November 7, 2025 • 28 mins
A week after the disappearance of Nathalie Godart, a mounted police officer stumbles upon a gruesome scene in a ditch near the center of Mons. Over the next two days, more horrific discoveries follow. The shocking finds send ripples of fear through the city, erupting into full-blown panic.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The Butcher of Moss is released weekly absolutely free, but
you can binge the entire season now with iHeart True
Crime Plus exclusively on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad
free listening and exclusive bonus episodes. So head to Apple
Podcasts search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
The views and opinions expressing 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 1 (00:48):
Previously on La monstre.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
So at around eight pm, I dropped her off in
front of her apartment. She didn't seem scared. She got
out of the car and opened her front door, and
then she she waved at me and then went inside.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What Georgette didn't know then was that this would be
the last time she would ever see her sister.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Jacqueline Lazy.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Now the disappearance of a woman from Mont Jacqueline le Clerk,
thirty three years old, Chateau.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
This young woman has short, light brown hair and blue eyes,
five feet three inches tall with a normal build.
Speaker 7 (01:48):
Okay, we're arriving where the attempts to use her bank
card happened at around one in the morning on the
twenty third of December. It's in a dark area, out
of view. There was a surveillance camera on the ATM machine,
but it was out of order at the time, unfortunately,
as it could have helped answer a number of questions.
Speaker 8 (02:11):
As a young reporter, I covered everything, but since I
was from most as you know, I started following this
story closely. At the time, violence against women did not
attract the attention it does today, especially marginalized woman like
Jacqueline Leclaire and Natalie Goudaar.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Both women frequented several of the same cafes and bars
near the train station, and specifically a small hotel and
bar establishment called the Metropol.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
She had mentioned this meant to me. She found him
rather nice, cultured and intelligent, a pleasure to speak with.
After meeting him in the park, my sister ran into
him a few more times. She felt that these encounters
were orchestrated, maybe even calculated.
Speaker 8 (03:04):
The police never identified what this man was. It's not
going to be easy, but we have to identify this man.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was a dull gray morning. On March twenty second,
nineteen ninety seven, in the municipality of Kuem near Moss,
Officer Olivier Mutt of the Royal Mounted Police prepared his
horse and the stables for a routine mounted patrol. He
was a regular uniformed officer but greatly enjoyed the perk
(03:53):
of being part of the Royal Mounted Brigade and doing
patrols on horseback.
Speaker 9 (04:02):
It was late morning. I was on my horse, calmly
heading toward months. As I approached the railway bridge, my
attention was attracted towards something in the ditch. I noticed
what seemed like a cat about fifteen meters below, playing
(04:24):
with something. A pedestrian wouldn't have been able to see it.
The cat had something white in its mouth. At first
I thought it was a toy, but something seemed off,
so I turned back.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
The cat that Officer Mutt saw was down on a
ditch along the side of the road. It was a
place where unscrupulous people tended to dump their trash if
they missed a regular garbage pick up. A normal passerby
wouldn't have been able to see down into the ditch,
but his mounted viewpoint gave him a clear view of
the shameful dumping ground. At first, he thought the cat
(05:05):
was chewing on a discarded glove, but something seemed off,
so he dismounted his horse and descended into the ditch
to inspect. To his horror, Officer Mutt realized it was
a human hand. It appeared to have been sawed off
(05:29):
the arm of a body relatively recently. It was the
public beginning of a dark mystery that's still never been solved. Today,
twenty eight years.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Later, A can'tbly mysteriously couvert de mon.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
The history they disappearance of a woman from Mont Jacqueline.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
The condition of the victims was sickening.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
And the question remains, where is the killer?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, I'm your host Matt
Graves and this is La manstre season two, The Butcher
of Moss. So I am now standing on the side
of the road where Officer Mutt would have made his
(06:44):
gruesome discovery. It's basically a kind of a semi busy road,
I would call it. That's the first time I this
exact spot is ground zero for The Butcher of Moss case.
I came here alone to visualize how the mounted police
officer would have stumbled onto the initial discovery. I'm looking
down into a ditch, and I can see how if
(07:10):
he wouldn't have been on his horse, he wouldn't have
seen anything because the ditch is really deep, so if
you're just walking and you look down, you can't even
see the bottom of where the ditch is. This is
where the discovery was made and where it sort of
it all really started. The dismembered hand that Officer Mutt
(07:32):
had discovered was poking out of a gray trash bag.
