that house until the true
gets arrested for something else, He gets arrested for something else.
He gets arrested for some car theft thing. Okay, this
is in December. This is six months, seven months after
the girls disappeared. And only then did they go in
the house and guess what, they didn't do it with
a warrant to search for girls. They used the warrant

(29:53):
for this car theft thing, and they secretly went and
looked for the girls, apparently as they say they did it.
It's just so weird. It's like, Okay, you know, obviously
there's a warrant out for this guy because he was
involved in stealing cars, but they still they can't get
a warrant because he's possibly involved in kidnapping children. It's crazy.
It's just crazy. And we'll pause here for a word

(30:15):
from our sponsor before returning with more from Matt Graves.
And we've returned. What we're what we're seeing is, from
some perspectives, a a matter of tracing bread crumbs, right

(30:36):
with the benefit of retrospect when you're looking at the
ensuing investigation. Um we're talking about, you know how, maybe
there was a bit of shooting oneself in the foot
by having this secrecy right for whatever motivation. Um, let's

(30:57):
get to let's get to the moment where they do
find evidence that whether an OTHELLO or related related incidents.
Let's get to the moment where they do find evidence
that de Trourou has has been committing these crimes or

(31:23):
has been abducting and holding these victims. How do they
find this out? So we're we're in the we're in
the house were one of the properties. We have the
we have to go ahead to look into uh, car
theft or you know, auto related crimes. But we're we're

(31:45):
using that as a cover to figure out what's going
on with this wave of abductions and torture. How do
they break the case? Well, what happens is that the
gendarmes don't break it on their own. Um. And and
that's always that That's why this is so mysterious, because

(32:05):
when you look at it, you could say, Okay, this
isn't that hard to understand. These guys wanted to be
the Knights insurance shining armor, right, I mean, these poor
cute little girls, Julia Molliss had been missing. It was
highly televised and people were you know, everyone felt concerned
and they didn't want the judicial police to make the rest.
They wanted to go make the arrest. That would have

(32:26):
been all logical. The part that gets illogical as they
never made the arrest, and so the only way the
arrest was made was afterwards they were they were forced
to make an arrest because there was the last victim,
Leticia de Liz went missing and she was a fourteen
year old girl and she was abducted in a place
called Bertri, which is in the south of Belgium, in

(32:48):
the Ardennes region, beautiful region. And um, there were a
couple of witnesses who noticed a few things, one of
which was this dirty white van. I mean it sounds
like stereotypical. I mean there they were in a dirty
white van, you know. Um. And and then there was
another witness who who was actually a sister in the order, um,

(33:10):
a sister at a Catholic church, who also saw that van.
And the police sort of zeroed in on that, and
they had this in what you call a king's prosecutor.
The Belgium isn't monarchy, and so a high level prosecutor
are are called the crown prosecutor or a king's prosecutor.
And this particular prosecutor had the jurisdiction over this area

(33:32):
where this girl had disappeared. And he just happens to
be this wildly incredible individual who just jumped on it immediately,
Unlike a lot of the other paper pushing kind of people.
He just was like, oh was this girl went missing?
And he got in his car and drove to this
you know, drove to the town and started running a

(33:52):
police operation basically um and and basically you know through
him and his investigating judge that he you know, in
Belgium you have to have an investigating judge. When you're
gonna go do something serious and start asking for warrants
and all that, you needed judge behind you. And so
he got his judge, this guy named Conrad so Boulet
is the is the famous prosecutor, and Conrad is the

(34:13):
famous judge. And these guys just went whole hog and
they found the true and they arrested him and they
got it through a license plate, and they did a
bunch of work. It wasn't easy. They had to They
really had to do a bunch of police work to
get to find him. Right, because there was these two
witnesses who witnessed them and is strangely, this second witness,

(34:34):
this young man, he remembered the first three letters of
this license plate and the make and model of that fan.
And he did because A he was kind of an
engineering kid who loved to like memorize things and be
and he's an engineer today, by the way, um and
be is that he uh, he was afraid that this

