August 30, 2022 • 30 mins
After 9 months with no answers, hysteria grips the country of Belgium as two more girls go missing during the Summer of 1996, 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne and 14-year-old Laëtitia Delhez. Now, six young girls have disappeared without a trace. A wiley prosecutor begins to mobilize efforts and make progress as police finally catch a break.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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 (00:25):
It must have been May or June nineteen ninety six.
I had been in Belgium for about a year and
was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes in my
new host country, grocery shopping in the del Hayes supermarket.
Still to this day, twenty five years later, I love
Delaya's stores. You can always tell a lot about a
(00:45):
country by their supermarkets, and Belgium certainly lives up to
its reputation as a paradise for good food and drink.
I was meandering through the beer ale when I heard
a disturbance few aisles.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Over, ju Yet.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Juet.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A woman was searching for.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Her daughter.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Juette.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The tone of her voice ran borderline hysterical, Juliette as
she ran from aisle to aisle, yelling out.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
For her daughter, Juliette, Suette, Jaunette Dame.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Other shoppers joined in and soon half of the supermarket
was searching for Juliette.
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Sauyette.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We found her in the cereal aisle and her mother
hugged her into an embrace as if she'd almost lost
Juliet forever. I remember thinking, hmmm, I guess losing your
kid in a supermarket is a big deal here. It
wasn't until I was leaving and saw the message board
near the exit that it hit me. Penned onto the
(01:49):
board were two slightly faded flers with the faces of Julian, Melissa,
and Anne and Eva, the four girls who had gone
missing in two separate incidences the previous summer. Next to
them was a brand new one. Yet another girl, twelve
year old Sabindarden, had vanished in broad daylight. Five girls
(02:10):
had now gone missing without a trace. The country was
waking up to the frightening fact that all five disappearances
were strikingly similar and possibly connected. The terror I just
witness and Juliette's mother and the immediate action from a
group of strangers were testament to the fact that fear
was beginning to grip the country.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Up.
Speaker 7 (02:44):
Psychopaths is somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And I told them it is very exceptional that somebody
abducts two children at the same time, so they have
been the yen of it in nineteen eighty six, But
my god, it was just a beginning.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Welcome to la monstre, I'm your host, Matt Graves. The
families of Julian, Melissa, and Anne and Effia had endured
a long and cold winter without any meaningful leads. Spring
it arrived in Belgium. But while most people were enjoying
(03:36):
the warmer weather and lengthening days, the families of these
missing girls were still in the dark, with little to
no light shed on the whereabouts or fate of their children.
Now yet another girl had simply vanished without a trace.
The latest disappearance was in a French speaking region near
(03:58):
the town of Tournay, about six month miles from the
French border in the west of Belgium. It was a
crisp spring morning in May nineteen ninety six when twelve
year old Sabine Darden hopped on her bike at around
seven twenty five for the roughly mile and a half
ride to school. She was wearing jeans, a red sweater,
(04:20):
a blue raincoat, and a small backpack. It was a
swimming day, so she had her little red swimming bag
attached to the port baggage of her dunlop bicycle. She
sometimes met up with a friend who lived on the
route to school and then they'd ride together, But when
the friend wasn't there that morning, Sabine didn't find it unusual,
so she rode on by herself. Riding on her own,
(04:42):
she turned into a quiet street behind the local stadium
that was still covered in shadow at that early hour.
Little did she know that predators were lurking in those shadows.
She heard the rumble of a vehicle approaching from behind,
so she instinctively swerved to the side to let it pass.
(05:05):
When it pulled up beside her, she only had a
split second to see a man behind the wheel of
a dirty van before another man, who was perched next
to the open side door, swooped out and grabbed her
right off of her bicycle. It all happened in a flash.
Sabine was ripped off of her bike and thrown into
the back of a van in seconds. The man who
(05:33):
grabbed her yelled at the driver to stop. They needed
to get the bike and swimming bags strewn out on
the road. We know a lot about Sabine's experiences based
on letters and a journal found where she was held
after being kidnapped. Before Sabine knew it, they were moving again,
(05:54):
and her aggressor was trying to force small pills into
her mouth. The van was filthy, with windows covered by
stickers and ugly brown and yellow checkered curtains. The back
seats had been ripped out and replaced with a dirty mattress.
Sabine's aggressor wrapped her up in a filthy blanket and
held her down so she couldn't see where they were going.
(06:15):
When she struggled and yelled, he pinned her down and
covered up her mouth with his hand. His face was
inches from hers. His menacing black eyes were terrifying, and
she realized that trying to fight back was futile. I
think back to my experience in the supermarket. No doubt
people were starting to worry about all these disappearances, but
(06:38):
they had no idea how bad it really was. I
spoke with an investigative journalist about what the atmosphere was
like in the mid nineties in Belgium, Douglas de cunning
probably knows more about this case than anyone. He covered
it from the beginning for one of the country's most
respected newspapers, De Morgan. Everywhere I looked to find out
(07:00):
more about these disappearances, I constantly run into Douglas's work.