There seemed to be more than one trash bag of
the same kind, and they appeared to contain more body parts.
He quickly called an in and the crime scene was secured.
An investigating judge and prosecutor attended the scene in person,
along with other specialized forces and forensics teams. In total,
(07:55):
eight different bags containing dismembered body parts were found in
the ditch that The contents of the bags were carefully
examined on sight before being transported to a forensic laboratory.
It was quickly determined that all of the body parts
were female. Although disturbing, it's important to understand the contents
(08:16):
of these bags as you'll hear in future episodes, listener
discretion is advised. Bag one two feet and two legs.
Bag two, two hands, including the wrists and two thighs.
Bag three, two arms and one shoulder. Bag four, one shoulder,
(08:44):
Bag five, one foot and one leg including the knee.
Bags six and seven were ripped open but had included
a left arm as well as the left hand that
Officer Mutt had spotted from the bridge, and Bag eight
contained various undetermined body parts. Forensics experts quickly determined that
(09:07):
the body parts belonged to three different females. It didn't
take long for the media to catch wind of the
major crime scene and started reporting on the gruesome discovery.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
By gab Mysterious Nikouvitt, there was a macabre and mysterious
discovery of body parts, apparently dismembered with a saw. According
to investigators, partial remains of three women were found in
trash bags in quem near. Mon's searches have continued without
break since yesterday to try to find the torsos and heads,
which are still missing, making the identification of the cadavers difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The initial breaking news brought up public fear. Unlike anything
mass had ever experienced, and raised more questions than answers.
Who were these women? How long ago had they been murdered?
Was the killer still out there? The public's thirst for
more and became overwhelming, and the King's prosecutor himself provided
(10:04):
more details than a press conference.
Speaker 10 (10:13):
I can confirm that there are three series of cadavers
at three different stages of putrefaction. The first could be
dated to more than one year, given the state of
decomposition of the flesh, and the last could be as
recent as two days ago, which only raises concerns about
the behavior of the individual responsible for this. We know
(10:36):
that the cadavers were dismembered with remarkable precision, and many
more apparently with the use of a saw. I can
confirm as well that on the left forearm of one
of the victims there was removal of roughly five centimeters
of flesh. Was there a tattoo or was there something else?
(10:59):
We do not know at this stage.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The surreal press conference shocked the entire nation. The news
that some of the body parts could have been dismembered
within the last forty eight hours was horrifying. It reinforced
public fears that a killer of women was active and
likely searching for his next victim. On the following day,
another trash bag with human remains was found at the
same site. Bag nine also contained various undetermined body parts,
(11:29):
and on the day after that, another trash bag was
found in a different location. Bag ten contained an entire
female torso, and it was dumped on the side of
a road aptually named the Path of Worry.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
I play teribri dicuvel descend.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
After the terrible discoveries of Saturday, investigators made a new
discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a fourth woman.
Ten trash bags have been discovered. So far, investigators believe
it is the work of a serial killer. For the moment,
none of the four victims have been identified.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
News of this new gruesome discovery confirm the public's worst
fears a twisted and sadistic serial killer was active in
lurking among them. Gripped by fear and anxiety, the public
was once again clamoring for more information, and the King's
prosecutor held another press conference.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
What I can tell you about this torso is that
the dismemberment is identical to the remains previously found in Queens.
It is therefore likely the work of the same perpetrator.
What we can say about this latest macab discovery is
that it must have been deposited between Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
The pace of events was overwhelming, with the latest dumping
of a dismembered torso having taken place after the first
discoveries and within the past twenty four hours. Police helicopters
scoured disguise of moss, and emergency services were deployed to
any sighting of a suspicious trash bag. The peaceful veneer
(13:26):
of moss was shattered.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I was watching TV that day and I knew it
was my sister.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
From the moment of the first press conference about the
initial Gruesome discoveries, the sister of Jacqueline Leclaire got a
sinking feeling that her sister was among the unidentified victims.
When the King's prosecutor shared a small detail towards the
end of.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Us briefing, I can confirm as well that on the
left forearm of one of the victims there was removal
of roughly five centimeters of flesh. Was there a tattoo
or was there something else? We do not know At
this stage.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I feared that the garbage bags contain my sister's body.
