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Speaker 2: It's October twenty twenty two. While walking down the street,
Speaker 2: I received a text message about some breaking news. The
Speaker 2: Belgian Minister of Justice has just announced DNA comparisons with
Speaker 2: the true file. But this request isn't about any of
Speaker 2: the victims that we've been discussing. It's for a different case,
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety three disappearance of a Dutch college.
Speaker 3: Student oh Piba la police i le juste.
Speaker 4: Ma true with the Native Lance student Tanya krun Moko Schlacht.
Speaker 5: I found the warning. I found ninety two agistolets.
Speaker 2: And eighteen year old Tiny Groon disappeared during introduction week
Speaker 2: at Mastrich University in Holland, close to the Belgian border.
Speaker 6: Alice is marked a true implicated in the disappearance of
Speaker 6: a Dutch student in nineteen ninety three. The Dutch authorities
Speaker 6: are studying this question very seriously. The young woman Tanya Groon,
Speaker 6: disappeared in Mastricht, close to the Belgian border, in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety three. Dutch authorities are requesting evidence from Belgian authorities
Speaker 6: related to this affair.
Speaker 2: Her case has gone unsolved for nearly thirty years, but
Speaker 2: it bears striking similarities to some of Dtruz's victims. Could
Speaker 2: this renewed interest in DNA from the d True affair
Speaker 2: open the door to more victims and more accomplices.
Speaker 7: A psychopaths is somebody who understands emotions.
Speaker 3: And I told them it is a very exceptional that
Speaker 3: somebody abducts two children at the same time.
Speaker 4: To have been the yen of it in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 4: but my gods, it was just a beginning.
Speaker 8: I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days.
Speaker 2: Welcome to la monstre. I'm your host, Matt Graves. The
Speaker 2: announcement of DNA testing in the de True case came
Speaker 2: at the request of authorities in Holland, where Tanya Groon disappeared.
Speaker 2: They requested DNA profiles obtained from Mark d' tru'z houses
Speaker 2: and vehicles. It's a fratuitous development, as I've been working
Speaker 2: on the DNA aspects of the de trueffair for over
Speaker 2: a year now. I'm hopeful that this might help shake
Speaker 2: up the otherwise dormant case file. Tanya disappeared just three
Speaker 2: miles from the Belgian border. It was a warm summer
Speaker 2: night on the evening of August thirty first, nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: three when eighteen year old Tanya Groen attended a student
Speaker 2: association party in the center of Maastricht. It was her
Speaker 2: first year of university and Tanya just moved into her
Speaker 2: new room in the nearby suburb of Gronsvelt. She spoke
Speaker 2: with her mother at around seven thirty that evening before
Speaker 2: riding her bike to the party, and everything seemed normal.
Speaker 2: Fellow students who attended the party reported that nothing seemed
Speaker 2: out of the ordinary when she left by bike at
Speaker 2: around midnight, presumably to ride back to her room in Groansvelt,
Speaker 2: about five miles away. Tanya was approximately five foot seven
Speaker 2: with long, dark shoulder length hair, and was last seen
Speaker 2: wearing blue jeans. Her housemates were concerned when she never
Speaker 2: showed up the next day, but it wasn't until she
Speaker 2: didn't show up at her parents' house in the north
Speaker 2: of Holland as planned. The following day that they became alarmed.
Speaker 2: The disappearance was particularly mysterious, as it seemed as if
Speaker 2: she simply vanished without a trace. There was no sign
Speaker 2: of Tanya or her bike and no clues whatsoever as
Speaker 2: to what may have happened. This case has stumped investigators
Speaker 2: for decades, and her parents have never stopped working to
Speaker 2: find out what happened to their daughter. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: their efforts got a boost when the award winning Dutch
Speaker 2: investigative journalist Peter da Vrees launched a crowd funded initiative
Speaker 2: called the Golden Tip Foundation to collect money as a
Speaker 2: reward for tips leading to the discovery of what happened
Speaker 2: to Tanya. In a cruel twist of fate, Peter Davrees
Speaker 2: was brutally murdered in broad daylight in the center of
Speaker 2: Amsterdam on July sixth, twenty twenty one, just after walking
Speaker 2: out of a television studio. I was working on this
Speaker 2: podcast at the time, and it really shocked me and
Speaker 2: the entire world for that matter, to see a highly
Speaker 2: respected journalist gunned down in the capital city of a
Speaker 2: modern Western democracy. He was a courageous man who took
Speaker 2: on many dangerous stories, including the notorious drug gangs operating
Speaker 2: in Holland. It's not believed that his murder had anything
Speaker 2: to do with the investigation into Tanya's disappearance. His foundation
Speaker 2: raced over a million euros to investigate the Tanya Grouon case.
