WEBVTT - Summer of '96 [3] 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.360 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.240 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.360 and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, or 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:16.640 their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.480 not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.920 It must have been May or June nineteen ninety six. 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.200 I had been in Belgium for about a year and 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.600 was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes in my 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.720 new host country, grocery shopping in the del Hayes supermarket. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.840 Still to this day, twenty five years later, I love 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.680 Delaya's stores. You can always tell a lot about a 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.159 country by their supermarkets, and Belgium certainly lives up to 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.800 its reputation as a paradise for good food and drink. 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.760 I was meandering through the beer ale when I heard 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:57.320 a disturbance few aisles. 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:58.320 Over, ju Yet. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:00.520 Juet. 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:01.760 A woman was searching for. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:02.440 Her daughter. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:04.319 Juette. 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.840 The tone of her voice ran borderline hysterical, Juliette as 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.319 she ran from aisle to aisle, yelling out. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:17.080 For her daughter, Juliette, Suette, Jaunette Dame. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.960 Other shoppers joined in and soon half of the supermarket 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:23.720 was searching for Juliette. 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:27.200 Sauyette. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.559 We found her in the cereal aisle and her mother 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.400 hugged her into an embrace as if she'd almost lost 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:40.160 Juliet forever. I remember thinking, hmmm, I guess losing your 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.560 kid in a supermarket is a big deal here. It 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.160 wasn't until I was leaving and saw the message board 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.440 near the exit that it hit me. Penned onto the 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:53.520 board were two slightly faded flers with the faces of Julian, Melissa, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.800 and Anne and Eva, the four girls who had gone 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.960 missing in two separate incidences the previous summer. Next to 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.720 them was a brand new one. Yet another girl, twelve 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:10.120 year old Sabindarden, had vanished in broad daylight. Five girls 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.800 had now gone missing without a trace. The country was 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.280 waking up to the frightening fact that all five disappearances 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:22.440 were strikingly similar and possibly connected. The terror I just 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.600 witness and Juliette's mother and the immediate action from a 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.120 group of strangers were testament to the fact that fear 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:49.600 was beginning to grip the country. 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:44.000 Up. 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:49.200 Psychopaths is somebody who understands emotions. 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.640 And I told them it is very exceptional that somebody 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.040 abducts two children at the same time, so they have 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.080 been the yen of it in nineteen eighty six, But 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.440 my god, it was just a beginning. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.280 I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:24.360 Welcome to la monstre, I'm your host, Matt Graves. The 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.919 families of Julian, Melissa, and Anne and Effia had endured 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:33.239 a long and cold winter without any meaningful leads. Spring 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.160 it arrived in Belgium. But while most people were enjoying 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.680 the warmer weather and lengthening days, the families of these 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.960 missing girls were still in the dark, with little to 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.280 no light shed on the whereabouts or fate of their children. 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.960 Now yet another girl had simply vanished without a trace. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.000 The latest disappearance was in a French speaking region near 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.600 the town of Tournay, about six month miles from the 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.560 French border in the west of Belgium. It was a 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.680 crisp spring morning in May nineteen ninety six when twelve 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.680 year old Sabine Darden hopped on her bike at around 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.360 seven twenty five for the roughly mile and a half 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:20.040 ride to school. She was wearing jeans, a red sweater, 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.080 a blue raincoat, and a small backpack. It was a 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.719 swimming day, so she had her little red swimming bag 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.640 attached to the port baggage of her dunlop bicycle. She 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.760 sometimes met up with a friend who lived on the 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.880 route to school and then they'd ride together, But when 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.919 the friend wasn't there that morning, Sabine didn't find it unusual, 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.680 so she rode on by herself. Riding on her own, 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.599 she turned into a quiet street behind the local stadium 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.040 that was still covered in shadow at that early hour. 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.599 Little did she know that predators were lurking in those shadows. 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.799 She heard the rumble of a vehicle approaching from behind, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.839 so she instinctively swerved to the side to let it pass. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.919 When it pulled up beside her, she only had a 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.200 split second to see a man behind the wheel of 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.640 a dirty van before another man, who was perched next 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.440 to the open side door, swooped out and grabbed her 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:21.279 right off of her bicycle. It all happened in a flash. 