When I finally tracked him down, he was deep in
the throes of investigating what he called quote Belgium's version
of the George Floyd case. Needless to say, he's a
busy man, and I'm fortunate that he agreed to help
me with his project.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
A colleague of mine, Fred van Nambussa, and all the journalists,
he published a book in those days. The title was
young Girls Don't Disappear just like that, and it was
a perfect way of expressing what we all felt because
every summer there were young girls getting killed or disappeared, right,
and there was a very strange indifference among the people,
(07:44):
but among the police as well. I remember several policemen
afterwards saying that in every police department you have a
murder section, you have a burglary section. He also had
a section that had to deal with child abduction, and
if you were at a child abduction section. That meant
(08:06):
that your career was really a disaster that puts them
the most stupid policemen there because that wasn't considered as
being a real form of crime.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So it was really something that they almost swept under
the rug. It sounds like when it comes to.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
I think Belgium was a paradise for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'm certainly not pointing the finger at Belgium with this project. Unfortunately,
the world is full of places where children disappear without
proper follow up. In my home state of Texas, a
monster named Dean Coral abducted and murdered at least twenty
eight teenage boys under the noses of police in Houston.
Child abduction and murder is far from a Belgian problem.
(08:55):
If anything, it's a problem that pretty reliably transcends most borders.
Belgium simply is an immune from it. It's unbearable to
imagine the fear and confusion that must have consumed Sabine
Darden's mind that terrifying morning, only twelve years old. In
(09:19):
one minute, she's riding her bike on a peaceful spring morning,
and the next she's wrenched into a filthy van, hurtling
down the highway. After bumping along what felt like a
country road for a while, the van pulled into a
smoother road and accelerated. Sabine spit out the first few pills,
(09:39):
but the man covered her face with a moist cloth
that had a chemical smell that made her feel woozy,
and then he forced her to swallow the pills. Remember
the attempted abduction in episode one. The perpetrator also purportedly
had a moist cloth, most likely with chloroform or another
chemical sedative. Still awake and gripped with fear, Sabine pretended
(10:01):
to be asleep as the trip continued for what felt
like an eternity. When the van finally stopped, the man
pointed to a metal tool chest and told her to
get inside. After she refused, the man and the driver
pushed her into the chest and shut the lid. They
(10:24):
carried her inside the chest, and a few minutes later,
when they opened it, she found herself inside a dingy house.
They took her upstairs to a room on the second
floor with windows covered so that she couldn't see out.
There were bunk beds and a dinosaur poster on the wall.
It felt like a child's room. One of the men
(10:44):
then chained her to the bed by her neck and
left the room. Back at her hometown of Tournay, it
wasn't until the late afternoon, when she hadn't come home
from school, that Sabine's parents realized she was missing. Now
(11:05):
yet another set of parents was living through the nightmare
of their child vanishing without a trace. Thanks to the
tireless work of Julian Melissa and Anne and ephis families,
the disappearance of Sabine wasn't just swept under the rug.
They wouldn't let the population or the police forget that
it wasn't normal for kids to just disappear. Their posters
(11:27):
were everywhere, and they continued their relentless campaign through a
constant drumbeat of press appearances and even their own investigations.
The first journalist to have contact with Julian Melissa's family
was a reporter from a major national magazine named Michelle Bouffieux.
Michelle currently works as a journalist at the famous French
(11:47):
magazine Paris Match. He agreed to an interview and I
asked him when he first had contact with the families
of Julian Melissa.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
No, actually It was Julian his family who called me
a few weeks after the disappearances. They called me because
of a book I co wrote in ninety three about
human trafficking networks and pedophilia in Belgium. They wanted to
discuss the situation and see if I had any thoughts
(12:16):
or hypothesis about the disappearance of their girls, and their
conviction was clear from the beginning that the children were
alive and that in the absence of finding them somewhere
alive or dead, investigators should be urgently focused on finding them.
Of course, there's a big difference in urgency when looking
for someone alive versus looking for bodies. So we published
(12:39):
a first interview in which they expressed frustration at the
total lack of information from investigators and judicial authorities. Authorities
wouldn't share any information at all, none. They wouldn't even
(13:00):
tell them how many investigators were working on the case.
When they ask investigators questions like well, what are your
hypothesis at the moment, they were getting frustrating answers like
quote anything as possible.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Two. I asked them what the parents' principal criticisms were
of police at the time.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
For example, July's father, Jo Willishan said quote, we can't help,
but I feel that investigators aren't up to the task
and that they're not the specialists in missing persons that
wou'd expect to work with on a case like this.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
And indeed, there were other things their phoned bizarre, for
example that after two months of investigation, they had even
finished confessing the neighborhood, and it wasn't until after fifteen
days that the girls went missing that they even interviewed
their fathers about they wereabouts. At the time of their disappearances.
(14:00):
They had the impression that the case wasn't being handled
correctly and with a sufficient degree of urgency.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I also spoke to a famous radio and television journalist
at the time named Jose Dessar about his work to
help give parents a voice in the media. Jose's program,
called Fey de Vere was somewhat like a Belgian equivalent
of Dateline NBC in the United States. I asked him
about the show on which he invited Julian Melissa's parents.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
City real Need. I brought together the parents and the
authorities who did been criticizing face to face. The parents
had a sense of conviction and urgency that clashed with
a slowness of judicial authorities. You have to note that
the judge appointed to oversee the investigation left for a
(14:53):
five week vacation a few days after being appointed, and
then five alternate judges juggle the case in her absence
without much efficiency. And so the first reaction of the
parents was that the case wasn't being probably followed and
that there wasn't a coherent investigations. Indeed, they were interviewed
(15:15):
by local police and then federal police came and asked
the same questions. They realized there wasn't proper coordination between juridictions,
and on the show they were asking the Attorney General
directly to start sharing information with them. Two and a
half months after the disappearance, they were pleading for access
(15:37):
to the case file and direct corporation with authorities. There
were two moments in the debates that stuck with me.