(34:55):
crappy looking van parked in the street might try to
steal his bike or something, so he's like made him
in the note, I'll remember that license plate. And then
it only came up really by chance. It was literally
by chance, because they were interviewing everyone canvassing the area
and someone said, oh, well, you know, and then he
was the boyfriend of someone who knew the sister, and

(35:18):
it was almost random that they interviewed this guy and
they thought he had seen someone and he was like, no, no,
didn't see anyone. Didn't see anyone, and only a sort
of in the middle of the interview and they said,
is there anything else that you saw? He was like, oh, yeah,
I did see this van. It was a little weird.
I thought they were gonna steal my bike. Ah. And oh,
by the way, I know the license plate number, damn.
And then they did the search and then they got

(35:39):
seventy seven hits, and then they narrowed it down and
then they pops up to Truth's name. And of course,
you know, now you've got the John Darmes can't control
this anymore because you've got an investigating judge and the
King's prosecutor on the case. Right, So this these guys
are like, who the hell is this guy? And then
they look into the files and they're like, oh my god, Yeah,

(36:00):
this is guy's a he's awful. He's raped, you know,
five kids and went to jail for it, and he's
been you know, there's multiple leads that he's building basements
and his seller. Let's go get this guy. You know,
That's what happened. And and so the gendarmer he didn't
do it on their own. They they they almost didn't
want to do it, you think, actually, and somehow they

(36:24):
got undermined by the by the investigating judge and the
and the prosecutor. Well, let's talk about the consequences that
that occur, because the Gen. D. Murray kind of slows
their role for some reason early on in the investigation.
Let's talk about and and Fa and some of the
other victims, because if many more victims were picked up

(36:44):
after they knew the true was the guy, or at
least had deep suspicion. Yeah, and that's that's the real
sad part of this story, is that you know he's
their number one suspect. But after that, he went and
kidnapped to teenage girls on the Belgian seaside, seventeen and
eighteen year old Anne Martial and if Lambres come from

(37:07):
the Flemish side of the country, so speaking a different language,
Flemish is like Dutch. And then in the south where
Julie Melissa disappeared as the French speaking region and um
then uh, he kidnapped two more girls, um and and
these were both French speaking girls. But you think about it,

(37:28):
like all four of those, you know, should never have
really been kidnapped, because he should have been investigated, and
if he would have been investigated properly, they certainly would
have found Julian Melissa his first two victims, because this
is where the story gets really dark. But he built
a seller, He built a dungeon in his basement where
he kept these eight year old girls, and he kept

(37:51):
them there locked up in a dark, damp, tiny room,
and um, he would take them out every once in
a while and abuse them and put them back in. Um.
And it's it's the saddest story you'll almost ever come across, because, um,
what happens to those two girls is when he's arrested, okay,

(38:15):
for a car theft, they're still there. And now they're
in an empty house and it's December in Belgium. It's cold,
and it's damp, and it's dark, and the true is
not there, and no one's there except for the stupid
ass gendarmes who are still, you know, trying to surveil

(38:36):
him somehow, and go look at his house and and
you know, we think that most likely those girls were
sitting there when they went in and did that search
that they were faking. You know, they were pretending to
be searching for car stuff, but they were supposably looking
for little girls. And you know, underneath their noses were
these two little girls in this basement, starving to death.

(38:59):
And and you know, it even gets worse in that
while they're down there in the basement looking and this
guy Michaux, the John Darmos in charge, knew he was
looking for girls. Knew he was looking for Julian Melissa.
And he's there with a locksmith. And the locksmith is
there to open doors and do things that you need
to do when you're doing it, you know, a search.

(39:22):
And the locksmith has no idea why he's there. He's
just there with the police, right, it's not his business. So,
but there's voices they hear a little. The locksmith is
sure he heard little voices and he heard this whispering
voice sound and he's like, white stop and and and
basically this this John Darme says, shut up to everybody, uh,

(39:43):
and then the voices stopped right. And afterwards, when you
learn what happened to these girls and how they were
manipulated and how the true told him a story, how
they were bad people coming to get them and he
was actually protecting them, you understand that if they heard that,
they were like, oh, very quiet, the bad people and
maybe here, and so they were really quiet, and then
they didn't find them, um, and so they left the house.