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.640 Sabine was ripped off of her bike and thrown into 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:33.680 the back of a van in seconds. The man who 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.599 grabbed her yelled at the driver to stop. They needed 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.000 to get the bike and swimming bags strewn out on 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:44.960 the road. We know a lot about Sabine's experiences based 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.279 on letters and a journal found where she was held 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:53.120 after being kidnapped. Before Sabine knew it, they were moving again, 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.760 and her aggressor was trying to force small pills into 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.400 her mouth. The van was filthy, with windows covered by 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.880 stickers and ugly brown and yellow checkered curtains. The back 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.280 seats had been ripped out and replaced with a dirty mattress. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.719 Sabine's aggressor wrapped her up in a filthy blanket and 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.119 held her down so she couldn't see where they were going. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.160 When she struggled and yelled, he pinned her down and 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.680 covered up her mouth with his hand. His face was 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:27.080 inches from hers. His menacing black eyes were terrifying, and 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.919 she realized that trying to fight back was futile. I 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.080 think back to my experience in the supermarket. No doubt 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.440 people were starting to worry about all these disappearances, but 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.719 they had no idea how bad it really was. I 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.159 spoke with an investigative journalist about what the atmosphere was 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.640 like in the mid nineties in Belgium, Douglas de cunning 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.599 probably knows more about this case than anyone. He covered 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.599 it from the beginning for one of the country's most 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.520 respected newspapers, De Morgan. Everywhere I looked to find out 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.279 more about these disappearances, I constantly run into Douglas's work. 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.680 When I finally tracked him down, he was deep in 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.280 the throes of investigating what he called quote Belgium's version 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.960 of the George Floyd case. Needless to say, he's a 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.760 busy man, and I'm fortunate that he agreed to help 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:18.640 me with his project. 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.920 A colleague of mine, Fred van Nambussa, and all the journalists, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.720 he published a book in those days. The title was 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.800 young Girls Don't Disappear just like that, and it was 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.360 a perfect way of expressing what we all felt because 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.240 every summer there were young girls getting killed or disappeared, right, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:43.400 and there was a very strange indifference among the people, 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:50.120 but among the police as well. I remember several policemen 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.720 afterwards saying that in every police department you have a 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:58.480 murder section, you have a burglary section. He also had 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.200 a section that had to deal with child abduction, and 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.880 if you were at a child abduction section. That meant 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.480 that your career was really a disaster that puts them 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.720 the most stupid policemen there because that wasn't considered as 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:16.400 being a real form of crime. 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.120 So it was really something that they almost swept under 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.320 the rug. It sounds like when it comes to. 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.320 I think Belgium was a paradise for perverts in those days. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.720 I'm certainly not pointing the finger at Belgium with this project. Unfortunately, 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.560 the world is full of places where children disappear without 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.320 proper follow up. In my home state of Texas, a 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.800 monster named Dean Coral abducted and murdered at least twenty 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.240 eight teenage boys under the noses of police in Houston. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.200 Child abduction and murder is far from a Belgian problem. 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.600 If anything, it's a problem that pretty reliably transcends most borders. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:11.760 Belgium simply is an immune from it. It's unbearable to 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.079 imagine the fear and confusion that must have consumed Sabine 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.640 Darden's mind that terrifying morning, only twelve years old. In 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.439 one minute, she's riding her bike on a peaceful spring morning, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.800 and the next she's wrenched into a filthy van, hurtling 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:32.640 down the highway. After bumping along what felt like a 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.360 country road for a while, the van pulled into a 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.760 smoother road and accelerated. Sabine spit out the first few pills, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.200 but the man covered her face with a moist cloth 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:44.600 that had a chemical smell that made her feel woozy, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.400 and then he forced her to swallow the pills. Remember 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.960 the attempted abduction in episode one. The perpetrator also purportedly 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.400 had a moist cloth, most likely with chloroform or another 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:01.839 chemical sedative. Still awake and gripped with fear, Sabine pretended 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.520 to be asleep as the trip continued for what felt 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.600 like an eternity. When the van finally stopped, the man 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.200 pointed to a metal tool chest and told her to 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:16.920 get inside. After she refused, the man and the driver 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:24.160 pushed her into the chest and shut the lid. They 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.720 carried her inside the chest, and a few minutes later, 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.360 when they opened it, she found herself inside a dingy house. 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:33.640 They took her upstairs to a room on the second 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.520 floor with windows covered so that she couldn't see out. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.600 There were bunk beds and a dinosaur poster on the wall. 