October 18, 2022 • 30 mins
The recent arrest of a Dutroux accomplice brings into question additional crimes as a new witness and potential victim comes forward. According to the courts and the majority of the media in Belgium, Marc Dutroux was an isolated predator who acted alone with the help of his wife and lackey accomplice, but these new details continue to divide the country.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 contained subject matter which may
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The True was a secondary figure. He was responsible for
bringing drugs and girls at the parties. Nihoul was the boss.
The True is more on the side.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
These are the words of Regina Loof read by a translator.
When de True was arrested, she said that she recognized
his face on the news. She also recognized Michel Niehul,
who was also arrested on suspicion of involvement. Regina Loof
claimed that she had been abused by Nihoul as a
young teenager and had witnessed terrible abuse of others at
(00:58):
his hands.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
From the age of twelve. My grandmother forced me to
be a prostitute. I was brought to orgies. Everyone was
drinking a lot of alcohol. There are sometimes other children there.
Nihul was very often there with his wife. I remember
Jean michel Nut as a very cruel man. He abused
children in a very sadistic way. Sometimes during these parties,
(01:24):
they would put us outside a large garden. The adults
would chase us, and whoever cut one of us could
do whatever they wanted.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I'm psychobat with somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I told them it is very exceptional that somebody
abducts two children at the same time.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Nineteen eighty six. But my gods, it was just a beginning.
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Welcome to La Monstra. I'm your host, Matt Graves. You'll
recall that after the initial arrest of d True, his
wife Michelle Martin, and accomplice Michel Lelievre, there is another
arrest of a man named Michel Nihoul. The arrest of
Nihoul was the beginning of two narratives in this country
(02:37):
which still persist today, one in which the True and
his accomplices were an isolated groove, and another in which
the True was part of something much larger, a child's
sex trafficking network. The isolated group narrative was widely accepted
by Belgian law enforcement and the mainstream media. However, there
(02:58):
are several disturbing facts that point to the narrative of
a larger child trafficking network with powerful connections. Michel Niehul,
with all of his power and influence, lies at the
heart of this second narrative. You recall that telephone records
showed that Nihoul had a flurry of phone calls with
(03:18):
both d'true and his accomplice le Lievre leading up to
the last disappearance of Letitia de LEAs, and that he
gave them about fifteen thousand dollars worth of ecstasy pills
on the day after she was kidnapped. During early interrogations,
da True and le Lievre spoke a lot about Nihoul.
They said he was a hustler with a lot of
(03:39):
influence who organized orgies. Dtrue said that Nihoul told him
that sadomasochist orgies were the most profitable, and that Nihoul
was a fervent satamassachist himself. It was an open secret
that Nihoul regularly organized orgies, even people close to him,
(03:59):
and in fact, his own lawyer admitted that Nihoul frequently
participated in secret sex parties. He described himself as a
man of all seasons and was the consummate networker involved
in both business and politics. From various business ventures to
public relations to political campaign consulting, Nihoul was a man
(04:21):
of influence, with connections across the spectrum. He even had
his own radio show in Brussels. Several people close to
Nihouol described him as an excellent salesman and a show
off who liked to spin big and drink and party excessively.
With several bankruptcies to his name, Nihoul also had a
(04:41):
rap sheet with convictions for fraud, bad checks and breach
of trust based on records showing frequent telephone conversations between
De True, l Lievre and Nihoul leading up to the
kidnapping of Letitia and the early testimony of d True
and the Lievre about Nihoul's possible involvement. He was arrested
(05:01):
and his face was plastered all over the media. Regina Loof,
the girl whose words you heard the start of this episode,
had a friend who contacted police to explain that she
knew someone who had concrete information about the True and
the corrupt businessman Michelle Nihul. The friend she was referring
(05:22):
to was Regina Loof. Regina didn't initially want to testify,
but she was eventually convinced to speak with police on record.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
What the reaction was, what we've seen the True that's bad.
It's like two four six kids that were adducted forward
dead too were still found back alive. That was terrible
for Belgium. But if what Regina was saying was even
half of it true, it would be ten times worse.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
This is the voice of Rudy Hoskins, who was the
investigative lead on the team signed to interview Regina Loofod.
Hoskins is currently a partner at one of the prestigious
Big four global accounting and consulting firms, where he's a
confidence leader in forensic services. Earlier in his career, Rudy
was a Belgian federal police officer or gendarme for sixteen years.
(06:17):
In nineteen ninety six, he and his colleagues Amey Bill,
Patrick de Batts and Philippe Uppe were assigned by Judge
Conrad to interview anonymous witnesses who had come forward after
seeing the arrests of the True and Nihoul on television.
To protect the identities of witnesses, the police called them
X one, X two, X three and so on. X
(06:40):
one was Regina aloof who claimed she had been abused
by the true and Nihoul.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Then we had that first interview and now we sat together. Okay,
what's we're going to do with that? This lady is
completely crazy? That was her first assessment. Right, all the
things he is telling us this is not possible, cannot
be true. And also the names she was clothing were
people of of high society. Yeah, politicians, heads of captains
(07:09):
of industry, magistrates, police people. So this cannot be true.