The first was when Melissa's father looked at an Attorney
general in the eye and said, you don't want us
to have access to the file, but these are our girls.
They're not wards of the state. In Another moment was
(16:01):
when Melissa's mother said, during all these discussions all of
this back and forth. Our girls are suffering, So there
was a sense of urgency from the parents in the
face of a sort of lackness and efficiency of the
judicial system. It was flagrant.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Meanwhile, the summer of nineteen ninety six dragged on without progress.
Sabine's disappearance was a complete mystery. There were no leads, sightings,
or anything at all to go on. And then on
August ninth, another girl disappeared. It was the height of
(16:43):
summer in the beautiful Ardennes region in the south of Belgium.
At that time of the year, the Ardennes was full
of campers, cyclists, and outdoor enthusiasts enjoying nature. In the
quaint village of Berthrie, fourteen year old Letitia Dalles spent
the day of August ninth helping her mother with clean
and shopping. At around seven thirty pm, Letitia and her
(17:04):
sister walked to the local pool and playground, where they'd
frequently hang out with local friends on lazy summer evenings.
Despite its clement weather, Belgium is at about the same
latitude as Winnipeg and Canada, so the sun doesn't set
until around nine thirty pm. In early August, Letitia hung
(17:28):
out with some friends until around eight forty five pm
and then left for the short walk back home. She
was wearing a blue and white flowered blouse and tennis shoes.
When she didn't show up at home a bit later,
her sister and mother walked all around town looking for her.
They didn't find Letitia, and they were immediately worried and
(17:51):
went to the police. Unlike past disappearances, the police and
judicial system jumped into action right away. Police started interview
viewing locals and Bertrie immediately to try to piece together
a timeline and find witnesses of anything suspicious leading up
to the disappearance. The provincial King's Prosecutor, Michel Bourlat, traveled
(18:12):
to Bertrie in person the next morning and immediately started
coordinating with local and national police. Michel Bourlat is probably
the most well known prosecutor in the history of Belgium.
If you live through these times here, you certainly know
who he is and remember seeing him on television a lot.
Through a bit of luck and a lot of persistence,
(18:33):
I convinced him to speak with me for this project.
My co producer Thomas and I traveled down to the
south of Belgium to meet with him at his home.
It was a warm day in mid June and we
settled down on his back porch, overlooking a plentiful garden
backed up by rolling hills in thick pine forest. In
true Belgian style, he started off by offering me a
(18:55):
cold beer and got one for himself as well. It
was a great start to affact needing interview.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
It was a Saturday morning and I was here at
home getting ready to do some gardening, and around nine
am the phone rang and Captain Ballar informed me that
a fourteen year old girl went missing the previous evening
in the village of bare Tree, Abertrie Lave. The girl
had left the swimming pool at nine pm and hadn't
(19:26):
come home afterwards immediate. The way from the pool to
her house was about a ten to fifteen minute walk
through the village and the town square. Her mother reported
it to the police, who started investigating right away. They
searched the route she would have taken in the area
(19:48):
around it. They didn't find anything.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Sending a thief done.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Captain Ballar considered the disap appearance is worrying, okay, I said,
I'm on my way.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You need to see.
Speaker 8 (20:06):
Bertrie is ten minutes away, so I showed up right away.
Captain ball Ar explained the search they'd made, and then
mister Delouz arrived.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Dulouze Mister.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
Mister Deluze is a man who had lost his daughter
four years earlier.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Philip Dulouze was the father of a sixteen year old
girl named Lawrence Matthews, who disappeared and was then found
dead in nineteen ninety two. When she was found, her
body was identified as that of a drug addict who
had gone missing, only to reappear the day before her
own funeral. Sadly, mister Deluze learned that the misidentified body
(20:47):
was that of his daughter. He spent over twenty years
trying to identify her killer, and was even accused of
the murder himself. He was at the scene in Bertrie
with an organization called the Mark and Korean Association dedicated
to finding missing children. This association was also active at
the time in the search for Julian, Melissa and Anne
(21:07):
and Effia, who had recently gone missing. Mister de Luz's
first reaction was that of surprise to see a king's
prosecutor on site so shortly after this new disappearance. It
was very uncommon for high level magistrates to roll up
their sleeves and jump into action so quickly on a
missing person's case. But if there's one thing I learned
during my meeting with Michelle Boulet is that he's anything
(21:29):
but common. He exhibits a rare combination of humility, compassion,
and the gruff determination of a steely prosecutor. King's prosecutor
Michelle Boulet.
Speaker 8 (21:46):
Deluze had come to get a photo of Letitia as
part of his work with the Mark and Krinn Association,
started by the parents of other missing or murdered children.