Jacqueline add a tattoo of her hex husband Angelo on
a left fore arm.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Authorities would confirm that one of the victims discovered was
Jacqueline Leclaire, but before they officially communicated this tragic news
to the family, reporters broke the story on live television
while her sister and mother were watching.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's not through the justice system or the police that
we learned Jaqueline was among the victims. We learned about
it on television with a picture writer on the screen.
It was a terrible shot. We heard that my little
sister was cut into pieces. Can you imagine what happens
in your heads when you hear dad, It's horrible. It's horrible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Jacqueline Leclaire, thirty three years old, sister, daughter, and mother
of four children, was identified as the victim of a
brutal serial killer. Her mother and sister, who had never
given up searching for her, were devastated. They thought she
may have no longer been alive, but nothing could have
(15:40):
prepared them for this. To this day, her head and
several other body parts have still never been found. I'm
back in with Xavier Morgan van Leaerberg and another man
(16:03):
who will remain unnamed. We're in a car driving away
from the train station in the direction of the spot
where the first grusome discovery was made.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
So now we've left the area around the train station
to drive to the principal deposit site where they found
the nine trash bags. And as you can see, we're
almost there already, so it takes less than five minutes
to get from the station area to the Rue van
(16:36):
der Velda.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I wanted to get a clear understanding of how the
perpetrator must have deposited the original nine trash bags full
of body parts on the side of a relatively busy
road near the center of Mons. The first thing that
appears clear to me right away is that he needed
a vehicle to do this. It's really quite surprising that
he was would have chosen this site. It's a somewhat
(17:02):
busy two way road that passes over train tracks and
into the neighboring commune of quem.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
So you can see that there is housing on both sides.
And now we're arriving in the only zone where there's
nature and no housing.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The car behind us hanks as we pull over to
the side of the road, just as a killer would
have done. There's really not much room to pull over here.
Frankly speaking, it seems like a dangerous spot to dump
a body. It's not very well hidden. At the same time,
it's a place where people illegally discarded trash, so not
completely suspect to see trash bags down in the ditch
(17:51):
next to the road. In fact, the police officer on
horseback who discovered the severed hand did so very much
by chance. Coincidentally, the cat drew his attention from his
mounted view. Had the officer been on foot, he wouldn't
have seen it, and it just so happened that one
of the trash bags was ripped open, allowing the hand
to be seen in the first place. In the early
(18:13):
days of the investigation, after the first bodies were discovered,
the medium mistakenly mentioned a fourth victim, but as the
dust began to settle, it was determined that the fifteen
bags were all from three female victims. Police and forensics
experts were struggling to identify the two of these three victims.
They had identified Jacqueline early because of the killer's clumsy
(18:35):
attempt to remove an identifying tattoo, on her left forearm.
Her sister Georgette had also been furiously looking for her,
and her missing person's case was on the police radar.
It didn't take long to connect the dots and make
the identification. Her state of decomposition three months was also
an identifying factor. Jacqueline disappeared exactly three months to the
(18:58):
day of the first discovery. The other two victims, on
the other hand, were a total mystery. Police were also
able to estimate their times of death based on states
of decomposition, the oldest dating from six months to a year,
and the most recent, who was believed to have been
murdered within days of the discovery. It was especially chilling
(19:20):
to realize that the latest discovery of the female torso
had been dumped after the initial discovery. It confirmed police's
and the public's worst fears. This wasn't a case of
just finding out what happened. It was happening in real time.
I spoke to the investigative journalist Frederic Laure about those
(19:41):
fateful three days of March twenty second, twenty third, and
twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six in mass where every day
brought a new terrifying discovery.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
I am originally from Moss and I was a young
reporter at the time. It was just incredible. There had
never been a serial killer like this in Belgium, much
less in Monts, and now we had the most grotesque
story ever. Police, magistrates and even journalists were overwhelmed think
(20:15):
about it. On March twenty two, eight sacks containing shopped
up female body parts are found. The next day they
find the nine sack, and then the next day they
find the female torso in a sack at another site,
this time very close to the center of Monts, just
(20:37):
behind the train station. I was dispatched to cover the
case and people were really terrified. Information was coming so fast.
Everyone had questions how many victims are there or where
they killed? And the question remains, where is the killer.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Investigators barely had time to catch their breath before another
discovery was made. On April twelfth, nineteen ninety seven, approximately
three weeks after the first discoveries, two more gruesome trash
bags were found and yet another location.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
Good afternoon in Havrey, near Monts, two garbage bags containing
human remains were discovered. The body parts are currently at
the Forensics Institute in Liege for examination. The similarities with
the three cadavers discovered in Quem fifteen days ago are flagrant.