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.520 It felt like a child's room. One of the men 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.400 then chained her to the bed by her neck and 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:56.679 left the room. Back at her hometown of Tournay, it 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.520 wasn't until the late afternoon, when she hadn't come home 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:04.840 from school, that Sabine's parents realized she was missing. Now 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.600 yet another set of parents was living through the nightmare 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:12.080 of their child vanishing without a trace. Thanks to the 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.560 tireless work of Julian Melissa and Anne and ephis families, 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.320 the disappearance of Sabine wasn't just swept under the rug. 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.120 They wouldn't let the population or the police forget that 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:27.080 it wasn't normal for kids to just disappear. Their posters 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.360 were everywhere, and they continued their relentless campaign through a 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:35.280 constant drumbeat of press appearances and even their own investigations. 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.880 The first journalist to have contact with Julian Melissa's family 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.040 was a reporter from a major national magazine named Michelle Bouffieux. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.800 Michelle currently works as a journalist at the famous French 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.400 magazine Paris Match. He agreed to an interview and I 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.760 asked him when he first had contact with the families 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:54.720 of Julian Melissa. 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:01.360 No, actually It was Julian his family who called me 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.800 a few weeks after the disappearances. They called me because 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.440 of a book I co wrote in ninety three about 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:13.720 human trafficking networks and pedophilia in Belgium. They wanted to 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.760 discuss the situation and see if I had any thoughts 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:22.200 or hypothesis about the disappearance of their girls, and their 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.079 conviction was clear from the beginning that the children were 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.840 alive and that in the absence of finding them somewhere 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.600 alive or dead, investigators should be urgently focused on finding them. 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.880 Of course, there's a big difference in urgency when looking 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.640 for someone alive versus looking for bodies. So we published 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.920 a first interview in which they expressed frustration at the 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:55.599 total lack of information from investigators and judicial authorities. Authorities 0:12:55.600 --> 0:13:00.360 wouldn't share any information at all, none. They wouldn't even 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.280 tell them how many investigators were working on the case. 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.719 When they ask investigators questions like well, what are your 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.800 hypothesis at the moment, they were getting frustrating answers like 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.000 quote anything as possible. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:19.680 Two. I asked them what the parents' principal criticisms were 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:20.920 of police at the time. 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:29.000 For example, July's father, Jo Willishan said quote, we can't help, 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.680 but I feel that investigators aren't up to the task 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.920 and that they're not the specialists in missing persons that 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.719 wou'd expect to work with on a case like this. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.760 And indeed, there were other things their phoned bizarre, for 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:48.160 example that after two months of investigation, they had even 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.360 finished confessing the neighborhood, and it wasn't until after fifteen 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.360 days that the girls went missing that they even interviewed 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.240 their fathers about they wereabouts. At the time of their disappearances. 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.840 They had the impression that the case wasn't being handled 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.920 correctly and with a sufficient degree of urgency. 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.920 I also spoke to a famous radio and television journalist 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.839 at the time named Jose Dessar about his work to 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.960 help give parents a voice in the media. Jose's program, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.160 called Fey de Vere was somewhat like a Belgian equivalent 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.040 of Dateline NBC in the United States. I asked him 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.200 about the show on which he invited Julian Melissa's parents. 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:36.360 City real Need. I brought together the parents and the 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:41.440 authorities who did been criticizing face to face. The parents 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.680 had a sense of conviction and urgency that clashed with 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:49.480 a slowness of judicial authorities. You have to note that 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.200 the judge appointed to oversee the investigation left for a 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:57.880 five week vacation a few days after being appointed, and 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.640 then five alternate judges juggle the case in her absence 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.440 without much efficiency. And so the first reaction of the 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.440 parents was that the case wasn't being probably followed and 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.960 that there wasn't a coherent investigations. Indeed, they were interviewed 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.560 by local police and then federal police came and asked 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:24.600 the same questions. They realized there wasn't proper coordination between juridictions, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.200 and on the show they were asking the Attorney General 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.760 directly to start sharing information with them. Two and a 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.480 half months after the disappearance, they were pleading for access 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:44.360 to the case file and direct corporation with authorities. There 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.200 were two moments in the debates that stuck with me. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.080 The first was when Melissa's father looked at an Attorney 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.680 general in the eye and said, you don't want us 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.040 to have access to the file, but these are our girls. 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.160 They're not wards of the state. In Another moment was 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.880 when Melissa's mother said, during all these discussions all of 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:11.600 this back and forth. Our girls are suffering, So there 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.240 was a sense of urgency from the parents in the 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.080 face of a sort of lackness and efficiency of the 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:20.600 judicial system. It was flagrant. 