(40:07):
And and afterwards, you know, under oath at the court
of the proceedings, this this locksmith, you know, he said,
I don't know anyone if they would have known that
they were looking for girls, which I did not at
the time. I don't know anyone who would have left
that house without tearing it to pieces. Um And you know,
it's just another one of those things. It's just another

(40:27):
one of this story. And believe me, we've only gotten
to a little tip of the iceberg here. This story
keeps going. This story goes and it goes and it
and it has almost every thing that you can imagine. Um,
I don't want to. I've got there. There's there. There's
parts of it where it gets so crazy that it's

(40:50):
not just crazy police stuff. The story just gets crazier
on many levels. Um. And and around episode nine, it's
going to take a big turn that people are going
to be like, what, that's the last thing in the
world that they were going to be expecting and it happened,
and it's all true. It's just all true. That's why
I did this. I started this being suspicious. I I

(41:11):
hate conspiracy theories. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I thought, oh,
this was just incompetence. And but it's an incredible story,
you know, because it almost led to the demise of
the entire country. Actually the biggest protest in the history
of this country. Um. But but you know, when I
came into it, I was very skeptical. But now I'm like,
oh my god, something something was going on there, Something

(41:34):
was going on. Right, It's unusual for a criminal investigation
to lead to things like the judge being kicked off
of a case, ministers resigning, hundreds of thousands of people
marching in the streets. Uh. And this maybe we talk

(41:55):
a little bit about this because we don't look, folks
fell conspiracy realists listening along at home. There is excellent,
excellent research in this show. And again it is. It
is disturbing, but as you said, Matt, it is also
undeniably true. The facts are there. One thing I think

(42:17):
we could we could talk about a little bit is
maybe we can We're mentioning some of the missed opportunities
and investigation and I'm being very diplomatic calling them that.
But let's let's also go back to the first judge.

(42:38):
You called him the famous judge, right this Uh, this
one comes up when people are learning about the story.
But he's not the only judge because he was dismissed
from the case due to a conflict of interest. Could
you tell us a little bit about what led to
his dismissal. Yeah, and that's really when the ship had

(43:00):
the fan here in Belgium was when so this guy
was these this couple of this prosecutor in this judge
Boule and Conrad everyone like these guys, you could tell
that they were just rolling up their sleeves and saying, damnit,
these girls are going disappearing. We're not going to let
this stand in our country. We're going to find whoever
did this, and we're gonna not stop until we find

(43:21):
everybody involved. Right And and he was already almost sort
of a hero of the people for for just getting
so involved and getting results early on, as soon as
it crossed his jurisdiction, right um. And then you know, suddenly, uh,
they were both invited to like a dinner to say
thank you, you know, for finding the Leticia Dudas who

(43:43):
who had disappeared and was saved. Um and right. Like
it was like a formal, like just a thing, potluck dinner.
It was thrown by like the little village where she
was from. It's a tiny little village and the parents
and stuff. We're just like all these two heroes who
found my daughter and we want to invite him for

(44:04):
a spaghetti dinner, you know, like probably worth about three bucks,
you know, total total investment. Uh. And lawyers for the
True saw this picture of Conrad there. He was a judge,
so technically he shouldn't be there because he's supposed to
be neutral, although I don't think his neutrality was compromised
by him being there, you know. Anyway, the Court of

(44:26):
the Seas ruled all that and said, no, you're out, Um,
we've got to take him off the case. And man,
at that point, that's when everyone was already piste off
about this thing. And then when that happened, everyone just
you know, like I said, the ship hit the fan
here in Belgium, I mean people, you know, the Hell's
Angels rolled into town literally and you know that. One

(44:47):
of the images that that I'll never forget is imagine
a fired fire brigades like fire engines pulled up to
the Supreme Court and hosing it down, just literally hosing
it down to symbolize that the court and the law
and is corrupt and we're turning our hoses against the

(45:08):
Supreme Court to give it a washing down because it's
all corrupt. And dirty and we've had enough. And and
like it was, you're talking three over three percent of
the entire population protested that day. That's that's the equivalent
like ten million people in America rights unheard of level.
You've got fire departments sprang down the Supreme Court, You've