This is too much. Right. That was a bit the
first feeling, I think. And when did you start to
believe her? When we started finding the first I would say,
the first evidence is what we said that we could
confirm that in the field or through public records or
(07:32):
to whatever.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
The story of Regina Luf is both perplexing and tragic.
She was sexually abused by adults as a young girl
and into her teenage years. For obvious reasons, this affected
her psychologically, and she showed clear signs of mental instability
during her interviews.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, and Nancy started talking about cases where she was
not only abused, but where she also witnessed. Although I
would say friends or children that were abused and even
murdered and then when we hurt murders are Okay, that's interesting,
because if there's a murder, there must have been a body.
(08:13):
There must be a cold case somewhere, so talk to
us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
She described two horrifying experiences where she had witnessed the
abuse and murder of other young girls. Hoskins and his
colleagues drilled into her accounts of these experiences in a
series of long and grueling interviews, while Hoskins gathered details
and investigated possible links to unsolved cases. Because the timeline
(08:38):
and description aligned with an unsolved abuse and murder case.
To understand this cold case, we have to go back
to nineteen eighty four, twelve years before the bodies of Julie, Melissa,
Anne and Efia were found murdered on the properties of
Mark de True.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Those comed up.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Okay, it happened less than two miles from where I
live today. A young journalist, Jean Savigna, is helping me
with this part of the project. We wanted to see
where this crime was committed almost forty years ago in
nineteen eighty four. This was the side of a place
known as La Champignnere, which means mushroom. Farm in French.
(09:25):
You can see if you look at the pictures, actually
you can might that could be that true.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, I love scary place.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah yeah, these pictures.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
You really scary. For Give me the chill.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
The mushroom farm had been abandoned in nineteen seventy three.
The only pictures left of this place are black and white,
and they have a sinister feel to them. Maybe it's
just because I know what happened here. It was cold
(10:03):
and dark on the evening of February thirteenth, nineteen eighty four,
when a local passerby noticed smoke coming from the abandoned
mushroom farm in the commune of Odigem in Brussels. The
passerby called the fire department to report the smoke in
case there was a fire that needed to be put out.
(10:26):
When fire crews arrived, they determined the smoke was coming
from one of the old basements of the mushroom farm.
It was a routine call and it didn't appear that
anyone was in danger, so they sent a small team
to go check out the source of the fire. After
weaving through a labyrinth of underground hallways, they arrived in
a basement where they found a heap of crates and
(10:48):
trash on fire and proceeded to extinguish it. When the
flames were put out, they started to separate the debris
to make sure everything was extinguished. One of the firemen
noticed a string object under the debris that didn't look
like it belonged there. It looked distinctly human, but was
(11:08):
twisted into an odd shape. To their horror, they realized
it was indeed a partially burned and mutilated body. The
victim's arms and feet had been tied behind their back
and looped around their neck into an arching position with
(11:28):
metal wire. The hands were missing and the legs were damaged.
Initial responders said that they saw a nail planted into
one of the severed hands. It was declared a crime scene,
and investigators quickly determined that it was likely a teenage girl.
As they sifted through the scene, they found jewelry and
(11:51):
a partially burned school notebook that enabled them to identify
the victim. It was sixteen year old Christine van His.
Only hours before. Her parents had called the police to
declare her missing when she didn't return home from school
the same day. The autopsy determined that she died prior
(12:16):
to when the fire was set, and that she had
been tortured and raped before being strangled to death with
electric wires. Again the former gendarme Rudy Hoskins.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, the things she told us, she couldn't have known
without having been there or witnessed it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Regina loose account of the abuse and murder of a
girl named Christine was strikingly similar to the circumstances of
the infamous murder of Christine van Has at the Champagnoniere.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And now we said, okay, shit, this girl is really talking.
And then we went more in depth, asking for more
details like the championnaires to described the house, how she
went in there, and even also details for example, if
you go into a house, okay, normally in the house
you go stairs up and then you go in. In
that case, you went like stairs down and then you
(13:07):
go in. So it was like specific things we could check.
So we found all the pictures of the house where
you see the stairs going down. For example, we went
to get the file out of the Justice Pallace and
Brussels where we went to look for the pictures. How
did it look like internally? There were a lot of
pictures taken because there was a body that was burned inside,
(13:29):
and how the body was killed, and how it was
like with the kind of iron. I don't remember the
details anymore, but with iron and stuff at certain places
in the body. And if you looked at the pictures
from the it was not the corpse anymore, it was burnt.
You saw these irons. At that specific points in time.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Rudy Hoskins and his team became increasingly convinced that Regina
Loof had witnessed the gruesome murder of Christine van Has.
All of our testimony was witnessed by several officers and
even magistrates, and it was meticulously recorded. Unfortunately, there's no
such thing as a Freedom of Information Act request for
(14:07):
such material in Belgium, but I was able to get
my hands on the transcripts. What you're about to hear
is a reading from transcripts of Regina Loose's testimony. Warning
this is extremely disturbing.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
There was a drawing of names to decide, for example,
which one of the two girls were going to suffer.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Who was the second girl, Christine? What happened to Christine?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
She was sacrificed. She streamed so much for someone.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
To hear her what made her scream the true.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Nihol and his wife. They tortured her. They tied her
up and spread her legs on the table. She couldn't
even defend herself. They put something inside of her. They
were hurting her and raping her, and they burn her.