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.280 Meanwhile, the summer of nineteen ninety six dragged on without progress. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:31.880 Sabine's disappearance was a complete mystery. There were no leads, sightings, 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.160 or anything at all to go on. And then on 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:42.960 August ninth, another girl disappeared. It was the height of 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.320 summer in the beautiful Ardennes region in the south of Belgium. 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:48.880 At that time of the year, the Ardennes was full 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:53.520 of campers, cyclists, and outdoor enthusiasts enjoying nature. In the 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.160 quaint village of Berthrie, fourteen year old Letitia Dalles spent 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.880 the day of August ninth helping her mother with clean 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:04.840 and shopping. At around seven thirty pm, Letitia and her 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.960 sister walked to the local pool and playground, where they'd 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.520 frequently hang out with local friends on lazy summer evenings. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.120 Despite its clement weather, Belgium is at about the same 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.960 latitude as Winnipeg and Canada, so the sun doesn't set 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.680 until around nine thirty pm. In early August, Letitia hung 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.680 out with some friends until around eight forty five pm 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.680 and then left for the short walk back home. She 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.399 was wearing a blue and white flowered blouse and tennis shoes. 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:43.840 When she didn't show up at home a bit later, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.840 her sister and mother walked all around town looking for her. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.119 They didn't find Letitia, and they were immediately worried and 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.399 went to the police. Unlike past disappearances, the police and 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.960 judicial system jumped into action right away. Police started interview 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.160 viewing locals and Bertrie immediately to try to piece together 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.719 a timeline and find witnesses of anything suspicious leading up 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:12.280 to the disappearance. The provincial King's Prosecutor, Michel Bourlat, traveled 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.399 to Bertrie in person the next morning and immediately started 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:20.560 coordinating with local and national police. Michel Bourlat is probably 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.360 the most well known prosecutor in the history of Belgium. 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.720 If you live through these times here, you certainly know 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.640 who he is and remember seeing him on television a lot. 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.280 Through a bit of luck and a lot of persistence, 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.880 I convinced him to speak with me for this project. 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:38.840 My co producer Thomas and I traveled down to the 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.520 south of Belgium to meet with him at his home. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.560 It was a warm day in mid June and we 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.679 settled down on his back porch, overlooking a plentiful garden 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.840 backed up by rolling hills in thick pine forest. In 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.000 true Belgian style, he started off by offering me a 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.560 cold beer and got one for himself as well. It 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.800 was a great start to affact needing interview. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.159 It was a Saturday morning and I was here at 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.880 home getting ready to do some gardening, and around nine 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.760 am the phone rang and Captain Ballar informed me that 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.840 a fourteen year old girl went missing the previous evening 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:23.760 in the village of bare Tree, Abertrie Lave. The girl 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.880 had left the swimming pool at nine pm and hadn't 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:33.560 come home afterwards immediate. The way from the pool to 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.200 her house was about a ten to fifteen minute walk 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:41.120 through the village and the town square. Her mother reported 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.239 it to the police, who started investigating right away. They 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.440 searched the route she would have taken in the area 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.760 around it. They didn't find anything. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.200 Sending a thief done. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:03.960 Captain Ballar considered the disap appearance is worrying, okay, I said, 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:04.960 I'm on my way. 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:06.160 You need to see. 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.040 Bertrie is ten minutes away, so I showed up right away. 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.920 Captain ball Ar explained the search they'd made, and then 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:16.520 mister Delouz arrived. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:18.960 Dulouze Mister. 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.520 Mister Deluze is a man who had lost his daughter 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:23.480 four years earlier. 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.280 Philip Dulouze was the father of a sixteen year old 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.040 girl named Lawrence Matthews, who disappeared and was then found 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.479 dead in nineteen ninety two. When she was found, her 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.719 body was identified as that of a drug addict who 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.679 had gone missing, only to reappear the day before her 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.720 own funeral. Sadly, mister Deluze learned that the misidentified body 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.680 was that of his daughter. He spent over twenty years 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.560 trying to identify her killer, and was even accused of 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.680 the murder himself. He was at the scene in Bertrie 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.640 with an organization called the Mark and Korean Association dedicated 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.800 to finding missing children. This association was also active at 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.320 the time in the search for Julian, Melissa and Anne 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:11.120 and Effia, who had recently gone missing. Mister de Luz's 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.879 first reaction was that of surprise to see a king's 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.159 prosecutor on site so shortly after this new disappearance. It 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.199 was very uncommon for high level magistrates to roll up 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.480 their sleeves and jump into action so quickly on a 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.520 missing person's case. But if there's one thing I learned 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.359 during my meeting with Michelle Boulet is that he's anything 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:34.000 but common. He exhibits a rare combination of humility, compassion, 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:42.879 and the gruff determination of a steely prosecutor. King's prosecutor 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:43.760 Michelle Boulet. 