(45:32):
got uh all of the Hell's Angels of Belgium rolling
into town. You've got just people, just everybody in the
streets just going nuts about like no, we cannot have this.
This has to stop. And and luckily, luckily the parents
who are who are wonderful people, the parents of these victims,

(45:52):
they're incredible people like that. That's part of the whole
story is that they stopped everyone from tearing everything down.
They were like, oh, come with us, and let's do
a peaceful march insisting about how this all has to
change and we need to clean up this system and
get results in these cases. And it was a big
moment of national solidarity. Everyone came together and supported these families.

(46:15):
And these families were from two language. It's almost like,
you know, a big congregation of Republicans and Democrats coming
together and hugging each other and saying, we all need
to you know, work better and be better and do things,
you know, together and achieve greatness and fix everything. You know.
That's because those are those communities don't mix very well.

(46:35):
You know, they have long historical grievances, and so they
really came together at this point and it was an
amazing moment. It's incredible. It's a great picture too. And
that's actually what episode seven is largely based around. Right,
that just came out. It's called LaMarche Blanche. Oh, how
how would you say it? Matt? I'm sorry, the Witch,
the Frenches, La Marche blanche, the White March. Yes, um,

(47:01):
And it really does focus on that, and just man,
there's so much information in there. I just really want
wanna ask you. You spoke with Karin Is that how
you say her name? Russo? One of the mother of
Melissa Russo, who is one of the victims. And she
has this quick quote that I just want you to
react to when it comes to I guess the White
March and how people were feeling at the time. She

(47:24):
states the gendarmes seemed like guys who wanted to find
the girls, but at the same time, they seemed like
they were afraid of everything. What what do you think
that means that this police force was afraid of everything. Well,
I think, and this is such a hard mystery about
why the gendarmes didn't act right? Um? And I think

(47:46):
and she thinks that those guys that she was talking
to on a daily basis, and even the guy who missed,
you know, missed the girls when they were looking for them,
and that they were low level guys in the gendarmerie.
But there was something bigger going on there. There were
some people upstairs who had decided that they didn't want
to do what they should have done. And the big

(48:10):
question mark is why? Right? Uh? And I mean, I
mean some people just say it was all incompetence. A
lot of people still say that, But when you look
at it and studied as hard as I have, you
can't have that much smoke without some fire. There was
something wrong, Something was going on right now? Was was
it that they were protecting this crazy pedophile? No, I

(48:31):
mean the Drew was a loser. They didn't give a
damn about him. Um. Was it? Was it that they
were protecting one of the Drew's customers who might be
high ranking John darm or politician? Maybe? Was it something
a lot more complicated, probably probably to do with the
police war, war between the police services and and the

(48:53):
stolen car network and various levels of of of sort
of corruption within the police. And there was some reason,
some reason that they didn't want to go in there.
And I think they might have seen if you're skeptical,
or if you're a cynic, you say they saw the
girls as basically collateral damage. We have a big because

(49:17):
they were in a war. They were literally trying to
take over the police force at this time, and they
were trying to to to to bury the judicial police,
and they wanted to take over the judicial police and
put them underneath the gendarmerie and make the gendarmerie the
law of the land. And this was stated all the
way from the top of the organization. And this was
a ten year strategic plan like within these don't forget

(49:38):
it's a military operation, and and they could have seen
like this, they've got something and they're doing something here,
and for some reason they didn't want to go get
the true And as I swear to you, it's it's
so hard to understand. Either they were protecting someone or
it has something to do with a very complicated thing

(49:58):
related to that stole and car ring that the judicial
police were dirty on they were involved. The judicial police
were involved, they were corrupt, they were involved with the
mafia and the and the car theft rings in Shara,
and so there's speculation that maybe they were trying to
show up trying to catch the judicial police, but that
the True was in the way somehow and they or

(50:20):
or if they if they if they caught him, then
they didn't get to win their long battle of of
of undermining the judicial police. But it's just it's just
crazy and it's it's Uh, whatever they were doing, they
didn't do their job, that's for sure. Well let's you know,
let's follow up on this, because one thing that stands
out to me when you talk about we're talking about

