August 23, 2022 • 31 mins
On June 24, 1995 two 8-year-old girls, Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, went missing in the province of Liege in Belgium. The police are slow to react. However, the parents quickly mobilize a search. At the time, no one knew that this was just the beginning of a series of events that would upend the country.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, or
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
It was a beautiful day in June nineteen ninety five
in the East of Belgium. Eight year old Julie Lejeane
arrived at her classmate Melissa's house at around three pm
to practice their end of school year dance routine. The
girls were best of friends and excited about the upcoming
summer break and beautiful weather. After practice, they convinced Melissa's
(00:49):
mom to let them walk to the overpass just down
the street to wave at the cars below. It sounds
like a strange activity for eight year olds, but Melissa
was used to doing this with her brother. She must
have been excited to show her best friend Julie how
fun it was to get honks and waved from the
(01:10):
cars racing by below. But something evil was lurking near
the bridge that day. Julie and Melissa crossed its path
and then disappeared. It was as if they simply vanished
(01:32):
in broad daylight from one minute to the next, from
the time they were last seen by witnesses near the
bridge to the moment Melissa's mother started looking for them,
they were only unaccounted for for about fifteen minutes. Unfortunately,
in that small window of time, they were taken from
that beautiful day into a very dark place.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
A psychopath is somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
And I told them it is a very exceptional that
somebody abducts two children at the same time.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Should have been the.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Yell of it in nineteen eighty six, but my god,
it was just a beginning.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Welcome to La monstre. I'm your host, Matt Graves. In
the summer of nineteen ninety five, I moved to Belgium
and I've lived here ever since. I'll never forget the
fear and chaos unleashed that summer, and repercussions and questions
that still reverberate to this day. It all started right
(02:59):
here on this bridge. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
a local man explains that eight year olds Julie Lejehn
and Melissa Russo lived less than five hundred meters away.
This bridge is ground zero for one of the darkest
chapters in the history of this country. Over twenty five
(03:23):
years ago, our story began. A story of abomination, incompetence,
and conspiracy that led to the demise of the entire
institution of Belgian Federal Police and rattled the foundations of
its government. A story about a man whose accomplices, both
known and unknown, are walking freely in the world today,
(03:44):
a man so wicked that he simply become known as
La Monstre. Shortly after Julie Lejehn and Melissa Rousseau went missing,
Melissa's mother, Karine Russeau, explained the disappearance in an interview.
It's in French, so these are her words, read in
English by an interpreter.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
I got on my bike and decided to go meet
them so we could finish the walk altogether. And I
rode down to the bridge and back and didn't see them,
And then took the same route back and forth three times,
and I still didn't see them.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Around this time, Julie's mother arrived to pick up her daughter.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
I arrived around six o'clock by car with my son.
When I got there, missus Strussel was on the lawn
getting over her bike.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
She came straight over and explained she.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
Had let the girls take us twelve for thirty minutes,
but she couldn't find them. She had already made their
wrong trip to the bridge three times looking for Julian Melissa,
and she was worried because she couldn't find them, So
we decided to go looking for them by car. We
(04:56):
searched the route they were supposed to take, as well
as other three. It's near where other friends lived, just
in case the last track of time.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
At this point, both mothers were getting worried, so they
decided to call the police and ask for help. Melissa's
mother explained.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
It was about six forty five and the girls were
only forty five minutes late, but we were already very worried,
worried enough to call the police. I'd say the police
arrived within about fifteen minutes. They asked us some basic questions.
(05:40):
I'm not sure how long that lasted.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Julie's mother chimed.
Speaker 7 (05:44):
In fifteen or twenty minutes. I think they asked us
for pictures of the girls and we gave them the
ones we had at the time. I admit that at
one point at night I had some very bad thoughts
that maybe they'd been picked up by a bad person
would kill them, and that would find them somewhere nearby.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Everyone in the neighborhood was shocked about the disappearance. A
neighbor saw them that day from her window. She explained
that she saw them walking in the direction of the bridge,
and that they seemed calm and normal. A young couple
walking back from that bridge were the last people to
see them prior to their abduction.
Speaker 8 (06:28):
Was it.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
They explained that they had passed by two girls who
were walking in the direction of the bridge. The girl
said hello and were smiling. The couple said hello back
and kept walking. Julie and Melissa's parents did everything right
when their girls disappeared, just like every kidnapping story you've
ever heard. The police didn't immediately file a missing person's report,
(06:55):
but the parents knew that time was of the essence,
and they immediately contacted an association that helps locate missing children.
Things moved quickly, and a massive missing person's poster campaign
got underway. I distinctly remember these posters on the left
was a smiling Melissa in a red jumper, her soft
(07:17):
features and big brown eyes, smiling and acute grin. Julie's
also smiling, with her hair pulled back by a headband,
surely to show off her new little stud earrings. These
pictures are burned into the brains of almost anyone who
lived through these times in Belgium. When I first saw them,
I was in my mid twenties, far removed from the
(07:39):
worries of parenthood. When I look at them now, as
a middle aged man with two girls of my own,
it's heartbreaking. If I try to put myself in the
parent's shoes, the feeling is unbearable. The rush of anxiety
is so dark and deep that I can't stand to
hold the thought more than a few seconds. I can't
imagine living with that feeling day after day without being
(08:00):
able to escape it. I think it's something that only
the parents of a missing child can really understand. Shortly
after the abduction, Melissa's mother appeared on the news with
a message for her.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Daughter, Melissa.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
I'm here for you. Everyone's here for you at home.