They what they burn her.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Police were astounded by what they were hearing. She hadn't
made a direct connection to the Christine van Hanes case,
but her descriptions of the circumstances of this terrifying experience
were strikingly similar to the infamous cold case. What made
this difficult for police was that Regina Loof had herself
been a victim and she was dealing with her own
(15:23):
trauma at the time. The horrible things that happened to
her over the years made questioning her very difficult. There
were many long pauses where she would just shut down.
Sometimes these bouts of silence could last as long as
an hour.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
She must have read it somewhere. Yeah, she must have
had access to the judicial file, or she must have
known a lawyer, or she must have been there. That
was not clear for us. So what we did is
we did a house search in our house to find
because We also thought, hey, guys seem to have read
(16:00):
that somewhere or had contact with somebody. So we did
out search. We went to every page, to every book.
Is there something in a book, in a newspaper and
old magazine where she could have read it. We didn't
find anything, but still there were a lot of things
that we could check and prove, and at a certain
point in time, I would say we started believing.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I remember it like it's a film in my head.
I can close my eyes and see every little details
of that house where she was murdered. It was a
sort of bondage, so her legs and her hands and
her throat were connected with the same rope, and when
she moved, she strangled herself. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
By the time of these interrogations, the old mushroom farm
and adjoining house had been demolished, so investigators reached out
to the family who had lived there beforehand. A man
and his brother who had grown up there were convinced
that Regina Loof must have been there before based on
her description the property. These are his words, not his voice.
(17:04):
It was two houses that had been combined into a
single dwelling, with the unique passage of stairs and hallways.
No one could describe it unless they had been there.
There was a hallway joining two houses, and she drew
a picture of the doors inside. They were antique doors,
and she drew the moldings. She described the wallpaper and
(17:26):
the front step. I don't know who could have described
it so accurately if they hadn't been there. I don't
know Regine Aloof, I've never met her. All I know
is that based on her description of the mushroom farm
and the house, I'm sure that she had to have
been there. My brother and I both agree on this.
We're absolutely sure and certain that she had to have
(17:48):
been there to describe it as she did. I was
able to track down another one of the ex chend
armes named Emme Bille, who worked on the team investigating
this case. Aimee is now writen hired and based in
the south of France. Prior to working on the case,
he had a stellar reputation as a heavy lifter with
extreme attention to detail. Here's a translation of the key
(18:10):
points from our.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Interview Cavoil do champion eh.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
If you look at the old case file for the
murder at the Mushroom Farm, you'll see that way back
in nineteen eighty seven, before Regina Loof's testimony, an informant
told the police that if they wanted to solve the case,
they should look at a bar called the Dolo. The
Dolo was an infamous bar frequented by the mafia, politicians, police,
(18:35):
and above all Nioul, who was known as a regular
customer there before it was closed down and the owners
were charged with facilitating prostitution. There were other things in
the file that pointed towards Nioul and du True. For one,
we know that Christine van Hayes was a regular visitor
to the ice skating Rinkquey Mark Dudru was hanging out
(18:57):
in the eighties, and that one of hers testified that
she had a relationship with someone named Mark from chall Arois.
This same friend later said that she recognized two old
photos of de True from the early nineteen eighties as
someone she had seen in the presence of Christine. Christine
also frequented the swimming pool in Etterbake, in the same
(19:20):
building where Niehul's radio station was based. At the time,
police were very focused on a group of punk rockers
who sometimes hung out at the Mushroom Farm. The initial
tip pointing towards these punk rockers actually came from a
colleague of Niehouls at the radio station, so that's how
the whole investigation into the punk started. The judge responsible
(19:43):
for the Champagnonire case and also responsible for closing down
our investigation around Regina Loof, had once represented Niel's wife
as a lawyer, and his sister was the godmother of
Niel's child. So we have an informant pointing to a
place where Niels spent all most every evening. We know
the victim was spending a lot of time and places
(20:04):
where Nihul and du True also spend time, and the
person who led police to investigate the punks was actually
an associate of Nieuls. When you combine all this with
Regina Luf's testimony, it looks very suspicious for Nieu.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
If Regina Luf was telling the truth, Mark d' true
was involved with Michelle Nihul in abducting, abusing, and murdering
children in the mid nineteen eighties. We know that d
tru was indeed actively abducting young girls at this time,
but Nihoul is an important element here because he was
never convicted of involvement with D'truz crimes. The official story
(20:47):
from Belgian authorities is that Mark D True was an
isolated predator who abducted children for his own perverted reasons,
using only low level accomplices. But I interviewed another ex
gendarmes with shocking revelations that fly in the face of
the idea that the True was acting alone. Jean Pierre
Adon was a gendarmes assigned to the the True task force.