Investigators believe it is the same perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
By now the entire country of Belgium was fixated on
the investigation. Once again, the King's Prosecute held another macab
press conference.
Speaker 10 (22:05):
The first bag contained a foot and a fore leg,
meaning the part of the leg between the knee and
the ankle. The second bag contained a head. It is
a female head, but we are unable to identify this
person because of the state of decomposition, and it doesn't
appear to resemble any of the missing persons in our files.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And only six days after that, yet another grisom discovery
had a new.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Location Simfurian streets in Havre. It's four pm. Police forces
are holding back the press from where three new trash
bags were just discovered containing human remains. The King's Prosecutor
explains what seems more and more to resemble a sordid
treasure hunt.
Speaker 10 (22:52):
Sak examination of these bags. There are three of them
contained respectively, a hand with arm unsevered and a forearm.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In seven days, five new bags were discovered, a total
of fifteen bag eleven a female head, bag twelve, a
foot and a leg, bag thirteen, a thigh, bag fourteen,
a thigh and bag fifteen, a hand, an arm and
(23:31):
a forearm. The locations of the two new discoveries were
again different, this time just outside of Monts about a
ten minute drive from the train station. For the first time,
police had the head of one of the victims. The
chief of the police unit in charge of the investigation,
Officer Ghill Marie Martin, explains.
Speaker 11 (23:56):
We discovered the head of a woman, but the head
wasn't presentable for the p so I decided to ask
the investigating judge to request the services of a police
portrait artist who sketched the head and that drawing was
distributed to the press. Afterward, I got a call in
the afternoon from a woman who was completely terrified and
in a state of shock, who said, it's my daughter,
(24:19):
it's my daughter. And so I went to her house
with another inspector and from the start she was sure
it was her daughter in this case, Natalie Godart, Madame.
And there was a little girl who was there, two
years old or two and a half, and she took
a newspaper off of a chair and came over and
(24:41):
said that's mommy.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That little girl who recognized her mother's composite picture in
the newspaper was two year old Laura, the daughter of
Natalie Godard, who went missing three months after Jacqueline Leclair.
You'll recall that we heard from Laura in the previous
episode where she described her mother's hardships as well as
her own, having grown up in a dysfunctional family in
(25:06):
the foster care system. With Natalie Godard now identified as
one of the three victims, the investigative dots were beginning
to connect. Natalie was the most recent victim, murdered just
days before the first trash bags were discovered. Jacqueline was
(25:28):
the second most recent victim, murdered three months before the discovery.
Jacqueline and Natalie frequented the same bars and restaurants near
the Mosse train station, which was now ground zero for investigators,
but the third victim had not yet been identified. She
was estimated to have been murdered six months to a
(25:48):
year prior to the first discovery. Three victims body parts
discarded in fifteen separate trash backs spread across four locations
in and around the city of Moss. The horror of
the previous month had set in and taken hold of
the community. The only hope was that the worst was
behind them. Was they didn't know at the time was
(26:11):
that the story was far from over, and that the
horror they'd witnessed in the previous month was only the beginning.
Next time, on season two of La Monstre.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
It is now certain that the butcher of Mons has
killed three victims. It's also certain that the trash bags
recently discovered were deposited at different timestell.
Speaker 12 (26:45):
The police called me and said that they wanted to
do a DNA tests chevu because a hair containing my
DNA would have been found in one of the trash bags,
and that the DNA led them to me.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
Are becoming clear about the connection between those three victims
and the way they have been killed.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Le Monstre is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, hosted, written,
and executive produced by Me. Matt Graves, Donald Albright, and
Payne Lindsay are executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
with producer Makeup and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Trevor
Young are executive producers on the behalf of iHeart Podcasts.
(27:35):
Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design and master by
Cooper Skinner, Cover design by Byron McCoy and Trevor Eiler.