I don't know if there's something you can do to
come home, whether you can do something or not. I
don't know, but we're here, my love, waiting for you.
We're doing everything everything we can do to find you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The tireless work of Julian Melissa's family started to generate publicity,
and national news channels cover the disappearance. Several volunteers helped
them search all of the field nearby and anywhere else
(09:01):
the girls could have possibly gone. When no trace was found,
the parents became convinced they'd been kidnapped. On one hand,
they were happy not to have found their bodies, but
a sinking sense of dread began to set in. They
were absolutely convinced that Julie and Melissa were alive, and
they refused to give up searching.
Speaker 8 (09:28):
This is a message to the kidnappers. We are still
without any news of our girls, Julie and Melissa, for
two weeks now. We've been waiting in anxiety. We can
no longer take this situation. Whoever you are and wherever
you are, we beg you for the return of our children.
Please send us proof that they are alive and okay.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Telephone lea.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Investigators in Liege received their first interesting tip. Seventy one
year old Mary Louise Henrote lived close to the bridge
where Julian Melissa disappeared. Marie Louise lived a quiet, elderly
existence and didn't read newspapers or watch TV. She was
(10:22):
a creature of habit who followed the same routine every day.
June twenty fourth was a beautiful day for her usual routine.
She climbed the stairs to her room at around four
pm before going to bed. At around six pm. She
(10:49):
liked to sit by the window for an hour or so,
taking in the end of her day. From the window,
Marie Louise can see the highway as well as the
side roads in an open field. At around five pm,
she said she saw two girls walking along a small
access road leading to the bridge. Apart from the cars
(11:13):
racing down the highway, there's not much to see, so
she watched the girls as they walked by, going towards
the bridge. As she sat up to close the curtains,
she noticed a dark colored car pulled over on the
right hand side of the road next to the girls.
A man got out of the car and opened one
(11:34):
of the back doors. The girls got into the car.
There didn't appear to be a struggle, and she assumed
the girls knew the driver. He was a normal looking
man with thick dark hair wearing black pants. She wasn't
a car buff but settled on it possibly being at
push O two to five when inspectors helped her narrow
(11:57):
down the possibilities. Other leads trickled in about different sightings.
A man reported seeing two girls on the bridge as
he drove under them on his motorcycle on June twenty fourth,
after five pm. He also recalled seeing a red car
stopped in the emergency lane near the bridge. He remembered
(12:19):
it because he was in the right lane and had
swerved leftward to keep a safe distance. Four other separate
witnesses reported seeing a red car stopped on the side
of the highway near the bridge on June twenty fourth.
Some of them thought it was a Ford Fiesta. Two
(12:40):
of these witnesses also reported seeing a van further along
in the emergency lane. One of them was a doctor
from Liege who sent a letter to police saying he'd
seen a red car and a van stopped in the
emergency lane near the bridge. He had slowed down for
safety and noticed the van had French license plates and
(13:02):
the red car had Belgian plates. And even remembered the
first three letters of the Belgian license plate as n
k V or envy K. Finally, a woman in Liege
who lived roughly six miles from where Julian Melissa disappeared,
reported an attempted kidnapping of her daughter and friend, ages
(13:22):
seven and eight earlier. On the same day that Julian
Melissa disappeared. She contacted police and reported that at approximately
twelve fifteen p m. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
a man dressed in a blue and green striped shirt
and dark trousers tried to tempt the girls into his
car with candy. One of the girls testified that he
(13:47):
had one hand on the steering wheel and in the
other hand he held a handkerchief that seemed to be
moist and gave off a weird smell. Luckily, the mother
spotted what was going on and ran over to intervene.
When the man saw her, he hit the gas and
his tires screeched as he accelerated away. She formally identified
(14:07):
the vehicle as a red Ford Fiesta. She reported this
to police two days later on the following Monday. Here's
what she said in an affidavit these are her words,
not her voice.
Speaker 9 (14:25):
Earlier in the year, in both March and May, a
man driving a red car offered to take the girls
for a ride. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
at noon, the girls were playing outside. I saw my
daughter moving away from the car. It was a red
Ford fiesta. I saw that my daughter was afraid. I
(14:46):
got closer and saw that my daughter's friend, Diana, was
sitting in the passenger seat of the car. I literally
ripped her out of the car. The driver tried to
keep her from getting out, and then took off. I
got a good look at he looked to be around
one meter seventy tall, five foot eight, thin, with short,
dark hair parted on the right, brown eyes, wearing a
(15:08):
blue and green striped shirt with dark trousers.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I tried to reach the woman who made this statement,
but couldn't find her. I did, however, track down one
of the girls, Diana. She didn't want to speak with
me directly, but we had a series of texts and
she confirmed that this actually did happen. Overall, six separate
leads came in about the day that Julian Melissa disappeared.