(21:10):
Just after Mark d Trux was arrested in nineteen ninety six,
my co producer Thomas and I once again found ourselves
driving down to the south of Belgium to discuss some
of the loose ends of this case. I think it's
over here, number number three. We saw number five, so
(21:31):
this has got to be it. But there's two houses here,
so I don't know which one it is. Here we
are again in the Ardennes. Believe or not.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
To their next see.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Because your will be as oca. Jean Pierre told us
about a curious visit he received from Jean de Nis
le Jean a few months after his daughter Julie LeJean
was found murdered at the Truz property.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I got a visit from who came to provide a
statement with his cousin, A restaurant owner from Challowis named
Michel Pirout called them several times. He wanted to organize
a benefit dinner in his restaurant near and all of
the prophets would go to the Julian Melissa Association that
(22:33):
was formed after the tru's rest. On the last call
he made to them, Pierrot said that on the day
of the dinner he would reveal information about the true
and the girls. He would make public revelations, but he
didn't want to say anything about him before a few
(22:55):
days later, the Lea Johne family was watching TV and
they saw a news bulletin about a restaurant owner from
Challoois murdered in a parking lot. So they gave me
sworn statement and the prosecutor Boulet, asked me to investigate
the murder case in Challois and there I interviewed witnesses
(23:15):
who said that Pierrot was going to make revelations about
the true affair, and that Piau was not the kind
of guy to whim power and that if he said it,
he'd do it.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
So after threatening to go public with big revelations Piraut
was murdered in a parking lot. That's certainly suspicious in
and of itself, but it gets more interesting when you
hear about this man. Michelle Pirout's link to another lead
tied to the disappearance of Julie and Melissa.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Michelle Pierrout Okay, Michelle Piau was a close friend of
Roget Dupris, and Rochet Dupris was the owner of Le
Carre Blanc, a nightclub in Chalais, and there was a
whitness who reported seeing Julie and Melissa on the sidewalk
next to the car with a young man after they disappeared.
(24:12):
The witness said she crossed paths with the two girls
and a young man and she said to herself that
those are the girls she'd seen pictures off everywhere, and
then when she turned around, they were gone, and it
was just in front of the nightclub the car, And
when de tru was arrested, she made the connection and
(24:34):
she called the police eight hundred number, and she confirmed
all of this to me in a sworn statement.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
It's not clear as to why the witness didn't immediately
contact police when she recognized the girls outside of the club,
but when she heard of Datru's arrest, she made the
connection because d' tru'z house in charle Wa with the dungeon,
was very close to this nightclub where she thought she
saw the girls. In fact, it's less than half a
mile away. So not only was Michel Pierreau suspiciously murdered,
(25:04):
there was also a report that Julian Melissa were seen
in front of a nightclub called the Cariban. This club owner,
Roge Duprix, was a very rich underworld figure. Could Pierraut
have been planning to reveal something about these sightings and
the club before he was murdered. The connections go even
(25:24):
deeper again. Jean Pierre adon.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Llo's so Fiol and it happens that another nightclub owner
named Jean Claude Mass lost his nightclub in a fire.
Everything burned down, and directly afterwards, Roge Duprix came to
see him. Instead, he had an apartment above his Carrivelon
nightclub and that Jean Claude could stay there free while
(25:55):
rebuilding his own club, and in exchange he could help
out managing the carrey Blanc. And so he moved with
his two kids and his wife into the apartment, and
one day the kids went up into the attic. While playing,
they broke through a thin wall and they noticed that
(26:17):
there was a room behind the wall. So the father
arrived and saw a mattress and some tissues with blood
on them, and a little window with bars on it,
exactly as if someone had been hidden there. I went
to interview this mister mass with his kids. I interviewed
all of them. They even drew a map showing how
to access this hiding place.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Could all of this just be attributed to coincidence? Julie
and Melissa are reportedly spotted at a club less than
a half a mile from De Dru's dungeon, and inside
that club there's a hidden room with bars on the
window and a mattress. We know that the True moved
many of his victims around magically, so this does fit
(27:01):
with his pattern. Jean Pierre Radon followed up internally about
these claims.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I of course requested a warrant to search the hiding place,
and the judge came to me and said he wouldn't
grant the warrant. He said it wasn't up to him
to attack the mafia of shallow wa A search with
the forensic team to analyze all of the hairs and
blood and so on would have probably found the DNA
(27:29):
of Sile and Melissa, and I still affirm today that
the reason they didn't grant me a warrant is that
they were afraid to open the door to a possible
wider network.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
It certainly appears more than plausible that the True was
involved with a wider human trafficking network. While circumstantial, the
evidence and connections are overwhelming. If this narrative is true,
it would mean that there are other accomplices, either directly
or indirectly involved with kidnapping, abuse, and murder of several
(28:07):
young girls, and most of those accomplices were never brought
to justice and are likely walking freely in the world today. Meanwhile,
while Inspector Jean Pierradon continued to investigate the case, something
happened that took everyone by surprise. Mark the True, the
most reviled criminal in Belgian history, escaped.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Las Stupid vac solon de la champ ala ans la
nouvelle delive as you said up committee.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
To Mars du the Lompixon into a position. Lule Monstra
(29:18):
is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Radio, hosted
and executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by Thomas
Resimont of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are
executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV with producer
Makeup and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are
executive producers on the behalf of iHeart Radio with producer
(29:40):
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. Lo Monstra includes archival audio
from SONYMA, RTBF Archives and CNN Archives. Special things thanks
to Backmedia and marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna and the
(30:05):
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.