Speaker 2: Given the proximity of the disappearance to Belgium and the
Speaker 2: circumstances of a young woman and her bike vanishing into
Speaker 2: thin air, has led the cold case team in Holland
Speaker 2: to investigate the possibility that the True may have been
Speaker 2: involved in some way. Else Sreurs, who you heard from
Speaker 2: in episode two, is the partner of Jean Lambrex, the
Speaker 2: father of Effie Lambrics, who was abducted and murdered by
Speaker 2: De True and his accomplices in nineteen ninety five. I
Speaker 2: spoke to Else about tom case.
Speaker 9: The Dutch authorities thought that maybe there might be a
Speaker 9: link to the two case as at the time of
Speaker 9: Dania's disappearance due to was first of all not in prison.
Speaker 9: He was very active. He was very much driving around Europe.
Speaker 9: He went to Amsterdam, he went to Mastricht that we
Speaker 9: know for sure. He went to Berlin. So that comes
Speaker 9: with the element that Danya was riding her bike. The
Speaker 9: bike disappeared as well, So it's exactly the same thing
Speaker 9: that happened with Sabindaden. She was subducted and her bike
Speaker 9: vanished as well together with her. Also during the years
Speaker 9: two committed a similar crime. He abducted a girl that
Speaker 9: was riding a bike. Also he took the bike with
Speaker 9: the girl.
Speaker 2: Remember that way back in nineteen eighty five, during his
Speaker 2: first wave of kidnappings and rapes, the True and other
Speaker 2: accomplices bundled and her bike into their van while she
Speaker 2: was riding down the street. The abduction of Sabine Darden
Speaker 2: ten years later in nineteen ninety five had the exact same.
Speaker 9: Mo These are things that are known, and the Dutch
Speaker 9: detectives that are working on the case thought that maybe
Speaker 9: it was worth looking into the two case in order
Speaker 9: to find out whether he might be implied in this crime.
Speaker 9: Apart from that in the two case, and that is
Speaker 9: also something that is known. There are a lot of
Speaker 9: DNA profiles, There are hairs, so, in other words, biological
Speaker 9: traces that have not been awarded to some or to
Speaker 9: one of the victims or to one of the perpetrators.
Speaker 9: In other words, these DNA profiles, these hairs belonged to
Speaker 9: unknown persons. Now the Dutch authorities, if I understand correctly,
Speaker 9: want to compare Danja's profile with the unknown pro files
Speaker 9: found in the Detou case.
Speaker 2: The DNA in the true case is e labyrinth that
Speaker 2: I've spent much time trying to understand. It's important to
Speaker 2: remember that when detru Is arrested in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: DNA testing and analysis was far less sophisticated than today.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of evidence collected and analyzed back
Speaker 2: in the late nineties and early two thousands. ELSA and
Speaker 2: I did a lot of digging through the original case
Speaker 2: file to track down the profiles that were established.
Speaker 9: So in the Detoo case, there is a police report
Speaker 9: stating the fact that twenty six unknown DNA profiles were established. So,
Speaker 9: in other words, twenty six people left traces either in
Speaker 9: cars belonging to Dotou or in his house, going from
Speaker 9: the basement of his house to the attic up till today.
Speaker 9: Up until today, it has not been possible to match
Speaker 9: these unknown profiles to either victims victims we don't know about,
Speaker 9: or even perpetrators we don't know about.
Speaker 2: About a year ago, I reached out to an independent
Speaker 2: forensic DNA expert in the United States named doctor Richard
Speaker 2: Eikelenboom to see if he could help me make sense
Speaker 2: of what we found. Doctor Eikelenboom's company, Independent Forensic Services,
Speaker 2: specializes in bloodstained pattern analysis, touch traces, and forensic pathology.