(15:37):
There was an elderly woman who claimed that she saw
the girls get into what looked like a dark colored
Pugeau on the access road next to the highway. Four
different witnesses reported seeing a red car parked in the
emergency lane on the side of the highway around the
time of the disappearance, and another woman claimed that a
man in a red car on two occasions tried to
(15:59):
abduct her, her daughter, and her daughter's friend just six
miles away from the bridge where the girls went missing.
Shortly after the disappearance, a criminologist named Karine houts About
created a description of the profile of the suspect she
believed Plice should be looking for. Karine studied victimology and
(16:21):
psychopathology in Paris and at the Washington College of Law
in DC, and she participated in the profiling program at
FBI headquarters in Quantico. She's a criminal profiling expert who
works directly with victims, judicial authorities, and perpetrators all over
the world. My co producer Thomas and I drove to
(16:41):
her house on the outskirts of Ghent to meet her.
So we're walking to Korene's house and this is a
really cute little place. It's kind of a medieval cobblestone village,
barely even fit a car in this road. The roughly
one hour drive from Brussels, we arrive at a charming
(17:03):
little village where Karine works. She's got a moat. Wow,
so we're crossing a little moat bridge. It's a peaceful
little haven nestled into the Flemish countryside. It looks like
something you'd see in a Brugal or Rembrandt painting. This
is beautiful. Hello, Hello, KARMI.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Nice to meet you. Meet.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Karine is warm and welcoming, but underneath that warmth you
can sense a warrior. She spent her life fighting for
the rights of abused and confronting dangerous predators head on.
After some pleasant small talk, we settled into a quaint
room with a wood burning furnace and I asked her
some questions about the disappearances of Julie and Melissa.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
It was June nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I was in the United States at that moment in Washington,
DC because I had practice placement at the FBI National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Now, while I was there,
I started having faxes.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
At the time, it wear faxes.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
We're talking about twenty five years ago asking my help
because two little girls disappeared in Grassolonna in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You'll hear the name Grassolonia quite a bit in the story.
It's the name of the municipality in Liege where the
girls disappeared.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
It were Julie and Melissa. There was the twenty fourth
of June. Then I think it was somewhere in July.
I was back in Belgium and I was approached by
a detective, which in the United States is quite normal
to have a private detective, which in Europe is really
They find this ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
He said, well, listen, you have to help these parents.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
It is two weeks now, the children are missing and
nothing is happening.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Private detectives are rarely a welcome site for police investigators.
In the nineties in Europe, they were nowhere near as
common as they are today. So when Karin and a
detective showed up in Barcelonia to investigate the crime scene,
police were less than thrilled to see them. They started
by going to the bridge and then Karen asked the
(19:22):
detective to bring her to the closest exit.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I then asked him, okay, if he comes from there
he saw the children. Where can he get off the highway?
So we searched for that first, and it was very nearby.
And then he could come back, pick up the children
and drive again, you know, by the bridge going over
(19:46):
the highway. He could just take them away. It could
go easily. Then I saw that the weeds were cut, which.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Was not the case.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
She's talking about wheat fields around the area. By the
time she visited the scene in mid July, the wheat
was cut, but she surmised that it wouldn't have yet
been cut on the twenty fourth of June, making it
hard to see two small girls from one of the
side roads.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
But from there you could not see these children because
the wheats were too high. So I said, okay, he
saund them from the highway. And on a highway you're
not on foot or.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
With your bicycle. So he has a car.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
If he has a car, he has more tendency to
a methodical type.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Karine explained that there are two types of kidnapper profiles,
the methodical type, someone who premeditates his crimes, versus the
impulsive type, who acts on the spur of the moment.
In this case, she was convinced they were dealing with
a methodical profile.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
And then we went to the parents and there Geen
Darmerie was already waiting for me inside, very very hostile.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, I can't believe the I mean, so when
you showed up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
You showed up at Julian Melissa's yes of Melissa.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Melissa and the mother of Julie was there, and Gino
Rissau was there too.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
He was very very nervous.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Gino Rousseau is Melissa's father.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
He was really upset.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
And I said to these two policemen, I said, I
saw people going in and out the room of Melissa,
and I said, did you preserve DNA from Melissa?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
They hadn't preserved the DNA. It had been more than
two weeks since the disappearance, and parents were getting frustrated
by the lack of urgency from the Jean Dear Marie,
which is the name of the Belgian Federal police. Karin
tried to offer the police some advice.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I said, you need to take some hair from a
hair brush, or you know, a swimming suit or something.
And then I said you have to look for somebody
who has been in prison for abduction.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Torture and sequestration.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
And this policeman told me listen to missus Hutzbel. We
are not in the United States here, you know. Then
I said, okay, I'm going. So I wanted to leave.
I've had it with these people.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
The situation was getting tense at the Rousseau house. Melissa's father, Gino,
was becoming increasingly angry with police.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
And then Gino he threw his car piece on the
table and he said get out, get out, and he
throwed the two policemen out.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Gino Rousseau later testified that police had warned him that
Karen Whot's about was some sort of quote witch in
training and that he shouldn't listen to her.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
And I could understand this disarrayed these people, two little
girls of eight years of age, and they were doing
nothing at all, So I understand them. I calmed them
down and I told them it is very exceptional that
somebody abducts two children at the same time. Eighty seven
percent of this kind of crimes are pre planned because
(23:04):
this is a methodical type, and methodical types organized on beforehand.