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 contained subject matter which may
not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The True was a secondary figure. He was responsible for
bringing drugs and girls at the parties. Nihoul was the boss.
The True is more on the side.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
These are the words of Regina Loof read by a translator.
When de True was arrested, she said that she recognized
his face on the news. She also recognized Michel Niehul,
who was also arrested on suspicion of involvement. Regina Loof
claimed that she had been abused by Nihoul as a
young teenager and had witnessed terrible abuse of others at
(00:58):
his hands.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
From the age of twelve. My grandmother forced me to
be a prostitute. I was brought to orgies. Everyone was
drinking a lot of alcohol. There are sometimes other children there.
Nihul was very often there with his wife. I remember
Jean michel Nut as a very cruel man. He abused
children in a very sadistic way. Sometimes during these parties,
(01:24):
they would put us outside a large garden. The adults
would chase us, and whoever cut one of us could
do whatever they wanted.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I'm psychobat with somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And I told them it is very exceptional that somebody
abducts two children at the same time.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Nineteen eighty six. But my gods, it was just a beginning.
I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Welcome to La Monstra. I'm your host, Matt Graves. You'll
recall that after the initial arrest of d True, his
wife Michelle Martin, and accomplice Michel Lelievre, there is another
arrest of a man named Michel Nihoul. The arrest of
Nihoul was the beginning of two narratives in this country
(02:37):
which still persist today, one in which the True and
his accomplices were an isolated groove, and another in which
the True was part of something much larger, a child's
sex trafficking network. The isolated group narrative was widely accepted
by Belgian law enforcement and the mainstream media. However, there
(02:58):
are several disturbing facts that point to the narrative of
a larger child trafficking network with powerful connections. Michel Niehul,
with all of his power and influence, lies at the
heart of this second narrative. You recall that telephone records
showed that Nihoul had a flurry of phone calls with
(03:18):
both d'true and his accomplice le Lievre leading up to
the last disappearance of Letitia de LEAs, and that he
gave them about fifteen thousand dollars worth of ecstasy pills
on the day after she was kidnapped. During early interrogations,
da True and le Lievre spoke a lot about Nihoul.
They said he was a hustler with a lot of
(03:39):
influence who organized orgies. Dtrue said that Nihoul told him
that sadomasochist orgies were the most profitable, and that Nihoul
was a fervent satamassachist himself. It was an open secret
that Nihoul regularly organized orgies, even people close to him,
(03:59):
and in fact, his own lawyer admitted that Nihoul frequently
participated in secret sex parties. He described himself as a
man of all seasons and was the consummate networker involved
in both business and politics. From various business ventures to
public relations to political campaign consulting, Nihoul was a man
(04:21):
of influence, with connections across the spectrum. He even had
his own radio show in Brussels. Several people close to
Nihouol described him as an excellent salesman and a show
off who liked to spin big and drink and party excessively.
With several bankruptcies to his name, Nihoul also had a
(04:41):
rap sheet with convictions for fraud, bad checks and breach
of trust based on records showing frequent telephone conversations between
De True, l Lievre and Nihoul leading up to the
kidnapping of Letitia and the early testimony of d True
and the Lievre about Nihoul's possible involvement. He was arrested
(05:01):
and his face was plastered all over the media. Regina Loof,
the girl whose words you heard the start of this episode,
had a friend who contacted police to explain that she
knew someone who had concrete information about the True and
the corrupt businessman Michelle Nihul. The friend she was referring
(05:22):
to was Regina Loof. Regina didn't initially want to testify,
but she was eventually convinced to speak with police on record.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
What the reaction was, what we've seen the True that's bad.
It's like two four six kids that were adducted forward
dead too were still found back alive. That was terrible
for Belgium. But if what Regina was saying was even
half of it true, it would be ten times worse.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
This is the voice of Rudy Hoskins, who was the
investigative lead on the team signed to interview Regina Loofod.
Hoskins is currently a partner at one of the prestigious
Big four global accounting and consulting firms, where he's a
confidence leader in forensic services. Earlier in his career, Rudy
was a Belgian federal police officer or gendarme for sixteen years.
(06:17):
In nineteen ninety six, he and his colleagues Amey Bill,
Patrick de Batts and Philippe Uppe were assigned by Judge
Conrad to interview anonymous witnesses who had come forward after
seeing the arrests of the True and Nihoul on television.
To protect the identities of witnesses, the police called them
X one, X two, X three and so on. X
(06:40):
one was Regina aloof who claimed she had been abused
by the true and Nihoul.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Then we had that first interview and now we sat together. Okay,
what's we're going to do with that? This lady is
completely crazy? That was her first assessment. Right, all the
things he is telling us this is not possible, cannot
be true. And also the names she was clothing were
people of of high society. Yeah, politicians, heads of captains
(07:09):
of industry, magistrates, police people. So this cannot be true.
This is too much. Right. That was a bit the
first feeling, I think. And when did you start to
believe her? When we started finding the first I would say,
the first evidence is what we said that we could
confirm that in the field or through public records or
(07:32):
to whatever.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
The story of Regina Luf is both perplexing and tragic.