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.159 Deluze had come to get a photo of Letitia as 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:51.760 part of his work with the Mark and Krinn Association, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.240 started by the parents of other missing or murdered children. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.520 They were there to help authorities by printing and distributing 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:09.720 missing children posters lap At that time, I was conscious 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.840 of the Julian Melissa case and all the problems the 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.159 parents had had with judicial authorities. I didn't want to 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:22.120 fall into all those shortcomings I had perceived and which 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:27.200 Julian Melissa's parents had talked about in the media, the 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:33.200 distrust and lack of empathy and information. So I was 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.280 also there to meet directly with Letitious parents. I wasn't 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.359 in my ivory tower or off playing golf somewhere. I 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.600 was there to show them that we were concerned and 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:51.119 that we were there to help them. In the evening, 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.639 I stopped by the station again for an update. A 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:57.680 volunteer who had come from far away said he thought 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:05.120 he'd seen Letitia coming from Blancherie, so on my way 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.440 home I made a detour to Blancherie and searched for 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:09.320 about half an hour. 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.520 I'm really starting to like Michelle Bourlet. It's rare for 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:17.159 a King's prosecutor to visit the side of a disappearance, 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:19.600 and even rarer for him to jump in his car 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:26.399 and start searching himself. Unlike in previous disappearances, this investigation 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:30.040 got the attention it deserved. Within a day, both local 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:33.959 and federal police were all over it. Boulet quickly enlisted 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:37.800 an investigating judge to oversee the case. Police and local 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.200 authorities were getting support from local volunteers and the Mark 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:45.320 and Karna Association, who were printing and distributing missing Persons flyers. 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:49.000 While canvassing the area, they spoke to a nun named 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.320 sister Etienne, who claimed to have seen a suspicious looking 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.920 van near the swimming pool on Friday evening. In her statement, 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.760 she said the van was parked near the pool and 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:02.399 she noticed it because it was clunky and loud, with 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:06.359 a bunch of stickers in the lateral rear window. Police 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:10.720 were also interviewing all family members and friends. Letitia's sister 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:13.440 said that one of her friends named Virginie, thought she 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.200 had seen Letitia before the disappearance with a group of 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:20.280 young people, including a girl she knew named Kathy. They 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:23.240 spoke with Visionie, who confirmed that she thought that she'd 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.440 seen Kathy with Letitia that evening, but when they tracked 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:29.520 down Kathy, she said that she hadn't seen Leticia at 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:32.920 all that evening. However, Kathy did mention that she saw 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:35.960 a man that she didn't recognize enter the pool complex 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.480 to use the restrooms that evening. She said her boyfriend 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:43.920 also saw this man, so police then interviewed Kathy's boyfriend, 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:47.320 Ben Waugh. He said he recalled seeing the man but 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:51.520 couldn't remember anything about his appearance. After thinking about it, 0:24:51.680 --> 0:24:53.560 ben wa said that he did see a beat up 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.640 looking van that evening, parked on the sidewalk facing the pool. 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:02.919 It was white with stickers covering up the back lateral windows. Again, 0:25:03.320 --> 0:25:06.360 King's prosecutor, Michel Boulet Ressoir. 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:09.960 That evening, when I went back to the station in 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:14.280 bear Tree, Major Giessar told me that they had something 0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:19.880 new and so then he told me about sister Etienne's testimony, 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:23.600 which I knew about, and then about a new testimony. 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:27.399 As luck would have it, the young man who had 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:31.240 given us information on Monday, I thought he remembered part 0:25:31.320 --> 0:25:34.320 of a license plate number. He gave us the make 0:25:34.400 --> 0:25:37.639 of the car, the model of the car, and the 0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:39.160 beginning of a license plate number. 0:25:41.280 --> 0:25:45.639 The young man Ben Wi Tino, actually remembered the make, model, 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:47.800 and first three letters of the license plate of the 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:52.200 van he'd seen three days prior. He said he'd memorize 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:54.600 the license plate because he was worried the occupants of 0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:58.920 this junkie van might steal his bicycle. As luck would 0:25:58.960 --> 0:26:01.000 have it, Ben waugh all So was a car buff 0:26:01.400 --> 0:26:04.119 and he remembered that it was a Renault Traffique model. 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:08.080 It shows the importance of thoroughly following every lead and 0:26:08.160 --> 0:26:11.720 speaking to every possible witness. If you think about it, 0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:15.359 it's a coincidence that they even spoke to Benoit. Remember 0:26:15.560 --> 0:26:18.280 that they interviewed him because a friend of a friend 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:21.720 of Letitia's sister had noticed a man in the pool restrooms, 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:25.200