Where are they going to get rid of the children?
They're victims? And if you don't find the killer, you
won't find the victims.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
After the police left, Karen stayed with the parents. She
had some advice. She said that they should appeal to
the Ministry of Justice and ask that a multidisciplinary team
of crime experts be put on the case. The parents
followed up and the ministry agreed. At the time, the
Minister of Justice was Stefan de Clerk. He agreed to
(23:47):
assign an investigation unit to the case, what Karen refers
to in this interview as a cell.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
The cleric sent me two officers of the Gendarmerie Major
de Krana, and I helped them for two days to
put together a cell to help these investigations. Now he's
afraid of me because he knows what I'm saying is right.
(24:14):
He was the most stupid man I've ever seen in
my life, and he's the head of the cell. Right
And later on when the case explode that I heard
that there were five people in this cell structure, from
whom three were.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Not even aware they were in it.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Okay, so they made they made they made a missing
child unit to help find the disappeared girls and other cases.
But they didn't really know what they were doing. It
sounds like and the guy who was heading it up
wasn't You didn't think it was very.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
No, and it was not it that is desert thing.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
After years you realize that they didn't have the intention
to look for children. It just took peace the population.
But we have all That was the argument I had
with my husband all the time. We paid the police
to do that, okay, but they don't do it.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I already had the child uh Gevre Kavas in eighty six.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
She's referring to a case in the mid eighties where
a young boy disappeared in broad daylight on his way
to play soccer with his brother. The boys family and victims'
advocates were highly critical of the lack of follow up
from police.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Six years old disappears in the middle of Brussels, is
still missing. And I had a friend who was at
the jam DARMERI and I asked him, what are you
doing to find this child back?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And he said, we are waiting.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
I said, waiting for what stop the world from turning?
You have to find a job where we're waiting for
people who give us some clues. A six year old
little boy. I couldn't stand, so, you know, I thought,
this is another empty box. Now after twenty five years,
(26:04):
you can see that it's all trembling down. And what
I said twenty five to thirty years ago is true.
They give us the impression it's so there. They have
no training, they are not interested, they don't give a shit.
Excuse me the expression if your child is gone.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Karine is seething at the memories of this time. She's
a fierce woman who says exactly what she thinks right
to your face. The Belgian Federal Police or Jean Darmerie,
was founded in eighteen thirty, but it wasn't until nineteen
ninety two that they had their first female officer. They
wore special uniforms and carried themselves with an air of authority.
(26:51):
I'm sure these officers didn't appreciate Karne's second guessing their
work without pulling any punches. In the end, the profile
established for the possible kidnapper was quite detailed. It said
that they should be looking for a white French speaking
male between the age of thirty five and forty five,
(27:12):
with a rap sheet of sexual offenses on miners, having
already spent time in prison, with a history of violent behavior,
with a psychiatric file, probably married with children, and of
above average intelligence. Belgium is a small country that had
a total population of around ten million people at the time.
(27:36):
You can roughly cut that by about sixty percent if
you're focusing on French speaking suspects, as the majority of
the country is Flemish speaking, So if you think about it,
we're talking about a pool roughly the size of a
large US city like Houston or Chicago. When you start
to further narrow it down by gender, age, and previous
(27:56):
convictions for sexual offenses on miners, it narrowed very quickly.
With this relatively small suspect pool, Locating the kidnapper of
Julian Melissa shouldn't have been an impossible task unless something
else was at play. No one knew it at the time,
but the disappearances of Julie Lejehanne and Melissa Russo marked
(28:19):
the beginning of a series of disappearances that would completely
upend the country. This season on the Monstra with the
investigation plagued by accusations of incompetence, high level corruption and
cover ups, thousands would pour into the streets from massive
(28:42):
protests across the country, demanding answers from a government that
failed to protect its most vulnerable.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
This basement and the crimes committed here have made this
house notorious. Every Belgium knows about Mark the True's Chamber
of horrors.
Speaker 5 (28:59):
He was a guy, known criminal who's been convicted of
raping and kidnapping children, and he somehow gets sort of
prison early. What happened after he got out of prison
is just beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We'll hear from key players from the center of the
investigation who agreed to be interviewed.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I still remember driving home every evening and asking myself
are we followed or not?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
But still I slept with my gun on my pillow
every night.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
Really, could you ask the witness if maybe he is
scared of somebody?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Is he maybe afraid of making statement? Because this gentleman
is watching what he is.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
A and an astonishing witness who have ended the investigation.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
I remember it like it's a film in my head.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I can close my eyes and see every little details
of that house.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Where she was murdered.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And we'll hear from people who didn't want to speak.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Explicated gues.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
To join us on this journey. Take a second right
now to follow or subscribe in your podcast app to
get the latest updates and new episodes. Le Monstra is
a production of tenderfoot TV and iHeart Radio, hosted and
executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by Thomas Resimont
(30:26):
of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are executive
producers on the behalf of tenderfoot TV, with producer Makeup
and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive
producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with producer Trevor Young.
Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design by Cooper Skinner
(30:46):
and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Cover
design by Trevor eilerl Monstra includes archival audio from SONYMA,
RTBF archives and CNN Archives. Special thanks to Backmedia and
marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna, and the teams at iHeartRadio
and tenderfoot TV. Find us on social media at Monster
(31:10):
Underscore pod. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, or
their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It was a beautiful day in June nineteen ninety five
in the East of Belgium. Eight year old Julie Lejeane
arrived at her classmate Melissa's house at around three pm
to practice their end of school year dance routine. The
girls were best of friends and excited about the upcoming
summer break and beautiful weather. After practice, they convinced Melissa's
(00:49):
mom to let them walk to the overpass just down
the street to wave at the cars below. It sounds
like a strange activity for eight year olds, but Melissa
was used to doing this with her brother. She must
have been excited to show her best friend Julie how
fun it was to get honks and waved from the
(01:10):
cars racing by below. But something evil was lurking near
the bridge that day. Julie and Melissa crossed its path
and then disappeared. It was as if they simply vanished
(01:32):
in broad daylight from one minute to the next, from
the time they were last seen by witnesses near the
bridge to the moment Melissa's mother started looking for them,
they were only unaccounted for for about fifteen minutes. Unfortunately,
in that small window of time, they were taken from
that beautiful day into a very dark place.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
A psychopath is somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
And I told them it is a very exceptional that
somebody abducts two children at the same time.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Should have been the.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Yell of it in nineteen eighty six, but my god,
it was just a beginning.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Welcome to La monstre. I'm your host, Matt Graves. In
the summer of nineteen ninety five, I moved to Belgium
and I've lived here ever since. I'll never forget the
fear and chaos unleashed that summer, and repercussions and questions
that still reverberate to this day. It all started right
(02:59):
here on this bridge. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
a local man explains that eight year olds Julie Lejehn
and Melissa Russo lived less than five hundred meters away.
This bridge is ground zero for one of the darkest
chapters in the history of this country. Over twenty five
(03:23):
years ago, our story began. A story of abomination, incompetence,
and conspiracy that led to the demise of the entire
institution of Belgian Federal Police and rattled the foundations of
its government. A story about a man whose accomplices, both
known and unknown, are walking freely in the world today,
(03:44):
a man so wicked that he simply become known as
La Monstre. Shortly after Julie Lejehn and Melissa Rousseau went missing,
Melissa's mother, Karine Russeau, explained the disappearance in an interview.
It's in French, so these are her words, read in
English by an interpreter.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
I got on my bike and decided to go meet
them so we could finish the walk altogether. And I
rode down to the bridge and back and didn't see them,
And then took the same route back and forth three times,
and I still didn't see them.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Around this time, Julie's mother arrived to pick up her daughter.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
I arrived around six o'clock by car with my son.
When I got there, missus Strussel was on the lawn
getting over her bike.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
She came straight over and explained she.
Speaker 7 (04:35):
Had let the girls take us twelve for thirty minutes,
but she couldn't find them. She had already made their
wrong trip to the bridge three times looking for Julian Melissa,
and she was worried because she couldn't find them, So
we decided to go looking for them by car. We
(04:56):
searched the route they were supposed to take, as well
as other three. It's near where other friends lived, just
in case the last track of time.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
At this point, both mothers were getting worried, so they
decided to call the police and ask for help. Melissa's
mother explained.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
It was about six forty five and the girls were
only forty five minutes late, but we were already very worried,
worried enough to call the police. I'd say the police
arrived within about fifteen minutes. They asked us some basic questions.
(05:40):
I'm not sure how long that lasted.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Julie's mother chimed.
Speaker 7 (05:44):
In fifteen or twenty minutes. I think they asked us
for pictures of the girls and we gave them the
ones we had at the time. I admit that at
one point at night I had some very bad thoughts
that maybe they'd been picked up by a bad person
would kill them, and that would find them somewhere nearby.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Everyone in the neighborhood was shocked about the disappearance. A
neighbor saw them that day from her window. She explained
that she saw them walking in the direction of the bridge,
and that they seemed calm and normal. A young couple
walking back from that bridge were the last people to
see them prior to their abduction.
Speaker 8 (06:28):
Was it.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
They explained that they had passed by two girls who
were walking in the direction of the bridge. The girl
said hello and were smiling. The couple said hello back
and kept walking. Julie and Melissa's parents did everything right
when their girls disappeared, just like every kidnapping story you've
ever heard. The police didn't immediately file a missing person's report,
(06:55):
but the parents knew that time was of the essence,
and they immediately contacted an association that helps locate missing children.
Things moved quickly, and a massive missing person's poster campaign
got underway. I distinctly remember these posters on the left
was a smiling Melissa in a red jumper, her soft
(07:17):
features and big brown eyes, smiling and acute grin. Julie's
also smiling, with her hair pulled back by a headband,
surely to show off her new little stud earrings. These
pictures are burned into the brains of almost anyone who
lived through these times in Belgium. When I first saw them,
I was in my mid twenties, far removed from the
(07:39):
worries of parenthood. When I look at them now, as
a middle aged man with two girls of my own,
it's heartbreaking. If I try to put myself in the
parent's shoes, the feeling is unbearable. The rush of anxiety
is so dark and deep that I can't stand to
hold the thought more than a few seconds. I can't
imagine living with that feeling day after day without being
(08:00):
able to escape it. I think it's something that only
the parents of a missing child can really understand. Shortly
after the abduction, Melissa's mother appeared on the news with
a message for her.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Daughter, Melissa.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
I'm here for you. Everyone's here for you at home.