Lea Monstre includes archival audio from SONYMA RTBF Archives. Special
thanks to Aren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, the
Nord Group and are Active Investigation team Morgen van Leerberg,
(27:57):
Fredrich lah, Jervie de Com and Annan Gardon, as well
as the teams at iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV. Find
us on social media at Monster Underscore pod. For more
podcasts like Lea Monstre, search Tenderfoot TV in your podcast
app or visit tenderfoot tv
The Butcher of Moss is released weekly absolutely free, but
you can binge the entire season now with iHeart True
Crime Plus exclusively on Apple Podcasts. You'll also get ad
free listening and exclusive bonus episodes. So head to Apple
Podcasts search iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
The views and opinions expressing 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 1 (00:48):
Previously on La monstre.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
So at around eight pm, I dropped her off in
front of her apartment. She didn't seem scared. She got
out of the car and opened her front door, and
then she she waved at me and then went inside.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
What Georgette didn't know then was that this would be
the last time she would ever see her sister.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Jacqueline Lazy.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Now the disappearance of a woman from Mont Jacqueline le Clerk,
thirty three years old, Chateau.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
This young woman has short, light brown hair and blue eyes,
five feet three inches tall with a normal build.
Speaker 7 (01:48):
Okay, we're arriving where the attempts to use her bank
card happened at around one in the morning on the
twenty third of December. It's in a dark area, out
of view. There was a surveillance camera on the ATM machine,
but it was out of order at the time, unfortunately,
as it could have helped answer a number of questions.
Speaker 8 (02:11):
As a young reporter, I covered everything, but since I
was from most as you know, I started following this
story closely. At the time, violence against women did not
attract the attention it does today, especially marginalized woman like
Jacqueline Leclaire and Natalie Goudaar.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Both women frequented several of the same cafes and bars
near the train station, and specifically a small hotel and
bar establishment called the Metropol.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
She had mentioned this meant to me. She found him
rather nice, cultured and intelligent, a pleasure to speak with.
After meeting him in the park, my sister ran into
him a few more times. She felt that these encounters
were orchestrated, maybe even calculated.
Speaker 8 (03:04):
The police never identified what this man was. It's not
going to be easy, but we have to identify this man.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was a dull gray morning. On March twenty second,
nineteen ninety seven, in the municipality of Kuem near Moss,
Officer Olivier Mutt of the Royal Mounted Police prepared his
horse and the stables for a routine mounted patrol. He
was a regular uniformed officer but greatly enjoyed the perk
(03:53):
of being part of the Royal Mounted Brigade and doing
patrols on horseback.
Speaker 9 (04:02):
It was late morning. I was on my horse, calmly
heading toward months. As I approached the railway bridge, my
attention was attracted towards something in the ditch. I noticed
what seemed like a cat about fifteen meters below, playing
(04:24):
with something. A pedestrian wouldn't have been able to see it.
The cat had something white in its mouth. At first
I thought it was a toy, but something seemed off,
so I turned back.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
The cat that Officer Mutt saw was down on a
ditch along the side of the road. It was a
place where unscrupulous people tended to dump their trash if
they missed a regular garbage pick up. A normal passerby
wouldn't have been able to see down into the ditch,
but his mounted viewpoint gave him a clear view of
the shameful dumping ground. At first, he thought the cat
(05:05):
was chewing on a discarded glove, but something seemed off,
so he dismounted his horse and descended into the ditch
to inspect. To his horror, Officer Mutt realized it was
a human hand. It appeared to have been sawed off
(05:29):
the arm of a body relatively recently. It was the
public beginning of a dark mystery that's still never been solved. Today,
twenty eight years.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Later, A can'tbly mysteriously couvert de mon.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
The history they disappearance of a woman from Mont Jacqueline.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
The condition of the victims was sickening.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
And the question remains, where is the killer?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
From Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, I'm your host Matt
Graves and this is La manstre season two, The Butcher
of Moss. So I am now standing on the side
of the road where Officer Mutt would have made his
(06:44):
gruesome discovery. It's basically a kind of a semi busy road,
I would call it. That's the first time I this
exact spot is ground zero for The Butcher of Moss case.
I came here alone to visualize how the mounted police
officer would have stumbled onto the initial discovery. I'm looking
down into a ditch, and I can see how if
(07:10):
he wouldn't have been on his horse, he wouldn't have
seen anything because the ditch is really deep, so if
you're just walking and you look down, you can't even
see the bottom of where the ditch is. This is
where the discovery was made and where it sort of
it all really started. The dismembered hand that Officer Mutt
(07:32):
had discovered was poking out of a gray trash bag.
There seemed to be more than one trash bag of
the same kind, and they appeared to contain more body parts.
He quickly called an in and the crime scene was secured.