They were there to help authorities by printing and distributing
missing children posters lap At that time, I was conscious
(22:09):
of the Julian Melissa case and all the problems the
parents had had with judicial authorities. I didn't want to
fall into all those shortcomings I had perceived and which
Julian Melissa's parents had talked about in the media, the
distrust and lack of empathy and information. So I was
(22:33):
also there to meet directly with Letitious parents. I wasn't
in my ivory tower or off playing golf somewhere. I
was there to show them that we were concerned and
that we were there to help them. In the evening,
I stopped by the station again for an update. A
(22:54):
volunteer who had come from far away said he thought
he'd seen Letitia coming from Blancherie, so on my way
home I made a detour to Blancherie and searched for
about half an hour.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I'm really starting to like Michelle Bourlet. It's rare for
a King's prosecutor to visit the side of a disappearance,
and even rarer for him to jump in his car
and start searching himself. Unlike in previous disappearances, this investigation
got the attention it deserved. Within a day, both local
and federal police were all over it. Boulet quickly enlisted
(23:34):
an investigating judge to oversee the case. Police and local
authorities were getting support from local volunteers and the Mark
and Karna Association, who were printing and distributing missing Persons flyers.
While canvassing the area, they spoke to a nun named
sister Etienne, who claimed to have seen a suspicious looking
van near the swimming pool on Friday evening. In her statement,
(23:57):
she said the van was parked near the pool and
she noticed it because it was clunky and loud, with
a bunch of stickers in the lateral rear window. Police
were also interviewing all family members and friends. Letitia's sister
said that one of her friends named Virginie, thought she
had seen Letitia before the disappearance with a group of
young people, including a girl she knew named Kathy. They
(24:20):
spoke with Visionie, who confirmed that she thought that she'd
seen Kathy with Letitia that evening, but when they tracked
down Kathy, she said that she hadn't seen Leticia at
all that evening. However, Kathy did mention that she saw
a man that she didn't recognize enter the pool complex
to use the restrooms that evening. She said her boyfriend
also saw this man, so police then interviewed Kathy's boyfriend,
(24:44):
Ben Waugh. He said he recalled seeing the man but
couldn't remember anything about his appearance. After thinking about it,
ben wa said that he did see a beat up
looking van that evening, parked on the sidewalk facing the pool.
It was white with stickers covering up the back lateral windows. Again,
King's prosecutor, Michel Boulet Ressoir.
Speaker 8 (25:07):
That evening, when I went back to the station in
bear Tree, Major Giessar told me that they had something
new and so then he told me about sister Etienne's testimony,
which I knew about, and then about a new testimony.
As luck would have it, the young man who had
given us information on Monday, I thought he remembered part
(25:31):
of a license plate number. He gave us the make
of the car, the model of the car, and the
beginning of a license plate number.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
The young man Ben Wi Tino, actually remembered the make, model,
and first three letters of the license plate of the
van he'd seen three days prior. He said he'd memorize
the license plate because he was worried the occupants of
this junkie van might steal his bicycle. As luck would
have it, Ben waugh all So was a car buff
(26:01):
and he remembered that it was a Renault Traffique model.
It shows the importance of thoroughly following every lead and
speaking to every possible witness. If you think about it,
it's a coincidence that they even spoke to Benoit. Remember
that they interviewed him because a friend of a friend
of Letitia's sister had noticed a man in the pool restrooms,
(26:22):
and she said that Benois might also remember him, and
the van came up randomly. At the end of the interview.
Investigators perked up at Benois's description of the suspicious van
because it was similar to what the nun sister at
Tienne had seen. A lot has happened since the start
of this episode, so let's summarize the facts at this point.
(26:45):
In May nineteen ninety six, Sabine Darden went missing near
Tournay in the west of Belgium. There were no witnesses
or clues about what happened to her. Three months later,
yet another girl, Letitia da Les, disappeared from Bertier, about
one hundred and thirty miles east from where Sabine went missing.
Investigating this latest disappearance, police uncovered an interesting tip, corroborated
(27:08):
by two separate witnesses, about a suspicious looking van spotted
near where Letitia was last seen. By chance, one of
the witnesses who saw the van was able to recall
the make, model, and first three letters of the license plate.
The first three letters of the license plate he remembered
were fr R. Police quickly ran a search of all
(27:31):
Renault vehicles in Belgium with a license plate starting with
fr R. The query gave them seventy seven hits. Finally,
police had something concrete in serious cases in Belgium, and
investigating judge is brought in to carry out pre trial investigations.
Boulet wasted no time in soliciting an investigating judge, Jean
(27:54):
Marc Conrad, who jumped straight into the case with Gusto.
It had been four days since the disappearance of Letitia Michelle.
Boulet in his investigating judge Jean Mark Conrad knew the
time was of the essence. They knew it was now
or never. Next time on La Montre.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Monsieur, the agent van Rillard ran a search in his
computer and several names come back, one of which was
a certain to true. I asked, who's this guy? He
was someone very interesting and had been under surveillance for
a year then by the Gendarmerie of Chalarroois.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
If you read the report of doctor Denesse, he said,
I've done in my career. He was already at the
end of his career at the time that he was
coming to testify in court about the report that he
made on margin, and I said, I've done about four
thousands of these expertises, you know, in investigations towards the
personality of somebody else, that I never met anybody so
(29:11):
close to one hundred percent psychopath. He says, if I
have to put something or another, I think he must
be about ninety seven percent right. But the strange thing
is that it is exactly the one thing of feelings
that he had left that became his downfall, and that
is that Pride.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The Monster is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio,
hosted and executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by
Thomas Resimont. A Bubble sound, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay
are executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV with
producer Makeup and Vanity Said. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams
are execut kit producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with
(30:02):
producer Trevor Young. Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design
by Cooper Skinner and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by
Cooper Skinner. Cover design by Trevor Eiler. La Monstra includes
archival audio from SONYMA RTBF Archives and CNN Archives. Special
thanks to back Media and marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna,
(30:27):
and the teams at iHeartRadio and tenderfoot TV. Find us
on social media at Monster Underscore pod. For more podcasts
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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 (00:25):
It must have been May or June nineteen ninety six.