I don't know if there's something you can do to
come home, whether you can do something or not. I
don't know, but we're here, my love, waiting for you.
We're doing everything everything we can do to find you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
The tireless work of Julian Melissa's family started to generate publicity,
and national news channels cover the disappearance. Several volunteers helped
them search all of the field nearby and anywhere else
(09:01):
the girls could have possibly gone. When no trace was found,
the parents became convinced they'd been kidnapped. On one hand,
they were happy not to have found their bodies, but
a sinking sense of dread began to set in. They
were absolutely convinced that Julie and Melissa were alive, and
they refused to give up searching.
Speaker 8 (09:28):
This is a message to the kidnappers. We are still
without any news of our girls, Julie and Melissa, for
two weeks now. We've been waiting in anxiety. We can
no longer take this situation. Whoever you are and wherever
you are, we beg you for the return of our children.
Please send us proof that they are alive and okay.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Telephone lea.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Investigators in Liege received their first interesting tip. Seventy one
year old Mary Louise Henrote lived close to the bridge
where Julian Melissa disappeared. Marie Louise lived a quiet, elderly
existence and didn't read newspapers or watch TV. She was
(10:22):
a creature of habit who followed the same routine every day.
June twenty fourth was a beautiful day for her usual routine.
She climbed the stairs to her room at around four
pm before going to bed. At around six pm. She
(10:49):
liked to sit by the window for an hour or so,
taking in the end of her day. From the window,
Marie Louise can see the highway as well as the
side roads in an open field. At around five pm,
she said she saw two girls walking along a small
access road leading to the bridge. Apart from the cars
(11:13):
racing down the highway, there's not much to see, so
she watched the girls as they walked by, going towards
the bridge. As she sat up to close the curtains,
she noticed a dark colored car pulled over on the
right hand side of the road next to the girls.
A man got out of the car and opened one
(11:34):
of the back doors. The girls got into the car.
There didn't appear to be a struggle, and she assumed
the girls knew the driver. He was a normal looking
man with thick dark hair wearing black pants. She wasn't
a car buff but settled on it possibly being at
push O two to five when inspectors helped her narrow
(11:57):
down the possibilities. Other leads trickled in about different sightings.
A man reported seeing two girls on the bridge as
he drove under them on his motorcycle on June twenty fourth,
after five pm. He also recalled seeing a red car
stopped in the emergency lane near the bridge. He remembered
(12:19):
it because he was in the right lane and had
swerved leftward to keep a safe distance. Four other separate
witnesses reported seeing a red car stopped on the side
of the highway near the bridge on June twenty fourth.
Some of them thought it was a Ford Fiesta. Two
(12:40):
of these witnesses also reported seeing a van further along
in the emergency lane. One of them was a doctor
from Liege who sent a letter to police saying he'd
seen a red car and a van stopped in the
emergency lane near the bridge. He had slowed down for
safety and noticed the van had French license plates and
(13:02):
the red car had Belgian plates. And even remembered the
first three letters of the Belgian license plate as n
k V or envy K. Finally, a woman in Liege
who lived roughly six miles from where Julian Melissa disappeared,
reported an attempted kidnapping of her daughter and friend, ages
(13:22):
seven and eight earlier. On the same day that Julian
Melissa disappeared. She contacted police and reported that at approximately
twelve fifteen p m. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
a man dressed in a blue and green striped shirt
and dark trousers tried to tempt the girls into his
car with candy. One of the girls testified that he
(13:47):
had one hand on the steering wheel and in the
other hand he held a handkerchief that seemed to be
moist and gave off a weird smell. Luckily, the mother
spotted what was going on and ran over to intervene.
When the man saw her, he hit the gas and
his tires screeched as he accelerated away. She formally identified
(14:07):
the vehicle as a red Ford Fiesta. She reported this
to police two days later on the following Monday. Here's
what she said in an affidavit these are her words,
not her voice.
Speaker 9 (14:25):
Earlier in the year, in both March and May, a
man driving a red car offered to take the girls
for a ride. On June twenty fourth, nineteen ninety five,
at noon, the girls were playing outside. I saw my
daughter moving away from the car. It was a red
Ford fiesta. I saw that my daughter was afraid. I
(14:46):
got closer and saw that my daughter's friend, Diana, was
sitting in the passenger seat of the car. I literally
ripped her out of the car. The driver tried to
keep her from getting out, and then took off. I
got a good look at he looked to be around
one meter seventy tall, five foot eight, thin, with short,
dark hair parted on the right, brown eyes, wearing a
(15:08):
blue and green striped shirt with dark trousers.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I tried to reach the woman who made this statement,
but couldn't find her. I did, however, track down one
of the girls, Diana. She didn't want to speak with
me directly, but we had a series of texts and
she confirmed that this actually did happen. Overall, six separate
leads came in about the day that Julian Melissa disappeared.
(15:37):
There was an elderly woman who claimed that she saw
the girls get into what looked like a dark colored
Pugeau on the access road next to the highway. Four
different witnesses reported seeing a red car parked in the
emergency lane on the side of the highway around the
time of the disappearance, and another woman claimed that a
man in a red car on two occasions tried to
(15:59):
abduct her, her daughter, and her daughter's friend just six
miles away from the bridge where the girls went missing.