Speaker 2: His work has led to resolution in a number of cases,
Speaker 2: including the wrongful conviction of Tim Masters and that of
Speaker 2: former Indiana State trooper David Kam, where doctor Eikelenboom found
Speaker 2: touch DNA of the killer, leading to David Kam's exoneration
Speaker 2: and the conviction of another man. He's also worked extensively
Speaker 2: on other high profile cases, including Jean Benet Ramsey and
Speaker 2: Aaron Hernandez. One of the reasons that I wanted to
Speaker 2: elicit his help is that he's actually from Europe and
Speaker 2: spent twelve years as a forensic scientist at the Netherlands
Speaker 2: Forensic Institute, so he brings an interesting mix of cutting
Speaker 2: edge US based techniques with deep experience in Europe. With
Speaker 2: permission of the lone Brecks family, I shared the DNA
Speaker 2: information that we could find in the case file, so.
Speaker 4: I look I looked at the reports and information you
Speaker 4: send me the pictures, and yeah, in order to come
Speaker 4: to better conclusions, we need the raw data. So this
Speaker 4: is the real data structed by computers, and what's in
Speaker 4: here these are just DNA reports. This this will give
Speaker 4: me enough information about the DNA profiles obtained. I missed
Speaker 4: the raw data. So what I add? The DNA profiles? Yeah,
Speaker 4: you have them in an Excel filel whatever it is,
Speaker 4: but it's a table, and what we look at is
Speaker 4: the peak.
Speaker 2: Profiles from the outset. It was difficult to have a
Speaker 2: clear view of what we have and what we don't have.
Speaker 2: After our first meeting with doctor Eichlenboom, Jean Lombricks sent
Speaker 2: a letter to the General Prosecutor of Liege requesting information
Speaker 2: about the profiles.
Speaker 9: We basically asked. We sent two letters. The first letter
Speaker 9: was about the DNA profiles and we wanted to know
Speaker 9: whether they were still available to be checked. And the
Speaker 9: answer we received to that letter was clearly not the answer.
Speaker 9: The exact answer to the question. We got a message
Speaker 9: saying that the DNA profiles were introduced in databases. The
Speaker 9: thing is, we don't know in which databases they were introduced.
Speaker 2: It's so frustrating that the family of a victim can't
Speaker 2: seem to get a straight answer to a simple question
Speaker 2: from what we could deduce from the information included in
Speaker 2: the case file. There are multiple unidentified profiles that were
Speaker 2: established based on DNA collected from the truce house and vehicles.
Speaker 9: There is, for instance, a profile of an unknown person
Speaker 9: called unknown number two. This trace was found inside of
Speaker 9: the dungeon on the wall, the left wall. But the
Speaker 9: problem is that it is with the DNA of Julie
Speaker 9: Lezhen and that's what makes it very suspicious and that
Speaker 9: troubles us.
Speaker 2: This unknown profile mixed with the blood of victim Julie
Speaker 2: Legeen found on the wall of the dungeon is extremely suspicious. Again,
Speaker 2: Doctor Richard Eichelenboom as I.
Speaker 4: Understood, there's at least one unknown person present in a
Speaker 4: bloodstain of one of the victims, and of course that's
Speaker 4: always important. If you have a donor in blood of
Speaker 4: the victim, that can be a very incriminating piece of evidence.
Speaker 4: And if you look at the sex part of this
Speaker 4: DNA table, it says x y. That means that's the
Speaker 4: male have an mil in this case. But you can
Speaker 4: also see that they are missing information. So DNA parts
Speaker 4: of this person dropped out during DNA profiling, and if
Speaker 4: you put that in the database, you get no matches
Speaker 4: because you didn't exactly put in the right profile. So
Speaker 4: the more information you gain from such a profile, the better.
Speaker 4: So if you use more sensitive kit, then it's possible
Speaker 4: that certain amounts of the DNA which was were dropped
Speaker 4: out of this unknown donor would come up and then
Speaker 4: you're you know, okay, this profile is a little bit
Speaker 4: different than what we thought, and that happened a lot
Speaker 4: with cases out of two thousands. If you redo them,
Speaker 4: you gain more information, you get a better view on
Speaker 4: this real person. And since all the victims in this
Speaker 4: case were female, young girls, you could filter those out
Speaker 4: if you start doing white bromos only the DNA test,
Speaker 4: which is only present in MIL subjects, So then you
Speaker 4: get a very good look at the amount of donors
Speaker 4: mal donors in a sample. For instance, of the problems
Speaker 4: with John bin A Ramsey cases that you had complex
Speaker 4: DNA mixtures with a lot of DNA's victim and then
Speaker 4: likely to other donors which could be both male which
Speaker 4: could also be male female and maybe the mother. So
Speaker 4: if you filter the female DNA out of that with
Speaker 4: Y chromos only DNA testing because that cannot detect female DNA,
Speaker 4: then you left with the male donors. That gives you
Speaker 4: a lot of information about okay. So forensically we use
Speaker 4: that Y chromosome and DNA testing a.