I had been in Belgium for about a year and
was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes in my
new host country, grocery shopping in the del Hayes supermarket.
Still to this day, twenty five years later, I love
Delaya's stores. You can always tell a lot about a
(00:45):
country by their supermarkets, and Belgium certainly lives up to
its reputation as a paradise for good food and drink.
I was meandering through the beer ale when I heard
a disturbance few aisles.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Over, ju Yet.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Juet.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A woman was searching for.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Her daughter.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Juette.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The tone of her voice ran borderline hysterical, Juliette as
she ran from aisle to aisle, yelling out.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
For her daughter, Juliette, Suette, Jaunette Dame.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Other shoppers joined in and soon half of the supermarket
was searching for Juliette.
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Sauyette.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
We found her in the cereal aisle and her mother
hugged her into an embrace as if she'd almost lost
Juliet forever. I remember thinking, hmmm, I guess losing your
kid in a supermarket is a big deal here. It
wasn't until I was leaving and saw the message board
near the exit that it hit me. Penned onto the
(01:49):
board were two slightly faded flers with the faces of Julian, Melissa,
and Anne and Eva, the four girls who had gone
missing in two separate incidences the previous summer. Next to
them was a brand new one. Yet another girl, twelve
year old Sabindarden, had vanished in broad daylight. Five girls
(02:10):
had now gone missing without a trace. The country was
waking up to the frightening fact that all five disappearances
were strikingly similar and possibly connected. The terror I just
witness and Juliette's mother and the immediate action from a
group of strangers were testament to the fact that fear
was beginning to grip the country.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Up.
Speaker 7 (02:44):
Psychopaths is somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And I told them it is very exceptional that somebody
abducts two children at the same time, so they have
been the yen of it in nineteen eighty six, But
my god, it was just a beginning.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Welcome to la monstre, I'm your host, Matt Graves. The
families of Julian, Melissa, and Anne and Effia had endured
a long and cold winter without any meaningful leads. Spring
it arrived in Belgium. But while most people were enjoying
(03:36):
the warmer weather and lengthening days, the families of these
missing girls were still in the dark, with little to
no light shed on the whereabouts or fate of their children.
Now yet another girl had simply vanished without a trace.
The latest disappearance was in a French speaking region near
(03:58):
the town of Tournay, about six month miles from the
French border in the west of Belgium. It was a
crisp spring morning in May nineteen ninety six when twelve
year old Sabine Darden hopped on her bike at around
seven twenty five for the roughly mile and a half
ride to school. She was wearing jeans, a red sweater,
(04:20):
a blue raincoat, and a small backpack. It was a
swimming day, so she had her little red swimming bag
attached to the port baggage of her dunlop bicycle. She
sometimes met up with a friend who lived on the
route to school and then they'd ride together, But when
the friend wasn't there that morning, Sabine didn't find it unusual,
so she rode on by herself. Riding on her own,
(04:42):
she turned into a quiet street behind the local stadium
that was still covered in shadow at that early hour.
Little did she know that predators were lurking in those shadows.
She heard the rumble of a vehicle approaching from behind,
so she instinctively swerved to the side to let it pass.
(05:05):
When it pulled up beside her, she only had a
split second to see a man behind the wheel of
a dirty van before another man, who was perched next
to the open side door, swooped out and grabbed her
right off of her bicycle. It all happened in a flash.
Sabine was ripped off of her bike and thrown into
the back of a van in seconds. The man who
(05:33):
grabbed her yelled at the driver to stop. They needed
to get the bike and swimming bags strewn out on
the road. We know a lot about Sabine's experiences based
on letters and a journal found where she was held
after being kidnapped. Before Sabine knew it, they were moving again,
(05:54):
and her aggressor was trying to force small pills into
her mouth. The van was filthy, with windows covered by
stickers and ugly brown and yellow checkered curtains. The back
seats had been ripped out and replaced with a dirty mattress.
Sabine's aggressor wrapped her up in a filthy blanket and
held her down so she couldn't see where they were going.
(06:15):
When she struggled and yelled, he pinned her down and
covered up her mouth with his hand. His face was
inches from hers. His menacing black eyes were terrifying, and
she realized that trying to fight back was futile. I
think back to my experience in the supermarket. No doubt
people were starting to worry about all these disappearances, but
(06:38):
they had no idea how bad it really was. I
spoke with an investigative journalist about what the atmosphere was
like in the mid nineties in Belgium, Douglas de cunning
probably knows more about this case than anyone. He covered
it from the beginning for one of the country's most
respected newspapers, De Morgan. Everywhere I looked to find out
(07:00):
more about these disappearances, I constantly run into Douglas's work.
When I finally tracked him down, he was deep in
the throes of investigating what he called quote Belgium's version
of the George Floyd case. Needless to say, he's a
busy man, and I'm fortunate that he agreed to help
me with his project.