Shortly after the disappearance, a criminologist named Karine houts About
created a description of the profile of the suspect she
believed Plice should be looking for. Karine studied victimology and
(16:21):
psychopathology in Paris and at the Washington College of Law
in DC, and she participated in the profiling program at
FBI headquarters in Quantico. She's a criminal profiling expert who
works directly with victims, judicial authorities, and perpetrators all over
the world. My co producer Thomas and I drove to
(16:41):
her house on the outskirts of Ghent to meet her.
So we're walking to Korene's house and this is a
really cute little place. It's kind of a medieval cobblestone village,
barely even fit a car in this road. The roughly
one hour drive from Brussels, we arrive at a charming
(17:03):
little village where Karine works. She's got a moat. Wow,
so we're crossing a little moat bridge. It's a peaceful
little haven nestled into the Flemish countryside. It looks like
something you'd see in a Brugal or Rembrandt painting. This
is beautiful. Hello, Hello, KARMI.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Nice to meet you. Meet.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Karine is warm and welcoming, but underneath that warmth you
can sense a warrior. She spent her life fighting for
the rights of abused and confronting dangerous predators head on.
After some pleasant small talk, we settled into a quaint
room with a wood burning furnace and I asked her
some questions about the disappearances of Julie and Melissa.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
It was June nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I was in the United States at that moment in Washington,
DC because I had practice placement at the FBI National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Now, while I was there,
I started having faxes.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
At the time, it wear faxes.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
We're talking about twenty five years ago asking my help
because two little girls disappeared in Grassolonna in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You'll hear the name Grassolonia quite a bit in the story.
It's the name of the municipality in Liege where the
girls disappeared.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
It were Julie and Melissa. There was the twenty fourth
of June. Then I think it was somewhere in July.
I was back in Belgium and I was approached by
a detective, which in the United States is quite normal
to have a private detective, which in Europe is really
They find this ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
He said, well, listen, you have to help these parents.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
It is two weeks now, the children are missing and
nothing is happening.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Private detectives are rarely a welcome site for police investigators.
In the nineties in Europe, they were nowhere near as
common as they are today. So when Karin and a
detective showed up in Barcelonia to investigate the crime scene,
police were less than thrilled to see them. They started
by going to the bridge and then Karen asked the
(19:22):
detective to bring her to the closest exit.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I then asked him, okay, if he comes from there
he saw the children. Where can he get off the highway?
So we searched for that first, and it was very nearby.
And then he could come back, pick up the children
and drive again, you know, by the bridge going over
(19:46):
the highway. He could just take them away. It could
go easily. Then I saw that the weeds were cut, which.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Was not the case.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
She's talking about wheat fields around the area. By the
time she visited the scene in mid July, the wheat
was cut, but she surmised that it wouldn't have yet
been cut on the twenty fourth of June, making it
hard to see two small girls from one of the
side roads.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
But from there you could not see these children because
the wheats were too high. So I said, okay, he
saund them from the highway. And on a highway you're
not on foot or.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
With your bicycle. So he has a car.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
If he has a car, he has more tendency to
a methodical type.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Karine explained that there are two types of kidnapper profiles,
the methodical type, someone who premeditates his crimes, versus the
impulsive type, who acts on the spur of the moment.
In this case, she was convinced they were dealing with
a methodical profile.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
And then we went to the parents and there Geen
Darmerie was already waiting for me inside, very very hostile.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
You know, I can't believe the I mean, so when
you showed up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
You showed up at Julian Melissa's yes of Melissa.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Melissa and the mother of Julie was there, and Gino
Rissau was there too.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
He was very very nervous.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Gino Rousseau is Melissa's father.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
He was really upset.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
And I said to these two policemen, I said, I
saw people going in and out the room of Melissa,
and I said, did you preserve DNA from Melissa?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
They hadn't preserved the DNA. It had been more than
two weeks since the disappearance, and parents were getting frustrated
by the lack of urgency from the Jean Dear Marie,
which is the name of the Belgian Federal police. Karin
tried to offer the police some advice.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I said, you need to take some hair from a
hair brush, or you know, a swimming suit or something.
And then I said you have to look for somebody
who has been in prison for abduction.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Torture and sequestration.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
And this policeman told me listen to missus Hutzbel. We
are not in the United States here, you know. Then
I said, okay, I'm going. So I wanted to leave.
I've had it with these people.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
The situation was getting tense at the Rousseau house. Melissa's father, Gino,
was becoming increasingly angry with police.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
And then Gino he threw his car piece on the
table and he said get out, get out, and he
throwed the two policemen out.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Gino Rousseau later testified that police had warned him that
Karen Whot's about was some sort of quote witch in
training and that he shouldn't listen to her.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
And I could understand this disarrayed these people, two little
girls of eight years of age, and they were doing
nothing at all, So I understand them. I calmed them
down and I told them it is very exceptional that
somebody abducts two children at the same time. Eighty seven
percent of this kind of crimes are pre planned because
(23:04):
this is a methodical type, and methodical types organized on beforehand.
Where are they going to get rid of the children?
