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