Speaker 5 (07:20):
A colleague of mine, Fred van Nambussa, and all the journalists,
he published a book in those days. The title was
young Girls Don't Disappear just like that, and it was
a perfect way of expressing what we all felt because
every summer there were young girls getting killed or disappeared, right,
and there was a very strange indifference among the people,
(07:44):
but among the police as well. I remember several policemen
afterwards saying that in every police department you have a
murder section, you have a burglary section. He also had
a section that had to deal with child abduction, and
if you were at a child abduction section. That meant
(08:06):
that your career was really a disaster that puts them
the most stupid policemen there because that wasn't considered as
being a real form of crime.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So it was really something that they almost swept under
the rug. It sounds like when it comes to.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
I think Belgium was a paradise for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I'm certainly not pointing the finger at Belgium with this project. Unfortunately,
the world is full of places where children disappear without
proper follow up. In my home state of Texas, a
monster named Dean Coral abducted and murdered at least twenty
eight teenage boys under the noses of police in Houston.
Child abduction and murder is far from a Belgian problem.
(08:55):
If anything, it's a problem that pretty reliably transcends most borders.
Belgium simply is an immune from it. It's unbearable to
imagine the fear and confusion that must have consumed Sabine
Darden's mind that terrifying morning, only twelve years old. In
(09:19):
one minute, she's riding her bike on a peaceful spring morning,
and the next she's wrenched into a filthy van, hurtling
down the highway. After bumping along what felt like a
country road for a while, the van pulled into a
smoother road and accelerated. Sabine spit out the first few pills,
(09:39):
but the man covered her face with a moist cloth
that had a chemical smell that made her feel woozy,
and then he forced her to swallow the pills. Remember
the attempted abduction in episode one. The perpetrator also purportedly
had a moist cloth, most likely with chloroform or another
chemical sedative. Still awake and gripped with fear, Sabine pretended
(10:01):
to be asleep as the trip continued for what felt
like an eternity. When the van finally stopped, the man
pointed to a metal tool chest and told her to
get inside. After she refused, the man and the driver
pushed her into the chest and shut the lid. They
(10:24):
carried her inside the chest, and a few minutes later,
when they opened it, she found herself inside a dingy house.
They took her upstairs to a room on the second
floor with windows covered so that she couldn't see out.
There were bunk beds and a dinosaur poster on the wall.
It felt like a child's room. One of the men
(10:44):
then chained her to the bed by her neck and
left the room. Back at her hometown of Tournay, it
wasn't until the late afternoon, when she hadn't come home
from school, that Sabine's parents realized she was missing. Now
(11:05):
yet another set of parents was living through the nightmare
of their child vanishing without a trace. Thanks to the
tireless work of Julian Melissa and Anne and ephis families,
the disappearance of Sabine wasn't just swept under the rug.
They wouldn't let the population or the police forget that
it wasn't normal for kids to just disappear. Their posters
(11:27):
were everywhere, and they continued their relentless campaign through a
constant drumbeat of press appearances and even their own investigations.
The first journalist to have contact with Julian Melissa's family
was a reporter from a major national magazine named Michelle Bouffieux.
Michelle currently works as a journalist at the famous French
(11:47):
magazine Paris Match. He agreed to an interview and I
asked him when he first had contact with the families
of Julian Melissa.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
No, actually It was Julian his family who called me
a few weeks after the disappearances. They called me because
of a book I co wrote in ninety three about
human trafficking networks and pedophilia in Belgium. They wanted to
discuss the situation and see if I had any thoughts
(12:16):
or hypothesis about the disappearance of their girls, and their
conviction was clear from the beginning that the children were
alive and that in the absence of finding them somewhere
alive or dead, investigators should be urgently focused on finding them.
Of course, there's a big difference in urgency when looking
for someone alive versus looking for bodies. So we published
(12:39):
a first interview in which they expressed frustration at the
total lack of information from investigators and judicial authorities. Authorities
wouldn't share any information at all, none. They wouldn't even
(13:00):
tell them how many investigators were working on the case.
When they ask investigators questions like well, what are your
hypothesis at the moment, they were getting frustrating answers like
quote anything as possible.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Two. I asked them what the parents' principal criticisms were
of police at the time.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
For example, July's father, Jo Willishan said quote, we can't help,
but I feel that investigators aren't up to the task
and that they're not the specialists in missing persons that
wou'd expect to work with on a case like this.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
And indeed, there were other things their phoned bizarre, for
example that after two months of investigation, they had even
finished confessing the neighborhood, and it wasn't until after fifteen
days that the girls went missing that they even interviewed
their fathers about they wereabouts. At the time of their disappearances.
(14:00):
They had the impression that the case wasn't being handled
correctly and with a sufficient degree of urgency.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
I also spoke to a famous radio and television journalist
at the time named Jose Dessar about his work to
help give parents a voice in the media. Jose's program,
called Fey de Vere was somewhat like a Belgian equivalent
of Dateline NBC in the United States. I asked him
about the show on which he invited Julian Melissa's parents.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
City real Need. I brought together the parents and the
authorities who did been criticizing face to face. The parents
had a sense of conviction and urgency that clashed with
a slowness of judicial authorities. You have to note that
the judge appointed to oversee the investigation left for a
(14:53):
five week vacation a few days after being appointed, and
then five alternate judges juggle the case in her absence
without much efficiency. And so the first reaction of the
parents was that the case wasn't being probably followed and
that there wasn't a coherent investigations. Indeed, they were interviewed
(15:15):
by local police and then federal police came and asked
the same questions. They realized there wasn't proper coordination between juridictions,
and on the show they were asking the Attorney General
directly to start sharing information with them. Two and a
half months after the disappearance, they were pleading for access
(15:37):
to the case file and direct corporation with authorities. There
were two moments in the debates that stuck with me.