She was sexually abused by adults as a young girl
and into her teenage years. For obvious reasons, this affected
her psychologically, and she showed clear signs of mental instability
during her interviews.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, and Nancy started talking about cases where she was
not only abused, but where she also witnessed. Although I
would say friends or children that were abused and even
murdered and then when we hurt murders are Okay, that's interesting,
because if there's a murder, there must have been a body.
(08:13):
There must be a cold case somewhere, so talk to
us about that.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
She described two horrifying experiences where she had witnessed the
abuse and murder of other young girls. Hoskins and his
colleagues drilled into her accounts of these experiences in a
series of long and grueling interviews, while Hoskins gathered details
and investigated possible links to unsolved cases. Because the timeline
(08:38):
and description aligned with an unsolved abuse and murder case.
To understand this cold case, we have to go back
to nineteen eighty four, twelve years before the bodies of Julie, Melissa,
Anne and Efia were found murdered on the properties of
Mark de True.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Those comed up.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Okay, it happened less than two miles from where I
live today. A young journalist, Jean Savigna, is helping me
with this part of the project. We wanted to see
where this crime was committed almost forty years ago in
nineteen eighty four. This was the side of a place
known as La Champignnere, which means mushroom. Farm in French.
(09:25):
You can see if you look at the pictures, actually
you can might that could be that true.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, I love scary place.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah yeah, these pictures.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
You really scary. For Give me the chill.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
The mushroom farm had been abandoned in nineteen seventy three.
The only pictures left of this place are black and white,
and they have a sinister feel to them. Maybe it's
just because I know what happened here. It was cold
(10:03):
and dark on the evening of February thirteenth, nineteen eighty four,
when a local passerby noticed smoke coming from the abandoned
mushroom farm in the commune of Odigem in Brussels. The
passerby called the fire department to report the smoke in
case there was a fire that needed to be put out.
(10:26):
When fire crews arrived, they determined the smoke was coming
from one of the old basements of the mushroom farm.
It was a routine call and it didn't appear that
anyone was in danger, so they sent a small team
to go check out the source of the fire. After
weaving through a labyrinth of underground hallways, they arrived in
a basement where they found a heap of crates and
(10:48):
trash on fire and proceeded to extinguish it. When the
flames were put out, they started to separate the debris
to make sure everything was extinguished. One of the firemen
noticed a string object under the debris that didn't look
like it belonged there. It looked distinctly human, but was
(11:08):
twisted into an odd shape. To their horror, they realized
it was indeed a partially burned and mutilated body. The
victim's arms and feet had been tied behind their back
and looped around their neck into an arching position with
(11:28):
metal wire. The hands were missing and the legs were damaged.
Initial responders said that they saw a nail planted into
one of the severed hands. It was declared a crime scene,
and investigators quickly determined that it was likely a teenage girl.
As they sifted through the scene, they found jewelry and
(11:51):
a partially burned school notebook that enabled them to identify
the victim. It was sixteen year old Christine van His.
Only hours before. Her parents had called the police to
declare her missing when she didn't return home from school
the same day. The autopsy determined that she died prior
(12:16):
to when the fire was set, and that she had
been tortured and raped before being strangled to death with
electric wires. Again the former gendarme Rudy Hoskins.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, the things she told us, she couldn't have known
without having been there or witnessed it.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Regina loose account of the abuse and murder of a
girl named Christine was strikingly similar to the circumstances of
the infamous murder of Christine van Has at the Champagnoniere.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And now we said, okay, shit, this girl is really talking.
And then we went more in depth, asking for more
details like the championnaires to described the house, how she
went in there, and even also details for example, if
you go into a house, okay, normally in the house
you go stairs up and then you go in. In
that case, you went like stairs down and then you
(13:07):
go in. So it was like specific things we could check.
So we found all the pictures of the house where
you see the stairs going down. For example, we went
to get the file out of the Justice Pallace and
Brussels where we went to look for the pictures. How
did it look like internally? There were a lot of
pictures taken because there was a body that was burned inside,
(13:29):
and how the body was killed, and how it was
like with the kind of iron. I don't remember the
details anymore, but with iron and stuff at certain places
in the body. And if you looked at the pictures
from the it was not the corpse anymore, it was burnt.
You saw these irons. At that specific points in time.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Rudy Hoskins and his team became increasingly convinced that Regina
Loof had witnessed the gruesome murder of Christine van Has.
All of our testimony was witnessed by several officers and
even magistrates, and it was meticulously recorded. Unfortunately, there's no
such thing as a Freedom of Information Act request for
(14:07):
such material in Belgium, but I was able to get
my hands on the transcripts. What you're about to hear
is a reading from transcripts of Regina Loose's testimony. Warning
this is extremely disturbing.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
There was a drawing of names to decide, for example,
which one of the two girls were going to suffer.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Who was the second girl, Christine? What happened to Christine?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
She was sacrificed. She streamed so much for someone.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
To hear her what made her scream the true.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Nihol and his wife. They tortured her. They tied her
up and spread her legs on the table. She couldn't
even defend herself. They put something inside of her. They
were hurting her and raping her, and they burn her.