An investigating judge and prosecutor attended the scene in person,
along with other specialized forces and forensics teams. In total,
(07:55):
eight different bags containing dismembered body parts were found in
the ditch that The contents of the bags were carefully
examined on sight before being transported to a forensic laboratory.
It was quickly determined that all of the body parts
were female. Although disturbing, it's important to understand the contents
(08:16):
of these bags as you'll hear in future episodes, listener
discretion is advised. Bag one two feet and two legs.
Bag two, two hands, including the wrists and two thighs.
Bag three, two arms and one shoulder. Bag four, one shoulder,
(08:44):
Bag five, one foot and one leg including the knee.
Bags six and seven were ripped open but had included
a left arm as well as the left hand that
Officer Mutt had spotted from the bridge, and Bag eight
contained various undetermined body parts. Forensics experts quickly determined that
(09:07):
the body parts belonged to three different females. It didn't
take long for the media to catch wind of the
major crime scene and started reporting on the gruesome discovery.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
By gab Mysterious Nikouvitt, there was a macabre and mysterious
discovery of body parts, apparently dismembered with a saw. According
to investigators, partial remains of three women were found in
trash bags in quem near. Mon's searches have continued without
break since yesterday to try to find the torsos and heads,
which are still missing, making the identification of the cadavers difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The initial breaking news brought up public fear. Unlike anything
mass had ever experienced, and raised more questions than answers.
Who were these women? How long ago had they been murdered?
Was the killer still out there? The public's thirst for
more and became overwhelming, and the King's prosecutor himself provided
(10:04):
more details than a press conference.
Speaker 10 (10:13):
I can confirm that there are three series of cadavers
at three different stages of putrefaction. The first could be
dated to more than one year, given the state of
decomposition of the flesh, and the last could be as
recent as two days ago, which only raises concerns about
the behavior of the individual responsible for this. We know
(10:36):
that the cadavers were dismembered with remarkable precision, and many
more apparently with the use of a saw. I can
confirm as well that on the left forearm of one
of the victims there was removal of roughly five centimeters
of flesh. Was there a tattoo or was there something else?
(10:59):
We do not know at this stage.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
The surreal press conference shocked the entire nation. The news
that some of the body parts could have been dismembered
within the last forty eight hours was horrifying. It reinforced
public fears that a killer of women was active and
likely searching for his next victim. On the following day,
another trash bag with human remains was found at the
same site. Bag nine also contained various undetermined body parts,
(11:29):
and on the day after that, another trash bag was
found in a different location. Bag ten contained an entire
female torso, and it was dumped on the side of
a road aptually named the Path of Worry.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
I play teribri dicuvel descend.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
After the terrible discoveries of Saturday, investigators made a new
discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a fourth woman.
Ten trash bags have been discovered. So far, investigators believe
it is the work of a serial killer. For the moment,
none of the four victims have been identified.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
News of this new gruesome discovery confirm the public's worst
fears a twisted and sadistic serial killer was active in
lurking among them. Gripped by fear and anxiety, the public
was once again clamoring for more information, and the King's
prosecutor held another press conference.
Speaker 10 (12:35):
What I can tell you about this torso is that
the dismemberment is identical to the remains previously found in Queens.
It is therefore likely the work of the same perpetrator.
What we can say about this latest macab discovery is
that it must have been deposited between Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
The pace of events was overwhelming, with the latest dumping
of a dismembered torso having taken place after the first
discoveries and within the past twenty four hours. Police helicopters
scoured disguise of moss, and emergency services were deployed to
any sighting of a suspicious trash bag. The peaceful veneer
(13:26):
of moss was shattered.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I was watching TV that day and I knew it
was my sister.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
From the moment of the first press conference about the
initial Gruesome discoveries, the sister of Jacqueline Leclaire got a
sinking feeling that her sister was among the unidentified victims.
When the King's prosecutor shared a small detail towards the
end of.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Us briefing, I can confirm as well that on the
left forearm of one of the victims there was removal
of roughly five centimeters of flesh. Was there a tattoo
or was there something else? We do not know At
this stage.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
I feared that the garbage bags contain my sister's body.
Jacqueline add a tattoo of her hex husband Angelo on
a left fore arm.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Authorities would confirm that one of the victims discovered was
Jacqueline Leclaire, but before they officially communicated this tragic news
to the family, reporters broke the story on live television
while her sister and mother were watching.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's not through the justice system or the police that
we learned Jaqueline was among the victims. We learned about
it on television with a picture writer on the screen.