(50:41):
the Belgian public coming together in such an enormous show
of solidarity, is that they were coming together, at least
in some aspect two, to protest against what they saw
as another much more sinister form of operation. Right, the

(51:02):
the allegations were that, uh, the True was not alone. Right,
the idea that he was not simply I don't want
to diminish this, The ideas that he was not simply
a monstrous criminal with no other motivation than the commission

(51:25):
of monstrous crimes, but that he had as you as
you mentioned Matt, that he had customers, that he had
financial motivation, that he was connected with some sort of larger,
um larger operation on on its own. And this is
I think one of the one of the aspects of

(51:47):
the story that remains mysterious to a lot of observers,
the the concept that this individual may have had accomplices.
And sometimes when people are talking about that aspect, they
point to things that we've discussed, like the fact that
he was regularly getting off very easily for horrific crimes,

(52:11):
or the fact that so many aspects of investigation seemed
to be stone walled or somehow stymied or even just
completely ignored, like um like DNA testing for instance, which
feels like day one stuff. In this kind of investigation.
You know all about the the alleged and the proven accomplices,

(52:34):
proven being his wife for instance, uh and and some
of his other accomplices in car theft and car trafficking crimes.
But what do you think about the allegations that, uh,
if we just look at this as a thought experiment,
what do you think about the allegations that there was

(52:55):
a larger network at play and that he was just
sort of a field agent for that for that initiative. Yeah,
this is the biggest question that still divides people today.
Um for me personally, just looking at it, Uh, it
seems you just got to go back to the facts again.
Let's go back to the facts, like what was the true?

(53:17):
The true didn't ever do anything for without money. Everything
he did was to make money, every single thing. And
he was notoriously cheap. I mean he bought the cheap
ship for everybody else and saved the good stuff for him.
He's still gas. He had this weird way of stealing
gas for his car so he never had to pay
for gas. He wouldn't pay for anything. He was really

(53:37):
really known as a skin flint this guy. Um, and
every single thing he ever did was for money. And
by the way, he told people that he was going
to kidnap girls and sell them. So the idea that
he suddenly took on like oh, I'm going to take
six girls and manage that right without any profit motive
is hard for me to believe. Um. So I think

(53:58):
if you just like back up and look at the
general facts you think. Of course, he had to be,
you know, looking to monetize this. I think he was
a pervert himself and probably trying to have best of
both worlds for himself to say, yeah, I'm gonna you know,
be under rape and and abuse these people and then
I'm gonna make money out of them. Um. So if
you ask me, do I think there are people walking

(54:20):
around today in the world that were never tried or convicted,
I would say yes, I do believe there are, um, absolutely,
and and for me that's that's you know, it's just
out of control to to think about that. If it
was a different crime, I'd say, okay, But we're talking
about murdering, raping, abusing children. Yeah, there's a moment in

(54:44):
La Monster where you have someone, i think a little
girl read letters that were sent um to the parents
of one of the victims by that were written by
the victim. It's really harrowing to to hear at. I
wonder when we're talking about monetary gain for this kind
of thing, it seems as though rationally a strategy would

(55:09):
be ransoming the children if you're really trying to make
money off off of it. Um. I think the harder
thing to think about is using the children, uh for
sexual purposes, Like I don't even know, I say it
without throwing up. Um. It seems as though that's more

(55:32):
likely as to what was happening, if he was making
money off of them. I just want to see if
you heard, if you had any proof of you found
anything that would would lead would lead you to believe
that he was making money or profiting in some way
off of the girls. Well, this is you know. I
did an interview about this today actually, and I won't

(55:53):
do any spoiler alerts. I don't even know if we're
going to use it. But it was harrowing, let's just say. Um.
And one of the things that you realize when you
start looking at these types of affairs is that there's
a lot of this stuff. Actually, there's really a lot
of this stuff, not just in Belgium, everywhere. Um. And

(56:14):
and there's definitely child trafficking networks. That's a proven you know,
that's a proven for sure. There's lots of them and
and um and it's lucrative business and so there's business
behind it. And I think that as humans, I hate
this kind of stuff. I never wanted to cover this