They what they burn her.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Police were astounded by what they were hearing. She hadn't
made a direct connection to the Christine van Hanes case,
but her descriptions of the circumstances of this terrifying experience
were strikingly similar to the infamous cold case. What made
this difficult for police was that Regina Loof had herself
been a victim and she was dealing with her own
(15:23):
trauma at the time. The horrible things that happened to
her over the years made questioning her very difficult. There
were many long pauses where she would just shut down.
Sometimes these bouts of silence could last as long as
an hour.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
She must have read it somewhere. Yeah, she must have
had access to the judicial file, or she must have
known a lawyer, or she must have been there. That
was not clear for us. So what we did is
we did a house search in our house to find
because We also thought, hey, guys seem to have read
(16:00):
that somewhere or had contact with somebody. So we did
out search. We went to every page, to every book.
Is there something in a book, in a newspaper and
old magazine where she could have read it. We didn't
find anything, but still there were a lot of things
that we could check and prove, and at a certain
point in time, I would say we started believing.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I remember it like it's a film in my head.
I can close my eyes and see every little details
of that house where she was murdered. It was a
sort of bondage, so her legs and her hands and
her throat were connected with the same rope, and when
she moved, she strangled herself. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
By the time of these interrogations, the old mushroom farm
and adjoining house had been demolished, so investigators reached out
to the family who had lived there beforehand. A man
and his brother who had grown up there were convinced
that Regina Loof must have been there before based on
her description the property. These are his words, not his voice.
(17:04):
It was two houses that had been combined into a
single dwelling, with the unique passage of stairs and hallways.
No one could describe it unless they had been there.
There was a hallway joining two houses, and she drew
a picture of the doors inside. They were antique doors,
and she drew the moldings. She described the wallpaper and
(17:26):
the front step. I don't know who could have described
it so accurately if they hadn't been there. I don't
know Regine Aloof, I've never met her. All I know
is that based on her description of the mushroom farm
and the house, I'm sure that she had to have
been there. My brother and I both agree on this.
We're absolutely sure and certain that she had to have
(17:48):
been there to describe it as she did. I was
able to track down another one of the ex chend
armes named Emme Bille, who worked on the team investigating
this case. Aimee is now writen hired and based in
the south of France. Prior to working on the case,
he had a stellar reputation as a heavy lifter with
extreme attention to detail. Here's a translation of the key
(18:10):
points from our.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Interview Cavoil do champion eh.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
If you look at the old case file for the
murder at the Mushroom Farm, you'll see that way back
in nineteen eighty seven, before Regina Loof's testimony, an informant
told the police that if they wanted to solve the case,
they should look at a bar called the Dolo. The
Dolo was an infamous bar frequented by the mafia, politicians, police,
(18:35):
and above all Nioul, who was known as a regular
customer there before it was closed down and the owners
were charged with facilitating prostitution. There were other things in
the file that pointed towards Nioul and du True. For one,
we know that Christine van Hayes was a regular visitor
to the ice skating Rinkquey Mark Dudru was hanging out
(18:57):
in the eighties, and that one of hers testified that
she had a relationship with someone named Mark from chall Arois.
This same friend later said that she recognized two old
photos of de True from the early nineteen eighties as
someone she had seen in the presence of Christine. Christine
also frequented the swimming pool in Etterbake, in the same
(19:20):
building where Niehul's radio station was based. At the time,
police were very focused on a group of punk rockers
who sometimes hung out at the Mushroom Farm. The initial
tip pointing towards these punk rockers actually came from a
colleague of Niehouls at the radio station, so that's how
the whole investigation into the punk started. The judge responsible
(19:43):
for the Champagnonire case and also responsible for closing down
our investigation around Regina Loof, had once represented Niel's wife
as a lawyer, and his sister was the godmother of
Niel's child. So we have an informant pointing to a
place where Niels spent all most every evening. We know
the victim was spending a lot of time and places
(20:04):
where Nihul and du True also spend time, and the
person who led police to investigate the punks was actually
an associate of Nieuls. When you combine all this with
Regina Luf's testimony, it looks very suspicious for Nieu.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
If Regina Luf was telling the truth, Mark d' true
was involved with Michelle Nihul in abducting, abusing, and murdering
children in the mid nineteen eighties. We know that d
tru was indeed actively abducting young girls at this time,
but Nihoul is an important element here because he was
never convicted of involvement with D'truz crimes. The official story
(20:47):
from Belgian authorities is that Mark D True was an
isolated predator who abducted children for his own perverted reasons,
using only low level accomplices. But I interviewed another ex
gendarmes with shocking revelations that fly in the face of
the idea that the True was acting alone. Jean Pierre
Adon was a gendarmes assigned to the the True task force.