Speaker 2: Lot else explains further about the unknown DNA profiles.
Speaker 9: Then we have an unknown profile called number three. It's
Speaker 9: a profile that was found on a piece of a
Speaker 9: pajama something, a piece of cloth that was found in
Speaker 9: the attic of the house of the Twin Marxinel. It
Speaker 9: has bloodstains on it, it has hairs on it. So
Speaker 9: on this piece of cloth a trace is found and
Speaker 9: it's determined that it is it comes from a female
Speaker 9: human being. But this trace found in the attic has
Speaker 9: so far not been matched to anyone.
Speaker 2: This unknown female blood found on pajamas could certainly be
Speaker 2: an unidentified victim. All profiles were tested against the victims,
Speaker 2: Michelle Martin and the true's children, so it didn't come
Speaker 2: from any of them.
Speaker 9: So apart from the DNA profiles that have been established,
Speaker 9: there are also a lot of hairs found. Hairs that
Speaker 9: were found in cars, also in the house in several places.
Speaker 9: These hairs are still available today, but at the time
Speaker 9: they have been briefly investigated, but still not matched to
Speaker 9: any of the victims, to any of the perpetrators and
Speaker 9: the King's prosecutor. What did this? Well, this line of
Speaker 9: inquiry cleared, but well, obviously the investigating magistrate didn't want
Speaker 9: to do it and he was forced in the end,
Speaker 9: he was forced by the Court for Appeals of Liege
Speaker 9: back in two thousand and one. Anyway, the result is
Speaker 9: still there is still no result today.
Speaker 2: I asked doctor Eigelenboom for his thoughts about who the
Speaker 2: DNA profiles could belong to.
Speaker 4: It could be or it's even very likely that the
Speaker 4: perpetrators left some of their hairs there. So in that sense,
Speaker 4: given that it's much easier and also much cheaper to
Speaker 4: do DNA profiling now, it could be useful to look
Speaker 4: at those hairs and start testing those. Yeah, I would
Speaker 4: certainly want to know who is the person who they
Speaker 4: donated his DNA or her DNA inside the bloods in
Speaker 4: one of the victims. That's incriminating evidence. To go for
Speaker 4: all the forensic evidence which is still there, and then
Speaker 4: review a number of samples already taken, but also you
Speaker 4: could review evidence itself still there and see if you
Speaker 4: can get better results out of that is the new
Speaker 4: DNA kids and then using a combination of sensitive new
Speaker 4: autosomal dnakeds the standard kids, but also white romosome DNA,
Speaker 4: so that you have a much better view of these
Speaker 4: mil donors in these samples.
Speaker 2: Else and Jean Lombricks sent a second letter to the
Speaker 2: Prosecutor General in August to ask if the evidence collected
Speaker 2: in the case still exists. They haven't yet received an
Speaker 2: answer to this letter, but I'm hopeful that the evidence
Speaker 2: still exists and that it could be retested. Not only
Speaker 2: could it potentially help to find out more about other
Speaker 2: missing persons from the time, like Tanya Groom, but it
Speaker 2: might also turn up new suspects who were never brought
Speaker 2: to justice. There are many loose ends in the true
Speaker 2: affair that have troubled victims families for years. Some of them,
Speaker 2: like DNA tests, are out of our hands, but following
Speaker 2: leads and tracking people down are loose ends that we
Speaker 2: may be able to tie up. Over the past several months,
Speaker 2: I've made progress on that front. You'll remember that throughout
Speaker 2: this podcast, starting with episode two, I talked about an
Speaker 2: establishment called the Hotel Brazil in the seaside town of Blankenberg,
Speaker 2: where Anne Marschal and Effia Lambrics attended a hypnosis show
Speaker 2: shortly before disappearing. More than one witness claimed to have
Speaker 2: seen Anne and Effia after the hypnosis show, either in
Speaker 2: front of the Hotel Brazil or nearby on the same street.