(56:35):
I I thought, I'm covering this story, right. This is
a crazy story. The country almost had a revolution. The
FBI was canceled. I mean, there's there's no more FBI.
By the way, that was you know, it's over. Uh,
this affair killed the FBI. Imagine that a case so
big in America that the FBI gets closed down. Well
that's what happened here. Um. So you know, I was

(56:57):
thinking just about the whole story, right, And I don't
like the details, and I don't go into too many
details about the abuse because the abuse was really bad,
because I do know those details and have read them
and and and all that. But um, the point is
is that we just don't want to see that as humans.
It's so unimaginable, especially those of us who are parents.

(57:20):
It's just so terrible. Like my wife can't stand it.
She can't stand this stuff. She's like, oh my god,
you know. Like, but I kind of turned back to
her sometimes I say, well, what do you want to
just ignore it? Should we all just ignore it? Like
She's like, oh, don't talk about that. How could you
talk about that? Why? And I'm like, well, okay, what's
the alternative? We just ignore it? And I think as
people we tend to ignore it because it's so awful

(57:42):
that we can't stand it, we can't bear it. But
it's real and this stuff happens, and there's people right
now that are that are suffering from this, and there's
big networks. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist. You know,
this has proven you know, um and and so one
of the things that's opened my eyes and this project
is because again I'm so skeptical, you know. I was like,

(58:06):
there's not going to be a network or anything like.
But you know, you start looking at it and you say,
out there, of course there's networks. There's networks everywhere. Um,
you know, it's a business and and it's a sickness,
uh that's existed in humanity for a very long time
and sweeping under the carpet. I don't think it's the solution.
So we need to probably be able to face it.

(58:28):
And because if you ignore it, and you're never going
to solve it. Very well said that, and there are
you know, there are so many things that we're not
getting to in our conversation today candidly because they are
addressed in the Monstra and they are you should experience

(58:49):
them there this this is an ongoing, an ongoing mystery.
Like you said, Matt, there are moult hard questions left
in the wake of the official conclusion of the Belgian government. Right.
And I think it's fair to say that even today

(59:10):
two many people living in Belgium do not do not
accept the entirety of the official conclusions. It may it
may shock some people to know that the the person
we're discussing today is in fact still alive. Uh And

(59:34):
I have actually gone and checked, trying to keep up
with the news about this. But as as I understand,
the true is still in prison, right, a sentence of
life imprisonment. Yes, he's still around. Um and he's the
problem with the TRUEZ. I thought about trying to see him,

(59:56):
but he's such a liar. Um. You can never trust
the word that comes out of a mouth. Um. And
I've talked to his lawyers about that too, so uh
And and the parents, you know, he said that he
was going to tell them the truth because that they
still don't know the truth. They still don't know what happened,
that's the thing. They still don't know the actual truth.

(01:00:16):
They know that their girls died, they know he was involved.
But they don't know even the circumstances you know, of
of how they exactly died, and and they want to know.
But and the true at one point that I'll tell
you now. But and he was trying to get something
out of it, and he just can't trust this guy.
He's a manipulator, he's a psychopath. He's really a bad psychopath.

(01:00:38):
So I thought, you know what, I don't even want
to talk to this guy. Um if I thought I
could get something that would help the families, but all
no matter what he says, they won't believe him. Probably,
so it's just, you know, it's not even worth the time.
That's one thing I do want to highlight here, Matt.
That I think is Another thing I think is very
well done is that this show is not exploitation, which,

(01:01:02):
let's be honest, can sometimes happen. We're talking true crime.
Uh So, I I think it's an immensely respectful and
thorough objective investigation of some of the problems with this case.
So I this isn't even a question on my end.
I just want to say I think that was, uh
that was very well done and and the correct way

(01:01:23):
to approach this. Thank you. I really appreciate that it's
haunted me when I started this because I have to
live in this country, and um, you know, I want
to be able to you know, I want Belgians, don't
you know. There was a couple of big attempts to
do documentaries and stuff about this that we're completely shut
down by the families and the public just saying get

(01:01:45):
out of here, leave us alone. We don't want you to,
you know, make a big production out of our you know,
awful uh misery um or story. Um. But so as
I started the project, I thought my my goal and
I said this to the my sound guy the first day,
I said, my goal is that the families would listen

(01:02:06):
to this and field that I did the story justice
and I think I think I'm I think I'm getting there. Um.
And and it was big in Belgium, by the way,
when it came out, so they heard someone heard that
this story is coming out, and before like the next
day there it's hard to believe there's a front page
article about it in major national newspaper papers. Actually uh.