(21:10):
Just after Mark d Trux was arrested in nineteen ninety six,
my co producer Thomas and I once again found ourselves
driving down to the south of Belgium to discuss some
of the loose ends of this case. I think it's
over here, number number three. We saw number five, so
(21:31):
this has got to be it. But there's two houses here,
so I don't know which one it is. Here we
are again in the Ardennes. Believe or not.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
To their next see.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Because your will be as oca. Jean Pierre told us
about a curious visit he received from Jean de Nis
le Jean a few months after his daughter Julie LeJean
was found murdered at the Truz property.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I got a visit from who came to provide a
statement with his cousin, A restaurant owner from Challowis named
Michel Pirout called them several times. He wanted to organize
a benefit dinner in his restaurant near and all of
the prophets would go to the Julian Melissa Association that
(22:33):
was formed after the tru's rest. On the last call
he made to them, Pierrot said that on the day
of the dinner he would reveal information about the true
and the girls. He would make public revelations, but he
didn't want to say anything about him before a few
(22:55):
days later, the Lea Johne family was watching TV and
they saw a news bulletin about a restaurant owner from
Challoois murdered in a parking lot. So they gave me
sworn statement and the prosecutor Boulet, asked me to investigate
the murder case in Challois and there I interviewed witnesses
(23:15):
who said that Pierrot was going to make revelations about
the true affair, and that Piau was not the kind
of guy to whim power and that if he said it,
he'd do it.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
So after threatening to go public with big revelations Piraut
was murdered in a parking lot. That's certainly suspicious in
and of itself, but it gets more interesting when you
hear about this man. Michelle Pirout's link to another lead
tied to the disappearance of Julie and Melissa.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
Michelle Pierrout Okay, Michelle Piau was a close friend of
Roget Dupris, and Rochet Dupris was the owner of Le
Carre Blanc, a nightclub in Chalais, and there was a
whitness who reported seeing Julie and Melissa on the sidewalk
next to the car with a young man after they disappeared.
(24:12):
The witness said she crossed paths with the two girls
and a young man and she said to herself that
those are the girls she'd seen pictures off everywhere, and
then when she turned around, they were gone, and it
was just in front of the nightclub the car, And
when de tru was arrested, she made the connection and
(24:34):
she called the police eight hundred number, and she confirmed
all of this to me in a sworn statement.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
It's not clear as to why the witness didn't immediately
contact police when she recognized the girls outside of the club,
but when she heard of Datru's arrest, she made the
connection because d' tru'z house in charle Wa with the dungeon,
was very close to this nightclub where she thought she
saw the girls. In fact, it's less than half a
mile away. So not only was Michel Pierreau suspiciously murdered,
(25:04):
there was also a report that Julian Melissa were seen
in front of a nightclub called the Cariban. This club owner,
Roge Duprix, was a very rich underworld figure. Could Pierraut
have been planning to reveal something about these sightings and
the club before he was murdered. The connections go even
(25:24):
deeper again. Jean Pierre adon.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
Llo's so Fiol and it happens that another nightclub owner
named Jean Claude Mass lost his nightclub in a fire.
Everything burned down, and directly afterwards, Roge Duprix came to
see him. Instead, he had an apartment above his Carrivelon
nightclub and that Jean Claude could stay there free while
(25:55):
rebuilding his own club, and in exchange he could help
out managing the carrey Blanc. And so he moved with
his two kids and his wife into the apartment, and
one day the kids went up into the attic. While playing,
they broke through a thin wall and they noticed that
(26:17):
there was a room behind the wall. So the father
arrived and saw a mattress and some tissues with blood
on them, and a little window with bars on it,
exactly as if someone had been hidden there. I went
to interview this mister mass with his kids. I interviewed
all of them. They even drew a map showing how
to access this hiding place.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Could all of this just be attributed to coincidence? Julie
and Melissa are reportedly spotted at a club less than
a half a mile from De Dru's dungeon, and inside
that club there's a hidden room with bars on the
window and a mattress. We know that the True moved
many of his victims around magically, so this does fit
(27:01):
with his pattern. Jean Pierre Radon followed up internally about
these claims.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I of course requested a warrant to search the hiding place,
and the judge came to me and said he wouldn't
grant the warrant. He said it wasn't up to him
to attack the mafia of shallow wa A search with
the forensic team to analyze all of the hairs and
blood and so on would have probably found the DNA
(27:29):
of Sile and Melissa, and I still affirm today that
the reason they didn't grant me a warrant is that
they were afraid to open the door to a possible
wider network.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
It certainly appears more than plausible that the True was
involved with a wider human trafficking network. While circumstantial, the
evidence and connections are overwhelming. If this narrative is true,
it would mean that there are other accomplices, either directly
or indirectly involved with kidnapping, abuse, and murder of several
(28:07):
young girls, and most of those accomplices were never brought
to justice and are likely walking freely in the world today. Meanwhile,
while Inspector Jean Pierradon continued to investigate the case, something
happened that took everyone by surprise. Mark the True, the
most reviled criminal in Belgian history, escaped.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Las Stupid vac solon de la champ ala ans la
nouvelle delive as you said up committee.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
To Mars du the Lompixon into a position. Lule Monstra
(29:18):
is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeart Radio, hosted
and executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by Thomas
Resimont of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are
executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV with producer
Makeup and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are
executive producers on the behalf of iHeart Radio with producer
(29:40):
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. Lo Monstra includes archival audio
from SONYMA, RTBF Archives and CNN Archives. Special things thanks
to Backmedia and marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna and the
(30:05):
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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