They're victims? And if you don't find the killer, you
won't find the victims.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
After the police left, Karen stayed with the parents. She
had some advice. She said that they should appeal to
the Ministry of Justice and ask that a multidisciplinary team
of crime experts be put on the case. The parents
followed up and the ministry agreed. At the time, the
Minister of Justice was Stefan de Clerk. He agreed to
(23:47):
assign an investigation unit to the case, what Karen refers
to in this interview as a cell.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
The cleric sent me two officers of the Gendarmerie Major
de Krana, and I helped them for two days to
put together a cell to help these investigations. Now he's
afraid of me because he knows what I'm saying is right.
(24:14):
He was the most stupid man I've ever seen in
my life, and he's the head of the cell. Right
And later on when the case explode that I heard
that there were five people in this cell structure, from
whom three were.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Not even aware they were in it.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Okay, so they made they made they made a missing
child unit to help find the disappeared girls and other cases.
But they didn't really know what they were doing. It
sounds like and the guy who was heading it up
wasn't You didn't think it was very.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
No, and it was not it that is desert thing.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
After years you realize that they didn't have the intention
to look for children. It just took peace the population.
But we have all That was the argument I had
with my husband all the time. We paid the police
to do that, okay, but they don't do it.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I already had the child uh Gevre Kavas in eighty six.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
She's referring to a case in the mid eighties where
a young boy disappeared in broad daylight on his way
to play soccer with his brother. The boys family and victims'
advocates were highly critical of the lack of follow up
from police.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Six years old disappears in the middle of Brussels, is
still missing. And I had a friend who was at
the jam DARMERI and I asked him, what are you
doing to find this child back?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And he said, we are waiting.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
I said, waiting for what stop the world from turning?
You have to find a job where we're waiting for
people who give us some clues. A six year old
little boy. I couldn't stand, so, you know, I thought,
this is another empty box. Now after twenty five years,
(26:04):
you can see that it's all trembling down. And what
I said twenty five to thirty years ago is true.
They give us the impression it's so there. They have
no training, they are not interested, they don't give a shit.
Excuse me the expression if your child is gone.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Karine is seething at the memories of this time. She's
a fierce woman who says exactly what she thinks right
to your face. The Belgian Federal Police or Jean Darmerie,
was founded in eighteen thirty, but it wasn't until nineteen
ninety two that they had their first female officer. They
wore special uniforms and carried themselves with an air of authority.
(26:51):
I'm sure these officers didn't appreciate Karne's second guessing their
work without pulling any punches. In the end, the profile
established for the possible kidnapper was quite detailed. It said
that they should be looking for a white French speaking
male between the age of thirty five and forty five,
(27:12):
with a rap sheet of sexual offenses on miners, having
already spent time in prison, with a history of violent behavior,
with a psychiatric file, probably married with children, and of
above average intelligence. Belgium is a small country that had
a total population of around ten million people at the time.
(27:36):
You can roughly cut that by about sixty percent if
you're focusing on French speaking suspects, as the majority of
the country is Flemish speaking, So if you think about it,
we're talking about a pool roughly the size of a
large US city like Houston or Chicago. When you start
to further narrow it down by gender, age, and previous
(27:56):
convictions for sexual offenses on miners, it narrowed very quickly.
With this relatively small suspect pool, Locating the kidnapper of
Julian Melissa shouldn't have been an impossible task unless something
else was at play. No one knew it at the time,
but the disappearances of Julie Lejehanne and Melissa Russo marked
(28:19):
the beginning of a series of disappearances that would completely
upend the country. This season on the Monstra with the
investigation plagued by accusations of incompetence, high level corruption and
cover ups, thousands would pour into the streets from massive
(28:42):
protests across the country, demanding answers from a government that
failed to protect its most vulnerable.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
This basement and the crimes committed here have made this
house notorious. Every Belgium knows about Mark the True's Chamber
of horrors.
Speaker 5 (28:59):
He was a guy, known criminal who's been convicted of
raping and kidnapping children, and he somehow gets sort of
prison early. What happened after he got out of prison
is just beyond belief.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We'll hear from key players from the center of the
investigation who agreed to be interviewed.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I still remember driving home every evening and asking myself
are we followed or not?
Speaker 3 (29:25):
But still I slept with my gun on my pillow
every night.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
Really, could you ask the witness if maybe he is
scared of somebody?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Is he maybe afraid of making statement? Because this gentleman
is watching what he is.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
A and an astonishing witness who have ended the investigation.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
I remember it like it's a film in my head.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I can close my eyes and see every little details
of that house.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Where she was murdered.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And we'll hear from people who didn't want to speak.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Explicated gues.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
To join us on this journey. Take a second right
now to follow or subscribe in your podcast app to
get the latest updates and new episodes. Le Monstra is
a production of tenderfoot TV and iHeart Radio, hosted and
executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by Thomas Resimont
(30:26):
of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are executive
producers on the behalf of tenderfoot TV, with producer Makeup
and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive
producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with producer Trevor Young.
Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design by Cooper Skinner
(30:46):
and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Cover
design by Trevor eilerl Monstra includes archival audio from SONYMA,
RTBF archives and CNN Archives. Special thanks to Backmedia and
marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna, and the teams at iHeartRadio
and tenderfoot TV. Find us on social media at Monster
(31:10):
Underscore pod. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Host
Matt Graves
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