The first was when Melissa's father looked at an Attorney
general in the eye and said, you don't want us
to have access to the file, but these are our girls.
They're not wards of the state. In Another moment was
(16:01):
when Melissa's mother said, during all these discussions all of
this back and forth. Our girls are suffering, So there
was a sense of urgency from the parents in the
face of a sort of lackness and efficiency of the
judicial system. It was flagrant.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Meanwhile, the summer of nineteen ninety six dragged on without progress.
Sabine's disappearance was a complete mystery. There were no leads, sightings,
or anything at all to go on. And then on
August ninth, another girl disappeared. It was the height of
(16:43):
summer in the beautiful Ardennes region in the south of Belgium.
At that time of the year, the Ardennes was full
of campers, cyclists, and outdoor enthusiasts enjoying nature. In the
quaint village of Berthrie, fourteen year old Letitia Dalles spent
the day of August ninth helping her mother with clean
and shopping. At around seven thirty pm, Letitia and her
(17:04):
sister walked to the local pool and playground, where they'd
frequently hang out with local friends on lazy summer evenings.
Despite its clement weather, Belgium is at about the same
latitude as Winnipeg and Canada, so the sun doesn't set
until around nine thirty pm. In early August, Letitia hung
(17:28):
out with some friends until around eight forty five pm
and then left for the short walk back home. She
was wearing a blue and white flowered blouse and tennis shoes.
When she didn't show up at home a bit later,
her sister and mother walked all around town looking for her.
They didn't find Letitia, and they were immediately worried and
(17:51):
went to the police. Unlike past disappearances, the police and
judicial system jumped into action right away. Police started interview
viewing locals and Bertrie immediately to try to piece together
a timeline and find witnesses of anything suspicious leading up
to the disappearance. The provincial King's Prosecutor, Michel Bourlat, traveled
(18:12):
to Bertrie in person the next morning and immediately started
coordinating with local and national police. Michel Bourlat is probably
the most well known prosecutor in the history of Belgium.
If you live through these times here, you certainly know
who he is and remember seeing him on television a lot.
Through a bit of luck and a lot of persistence,
(18:33):
I convinced him to speak with me for this project.
My co producer Thomas and I traveled down to the
south of Belgium to meet with him at his home.
It was a warm day in mid June and we
settled down on his back porch, overlooking a plentiful garden
backed up by rolling hills in thick pine forest. In
true Belgian style, he started off by offering me a
(18:55):
cold beer and got one for himself as well. It
was a great start to affact needing interview.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
It was a Saturday morning and I was here at
home getting ready to do some gardening, and around nine
am the phone rang and Captain Ballar informed me that
a fourteen year old girl went missing the previous evening
in the village of bare Tree, Abertrie Lave. The girl
had left the swimming pool at nine pm and hadn't
(19:26):
come home afterwards immediate. The way from the pool to
her house was about a ten to fifteen minute walk
through the village and the town square. Her mother reported
it to the police, who started investigating right away. They
searched the route she would have taken in the area
(19:48):
around it. They didn't find anything.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Sending a thief done.
Speaker 8 (19:58):
Captain Ballar considered the disap appearance is worrying, okay, I said,
I'm on my way.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
You need to see.
Speaker 8 (20:06):
Bertrie is ten minutes away, so I showed up right away.
Captain ball Ar explained the search they'd made, and then
mister Delouz arrived.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Dulouze Mister.
Speaker 8 (20:20):
Mister Deluze is a man who had lost his daughter
four years earlier.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Philip Dulouze was the father of a sixteen year old
girl named Lawrence Matthews, who disappeared and was then found
dead in nineteen ninety two. When she was found, her
body was identified as that of a drug addict who
had gone missing, only to reappear the day before her
own funeral. Sadly, mister Deluze learned that the misidentified body
(20:47):
was that of his daughter. He spent over twenty years
trying to identify her killer, and was even accused of
the murder himself. He was at the scene in Bertrie
with an organization called the Mark and Korean Association dedicated
to finding missing children. This association was also active at
the time in the search for Julian, Melissa and Anne
(21:07):
and Effia, who had recently gone missing. Mister de Luz's
first reaction was that of surprise to see a king's
prosecutor on site so shortly after this new disappearance. It
was very uncommon for high level magistrates to roll up
their sleeves and jump into action so quickly on a
missing person's case. But if there's one thing I learned
during my meeting with Michelle Boulet is that he's anything
(21:29):
but common. He exhibits a rare combination of humility, compassion,
and the gruff determination of a steely prosecutor. King's prosecutor
Michelle Boulet.
Speaker 8 (21:46):
Deluze had come to get a photo of Letitia as
part of his work with the Mark and Krinn Association,
started by the parents of other missing or murdered children.
They were there to help authorities by printing and distributing
missing children posters lap At that time, I was conscious
(22:09):
of the Julian Melissa case and all the problems the
parents had had with judicial authorities. I didn't want to
fall into all those shortcomings I had perceived and which
Julian Melissa's parents had talked about in the media, the
distrust and lack of empathy and information. So I was
(22:33):
also there to meet directly with Letitious parents. I wasn't
in my ivory tower or off playing golf somewhere. I
was there to show them that we were concerned and
that we were there to help them. In the evening,
I stopped by the station again for an update. A
(22:54):
volunteer who had come from far away said he thought
he'd seen Letitia coming from Blancherie, so on my way
home I made a detour to Blancherie and searched for
about half an hour.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I'm really starting to like Michelle Bourlet. It's rare for
a King's prosecutor to visit the side of a disappearance,
and even rarer for him to jump in his car
and start searching himself. Unlike in previous disappearances, this investigation
got the attention it deserved. Within a day, both local
and federal police were all over it. Boulet quickly enlisted
(23:34):
an investigating judge to oversee the case. Police and local
authorities were getting support from local volunteers and the Mark
and Karna Association, who were printing and distributing missing Persons flyers.