(01:02:31):
And then by the following Monday, I was already invited
to the prime time TV interview like talk show right
at prime time like Monday. Uh you know, like I
don't know the equivalent of NBC News or CNN or
Fox or whatever like the Big even not even like
more like the BBC. It's like the BBC of Belgium.

(01:02:51):
And so the BBC of Belgium had me on their
primetime show like within days of learning about this project,
and that that's how focused they are on this. And
for me, I was really nervous about this because it's
easy to talk to you guys, but talking to Belgians
who lived through this and who know the case because

(01:03:12):
they obsess about this case. This case is the most
that there's there's no case where Belgiums have obsessed over
more than this one. Um. But the good thing is
is that, you know, I think it came off really well.
I was. There's a press gave me a fair hearing,
and the families have you know that I've been in
contact with, remained supportive. So h that's a big load

(01:03:36):
off of my back because I was a little worried
they might, you know, not like this as somebody who's
working on it with you. I'm really proud of the
show because I I do point zero three of the
work on that show, and I really do appreciate just
what you're doing, So keep it, keep it going. How
can people find the show and learn more about it? Yeah,

(01:03:57):
so you can get it. It's on the I Heart
radio app, It's on um Athhole, Spotify everywhere UM and
it's called Monstra l E and then next word Monstra
spelled French m O n s t r E. And
it's gotten off to a huge start, um, more than

(01:04:19):
I ever dreamed of. And it's a credit to the
team at Tenderfoot and I heart to be honest that
we've been able to have such a really, really strong
show because the support and attention to detail is floored me,
to be honest, UM, and I love it. It's it's

(01:04:40):
you know, I'm I'm getting my rocks off for things
that frustrate me elsewhere by working you know, with people
that understand, you know, quality and don't accept anything uh
that's not you know, fact checked a and be done
correctly and with support. So I really find it. It's
it's been fantastic to work with the team at at

(01:05:02):
Tenderfoot and I are Radio, so I'm absolutely thrilled and
hope to do another story at some point. You can
also head over to Monster Dash podcast dot com to
learn more. Fellow conspiracy realists, thank you, as always for
tuning in. I do very much hope you enjoyed that interview. Again,
we want to emphasize that there are ongoing questions. In

(01:05:26):
this case, Matt Graves is doing an excellent job researching
and exploring these. We have also only scratched the surface
of this affair. So if you would like to learn
more about the Monster of Belgium and the questions that
remain unanswered, do check out the monstra available, as we said,

(01:05:46):
on any podcast platform you prefer. In the meantime, we
would like to hear from you. Don't hesitate to reach
out if there's another story that you feel needs more
public attention, and do not hesitate to reach out if
you yourself may have some leads on the questions Matt
Graves mentions in our conversation today, how do I reach out?

(01:06:09):
You might be asking, Well, it's pretty easy. We want
you to be able to find us online Facebook, Here's
where it gets crazy, Instagram, Twitter, check out our YouTube
where you can see me trying to convince my merry
band of miscreants to uh to get a little weirder
with things, So more to come on that front in

(01:06:31):
the meantime. If you don't sip the social needs. But
I have a story to tell, why not give us
a phone call. We are say it with me one
eight three three st d w y t K. You'll
hear a familiar voice and a beep like so beep,
and then from there you'll have three minutes. Those three
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with it. We listen to every phone call we get.

(01:06:52):
Just All we ask is that you give yourself a
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If you have a story that needs more than three minutes,
you don't have to keep calling repeatedly, and you know,

(01:07:14):
forgetting where you left off and then jumping back on. No,
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(01:07:52):
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