It was a terrible shot. We heard that my little
sister was cut into pieces. Can you imagine what happens
in your heads when you hear dad, It's horrible. It's horrible.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Jacqueline Leclaire, thirty three years old, sister, daughter, and mother
of four children, was identified as the victim of a
brutal serial killer. Her mother and sister, who had never
given up searching for her, were devastated. They thought she
may have no longer been alive, but nothing could have
(15:40):
prepared them for this. To this day, her head and
several other body parts have still never been found. I'm
back in with Xavier Morgan van Leaerberg and another man
(16:03):
who will remain unnamed. We're in a car driving away
from the train station in the direction of the spot
where the first grusome discovery was made.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
So now we've left the area around the train station
to drive to the principal deposit site where they found
the nine trash bags. And as you can see, we're
almost there already, so it takes less than five minutes
to get from the station area to the Rue van
(16:36):
der Velda.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I wanted to get a clear understanding of how the
perpetrator must have deposited the original nine trash bags full
of body parts on the side of a relatively busy
road near the center of Mons. The first thing that
appears clear to me right away is that he needed
a vehicle to do this. It's really quite surprising that
he was would have chosen this site. It's a somewhat
(17:02):
busy two way road that passes over train tracks and
into the neighboring commune of quem.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
So you can see that there is housing on both sides.
And now we're arriving in the only zone where there's
nature and no housing.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
The car behind us hanks as we pull over to
the side of the road, just as a killer would
have done. There's really not much room to pull over here.
Frankly speaking, it seems like a dangerous spot to dump
a body. It's not very well hidden. At the same time,
it's a place where people illegally discarded trash, so not
completely suspect to see trash bags down in the ditch
(17:51):
next to the road. In fact, the police officer on
horseback who discovered the severed hand did so very much
by chance. Coincidentally, the cat drew his attention from his
mounted view. Had the officer been on foot, he wouldn't
have seen it, and it just so happened that one
of the trash bags was ripped open, allowing the hand
to be seen in the first place. In the early
(18:13):
days of the investigation, after the first bodies were discovered,
the medium mistakenly mentioned a fourth victim, but as the
dust began to settle, it was determined that the fifteen
bags were all from three female victims. Police and forensics
experts were struggling to identify the two of these three victims.
They had identified Jacqueline early because of the killer's clumsy
(18:35):
attempt to remove an identifying tattoo, on her left forearm.
Her sister Georgette had also been furiously looking for her,
and her missing person's case was on the police radar.
It didn't take long to connect the dots and make
the identification. Her state of decomposition three months was also
an identifying factor. Jacqueline disappeared exactly three months to the
(18:58):
day of the first discovery. The other two victims, on
the other hand, were a total mystery. Police were also
able to estimate their times of death based on states
of decomposition, the oldest dating from six months to a year,
and the most recent, who was believed to have been
murdered within days of the discovery. It was especially chilling
(19:20):
to realize that the latest discovery of the female torso
had been dumped after the initial discovery. It confirmed police's
and the public's worst fears. This wasn't a case of
just finding out what happened. It was happening in real time.
I spoke to the investigative journalist Frederic Laure about those
(19:41):
fateful three days of March twenty second, twenty third, and
twenty fourth, nineteen ninety six in mass where every day
brought a new terrifying discovery.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
I am originally from Moss and I was a young
reporter at the time. It was just incredible. There had
never been a serial killer like this in Belgium, much
less in Monts, and now we had the most grotesque
story ever. Police, magistrates and even journalists were overwhelmed think
(20:15):
about it. On March twenty two, eight sacks containing shopped
up female body parts are found. The next day they
find the nine sack, and then the next day they
find the female torso in a sack at another site,
this time very close to the center of Monts, just
(20:37):
behind the train station. I was dispatched to cover the
case and people were really terrified. Information was coming so fast.
Everyone had questions how many victims are there or where
they killed? And the question remains, where is the killer.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Investigators barely had time to catch their breath before another
discovery was made. On April twelfth, nineteen ninety seven, approximately
three weeks after the first discoveries, two more gruesome trash
bags were found and yet another location.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
Good afternoon in Havrey, near Monts, two garbage bags containing
human remains were discovered. The body parts are currently at
the Forensics Institute in Liege for examination. The similarities with
the three cadavers discovered in Quem fifteen days ago are flagrant.