While canvassing the area, they spoke to a nun named
sister Etienne, who claimed to have seen a suspicious looking
van near the swimming pool on Friday evening. In her statement,
(23:57):
she said the van was parked near the pool and
she noticed it because it was clunky and loud, with
a bunch of stickers in the lateral rear window. Police
were also interviewing all family members and friends. Letitia's sister
said that one of her friends named Virginie, thought she
had seen Letitia before the disappearance with a group of
young people, including a girl she knew named Kathy. They
(24:20):
spoke with Visionie, who confirmed that she thought that she'd
seen Kathy with Letitia that evening, but when they tracked
down Kathy, she said that she hadn't seen Leticia at
all that evening. However, Kathy did mention that she saw
a man that she didn't recognize enter the pool complex
to use the restrooms that evening. She said her boyfriend
also saw this man, so police then interviewed Kathy's boyfriend,
(24:44):
Ben Waugh. He said he recalled seeing the man but
couldn't remember anything about his appearance. After thinking about it,
ben wa said that he did see a beat up
looking van that evening, parked on the sidewalk facing the pool.
It was white with stickers covering up the back lateral windows. Again,
King's prosecutor, Michel Boulet Ressoir.
Speaker 8 (25:07):
That evening, when I went back to the station in
bear Tree, Major Giessar told me that they had something
new and so then he told me about sister Etienne's testimony,
which I knew about, and then about a new testimony.
As luck would have it, the young man who had
given us information on Monday, I thought he remembered part
(25:31):
of a license plate number. He gave us the make
of the car, the model of the car, and the
beginning of a license plate number.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
The young man Ben Wi Tino, actually remembered the make, model,
and first three letters of the license plate of the
van he'd seen three days prior. He said he'd memorize
the license plate because he was worried the occupants of
this junkie van might steal his bicycle. As luck would
have it, Ben waugh all So was a car buff
(26:01):
and he remembered that it was a Renault Traffique model.
It shows the importance of thoroughly following every lead and
speaking to every possible witness. If you think about it,
it's a coincidence that they even spoke to Benoit. Remember
that they interviewed him because a friend of a friend
of Letitia's sister had noticed a man in the pool restrooms,
(26:22):
and she said that Benois might also remember him, and
the van came up randomly. At the end of the interview.
Investigators perked up at Benois's description of the suspicious van
because it was similar to what the nun sister at
Tienne had seen. A lot has happened since the start
of this episode, so let's summarize the facts at this point.
(26:45):
In May nineteen ninety six, Sabine Darden went missing near
Tournay in the west of Belgium. There were no witnesses
or clues about what happened to her. Three months later,
yet another girl, Letitia da Les, disappeared from Bertier, about
one hundred and thirty miles east from where Sabine went missing.
Investigating this latest disappearance, police uncovered an interesting tip, corroborated
(27:08):
by two separate witnesses, about a suspicious looking van spotted
near where Letitia was last seen. By chance, one of
the witnesses who saw the van was able to recall
the make, model, and first three letters of the license plate.
The first three letters of the license plate he remembered
were fr R. Police quickly ran a search of all
(27:31):
Renault vehicles in Belgium with a license plate starting with
fr R. The query gave them seventy seven hits. Finally,
police had something concrete in serious cases in Belgium, and
investigating judge is brought in to carry out pre trial investigations.
Boulet wasted no time in soliciting an investigating judge, Jean
(27:54):
Marc Conrad, who jumped straight into the case with Gusto.
It had been four days since the disappearance of Letitia Michelle.
Boulet in his investigating judge Jean Mark Conrad knew the
time was of the essence. They knew it was now
or never. Next time on La Montre.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Monsieur, the agent van Rillard ran a search in his
computer and several names come back, one of which was
a certain to true. I asked, who's this guy? He
was someone very interesting and had been under surveillance for
a year then by the Gendarmerie of Chalarroois.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
If you read the report of doctor Denesse, he said,
I've done in my career. He was already at the
end of his career at the time that he was
coming to testify in court about the report that he
made on margin, and I said, I've done about four
thousands of these expertises, you know, in investigations towards the
personality of somebody else, that I never met anybody so
(29:11):
close to one hundred percent psychopath. He says, if I
have to put something or another, I think he must
be about ninety seven percent right. But the strange thing
is that it is exactly the one thing of feelings
that he had left that became his downfall, and that
is that Pride.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
The Monster is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio,
hosted and executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by
Thomas Resimont. A Bubble sound, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay
are executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV with
producer Makeup and Vanity Said. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams
are execut kit producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with
(30:02):
producer Trevor Young. Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design
by Cooper Skinner and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by
Cooper Skinner. Cover design by Trevor Eiler. La Monstra includes
archival audio from SONYMA RTBF Archives and CNN Archives. Special
thanks to back Media and marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna,
(30:27):
and the teams at iHeartRadio and tenderfoot TV. Find us
on social media at Monster 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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