Speaker 2: The owner of this hotel and bar had been charged
Speaker 2: with engaging in prostitution and human trafficking, and a friend
Speaker 2: of the hotel and bar owner, who was also an
Speaker 2: acquaintance of Mark de True, was staying at the Hotel
Speaker 2: Brazil when Anne and Effiu went missing. I spoke about
Speaker 2: this with the investigative journalist Douglas d'aconick, who actually interviewed
Speaker 2: the witness who claimed to have seen Anne and Effia
Speaker 2: in front of this hotel. I recorded this while driving
Speaker 2: with Douglas, so there's a bit of background noise.
Speaker 8: I think it was Paul Marchal, the father of He
Speaker 8: just spoke about something in Blankenberger with a butcher named
Speaker 8: Eric van Damo, and so I went to Blankenberg, knocked
Speaker 8: on his door, he opened, and he started telling me
Speaker 8: his incredible story. For Paul Marchell, which is very important
Speaker 8: his daughter. And if they went to a show in
Speaker 8: Blankenberg in the casino, they had to take the lost
Speaker 8: trying to place the States. But after the show, they
Speaker 8: have been in Blankenberger for about an hour and what
Speaker 8: his butcher said was explained was that he was in
Speaker 8: trouble with his neighbor. His neighbor was a current kind
Speaker 8: of prostitute born named Hotel Brazil. And what the butcher
Speaker 8: told me was that it was coming and going in
Speaker 8: that hotel of clients women of which you could divine
Speaker 8: that they were prostitutes. But he said that evening, a
Speaker 8: few days after the disappearance of alan If, I saw
Speaker 8: the pictures in the paper and I immediately remembered that
Speaker 8: those were the two girls I saw going into that
Speaker 8: hotel that evening.
Speaker 5: I think it's yeah, in the context of.
Speaker 8: Neighbors having fights, you should always should be very careful
Speaker 8: about about this kind of testimony. So later on I
Speaker 8: discovered that on the day of the arrest of Market,
Speaker 8: two police search his house and close to the phone
Speaker 8: they found the notes with a phone number.
Speaker 5: It was the phone number of the hotel president.
Speaker 2: This is an important piece of information. That Douglas just shared.
Speaker 8: On the day of the arrest of Market two, police
Speaker 8: search his house and close to the phone they've found
Speaker 8: the notes the phone number.
Speaker 5: It was a phone number of the hotel resident.
Speaker 2: When da True was arrested, police found a piece of
Speaker 2: paper near his phone at the house in Marcinelle where
Speaker 2: the girls were held captive. On this piece of paper
Speaker 2: was the name and telephone number of the Hotel Brazil.
Speaker 2: These aren't the only coincidences that make this whole Hotel
Speaker 2: Brazil connection suspicious. I mentioned that de True had an
Speaker 2: acquaintance that was staying at the Hotel Brazil during the summer.
Speaker 2: When Anne and Effia disappeared, that acquaintance, who was also
Speaker 2: a friend of the Hotel Brazil owner, drove a car
Speaker 2: with a license plate that's almost an exact match to
Speaker 2: a license plate identified by a witness in Gracelonna under
Speaker 2: the bridge where Julian and Melissa disappeared. The car was
Speaker 2: a red Ford Fiesta. I interviewed ex gendarmes Jean Pierre Radon,
Speaker 2: who worked with the special unit that was formed just
Speaker 2: after Datrue's arrest and investigated the red car lead. At
Speaker 2: the behest of the King's prosecutor Michel Bole.
Speaker 6: The prosecutor Boorles came into my office one day and
Speaker 6: he asked me to look into finding information about a
Speaker 6: red Ford Fiesta that could have been used for the
Speaker 6: abduction of Julie and Melissa. I started to look into it,
Speaker 6: and indeed, indeed there were several testimonies about a little
Speaker 6: red car or a red Ford Fiesta seen near the
Speaker 6: bridge where Julie and Melissa were abducted. And then I
Speaker 6: stumbled upon something, and I can tell you it's a catastrophe.
Speaker 6: I stumbled upon a letter from a doctor, the doctor ARROWI.
Speaker 6: Shortly after the abduction of Jili and Melissa. He sent
Speaker 6: a letter to the investigation unit in Grassolonna, where he
Speaker 6: explained that on the day of the abduction, he noticed
Speaker 6: something that seemed out of place. There was a van
Speaker 6: and a red car on the side of the highway
Speaker 6: very close to where the girl had disappeared. And he
Speaker 6: remembered the first three letters of the license plate NKV,
Speaker 6: and then he couldn't remember the rest. And he sent
Speaker 6: this letter to the investigation unit, and I don't know
Speaker 6: who processed it, but they marked it as non exploitable,
Speaker 6: non exploitable. I'm sorry, but if someone had taken the
Speaker 6: time to read the Othello report with the names that
Speaker 6: were in there, there was a certain Niccolo Mazarin who
Speaker 6: was cited in the Othello report as an accomplice of
Speaker 6: de True.