Investigators believe it is the same perpetrator.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
By now the entire country of Belgium was fixated on
the investigation. Once again, the King's Prosecute held another macab
press conference.
Speaker 10 (22:05):
The first bag contained a foot and a fore leg,
meaning the part of the leg between the knee and
the ankle. The second bag contained a head. It is
a female head, but we are unable to identify this
person because of the state of decomposition, and it doesn't
appear to resemble any of the missing persons in our files.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And only six days after that, yet another grisom discovery
had a new.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Location Simfurian streets in Havre. It's four pm. Police forces
are holding back the press from where three new trash
bags were just discovered containing human remains. The King's Prosecutor
explains what seems more and more to resemble a sordid
treasure hunt.
Speaker 10 (22:52):
Sak examination of these bags. There are three of them
contained respectively, a hand with arm unsevered and a forearm.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
In seven days, five new bags were discovered, a total
of fifteen bag eleven a female head, bag twelve, a
foot and a leg, bag thirteen, a thigh, bag fourteen,
a thigh and bag fifteen, a hand, an arm and
(23:31):
a forearm. The locations of the two new discoveries were
again different, this time just outside of Monts about a
ten minute drive from the train station. For the first time,
police had the head of one of the victims. The
chief of the police unit in charge of the investigation,
Officer Ghill Marie Martin, explains.
Speaker 11 (23:56):
We discovered the head of a woman, but the head
wasn't presentable for the p so I decided to ask
the investigating judge to request the services of a police
portrait artist who sketched the head and that drawing was
distributed to the press. Afterward, I got a call in
the afternoon from a woman who was completely terrified and
in a state of shock, who said, it's my daughter,
(24:19):
it's my daughter. And so I went to her house
with another inspector and from the start she was sure
it was her daughter in this case, Natalie Godart, Madame.
And there was a little girl who was there, two
years old or two and a half, and she took
a newspaper off of a chair and came over and
(24:41):
said that's mommy.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
That little girl who recognized her mother's composite picture in
the newspaper was two year old Laura, the daughter of
Natalie Godard, who went missing three months after Jacqueline Leclair.
You'll recall that we heard from Laura in the previous
episode where she described her mother's hardships as well as
her own, having grown up in a dysfunctional family in
(25:06):
the foster care system. With Natalie Godard now identified as
one of the three victims, the investigative dots were beginning
to connect. Natalie was the most recent victim, murdered just
days before the first trash bags were discovered. Jacqueline was
(25:28):
the second most recent victim, murdered three months before the discovery.
Jacqueline and Natalie frequented the same bars and restaurants near
the Mosse train station, which was now ground zero for investigators,
but the third victim had not yet been identified. She
was estimated to have been murdered six months to a
(25:48):
year prior to the first discovery. Three victims body parts
discarded in fifteen separate trash backs spread across four locations
in and around the city of Moss. The horror of
the previous month had set in and taken hold of
the community. The only hope was that the worst was
behind them. Was they didn't know at the time was
(26:11):
that the story was far from over, and that the
horror they'd witnessed in the previous month was only the beginning.
Next time, on season two of La Monstre.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
It is now certain that the butcher of Mons has
killed three victims. It's also certain that the trash bags
recently discovered were deposited at different timestell.
Speaker 12 (26:45):
The police called me and said that they wanted to
do a DNA tests chevu because a hair containing my
DNA would have been found in one of the trash bags,
and that the DNA led them to me.
Speaker 8 (27:00):
Are becoming clear about the connection between those three victims
and the way they have been killed.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Le Monstre is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Podcasts, hosted, written,
and executive produced by Me. Matt Graves, Donald Albright, and
Payne Lindsay are executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
with producer Makeup and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Trevor
Young are executive producers on the behalf of iHeart Podcasts.
(27:35):
Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design and master by
Cooper Skinner, Cover design by Byron McCoy and Trevor Eiler.
Lea Monstre includes archival audio from SONYMA RTBF Archives. Special
thanks to Aren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, the
Nord Group and are Active Investigation team Morgen van Leerberg,
(27:57):
Fredrich lah, Jervie de Com and Annan Gardon, as well
as the teams at iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV. Find
us on social media at Monster Underscore pod. For more
podcasts like Lea Monstre, search Tenderfoot TV in your podcast
app or visit tenderfoot tv
Host
Matt Graves
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