Speaker 2: The Othello report that he's referring to is the report
Speaker 2: on the operation Othello, the secret surveillance operation of De
Speaker 2: True that started shortly after Julian Melissa disappeared. The name
Speaker 2: he mentions, Nicolo Mazarin, was not only an accomplice of
Speaker 2: d True, but he was also a friend of the
Speaker 2: Hotel Brazil owner. The red car with a license plate
Speaker 2: starting with NKV was recorded in the Othello report because
Speaker 2: it had been observed visiting d' tru'z house in Charlerois.
Speaker 6: If someone had taken the time to look at the
Speaker 6: cars attributed to Mazarin and his wife, they would have
Speaker 6: found the NKV nine four seven, and that license plate
Speaker 6: was at one of Dutruz's properties on a car that
Speaker 6: was put up for sales, and no one made the connection.
Speaker 5: At the time.
Speaker 6: Even a rookie cop would have found this, but they didn't.
Speaker 6: And I'm convinced that if someone would have looked at this,
Speaker 6: they could have found Julie and Melissa alive. They were
Speaker 6: alive at that time.
Speaker 2: I asked Jan Pierre Radon if they'd ever interviewed the
Speaker 2: doctor who wrote the letter.
Speaker 6: They never did. I requested permission to interview him. I
Speaker 6: made requests and requests and requests, and I was told yes,
Speaker 6: but I never got the authorization because I needed a
Speaker 6: judges authorization, but never got it. The witness is dead now,
Speaker 6: the poor guy. They sabotaged the lead about the red Fiesta,
Speaker 6: and they sabotaged others afterwards.
Speaker 2: Even without interviewing the doctor. Had a I already followed
Speaker 2: the evidence, they would have found a clear connection between
Speaker 2: the True Mazara, the NKV license plate, and the red
Speaker 2: Ford Fiesta. You'll recall that the owner of the Hotel
Speaker 2: Brazil was questioned by police after de True was arrested.
Speaker 2: Else explained this in episode two.
Speaker 10: So eventually this bar owner, he was questioned by the police.
Speaker 10: He was questioned the first time on the first of
Speaker 10: October nineteen ninety six, and then one time or a
Speaker 10: second time on the sixteenth of October. But after that
Speaker 10: he actually vanished from the earth. So he left he
Speaker 10: left Blankenberg. He announced to the local authorities that he
Speaker 10: would go to Germany, but in Germany there was no
Speaker 10: trace of him left.
Speaker 2: Both d True and Lo Lievre later admitted to abducting
Speaker 2: Anne and Effia at the Belgian seaside. The question here
Speaker 2: is whether or not they were helped in some way.
Speaker 2: I believe this man from the Hotel Brazil could show
Speaker 2: light on this question. He may not have been involved
Speaker 2: in any way, or perhaps his friend Mazaha with the
Speaker 2: red Ford Fiesta was involved. Unfortunately, Mazaha has since passed away.
Speaker 2: So I set out to try to find a Hotel
Speaker 2: Brazil owner, who I'll refrained from naming because I don't
Speaker 2: want to falsely implicate anyone for something as abhorrent as
Speaker 2: being involved with the abuse and murder of children. He
Speaker 2: certainly isn't a saint, but his other dodgy affairs are
Speaker 2: of no concern to us here. Our last tip was
Speaker 2: that he lived in Brazil, so that's where we started.
Speaker 2: I was able to find a local journalist named Fernanda
Speaker 2: to help try to locate him for an interview.
Speaker 11: I checked the public databases and there is no trace
Speaker 11: of him in the system here. As far as I
Speaker 11: can tell you, We've.
Speaker 2: Decided not to share Fernanda's full name or exact location,
Speaker 2: as snooping around the world of international organized crime is
Speaker 2: dangerous business.
Speaker 11: I drove by the address we discussed the last time,
Speaker 11: and it's definitely not a residence. It's like a pharmacy.
Speaker 2: After a lot of searching and even a drive by
Speaker 2: at a place where we thought he might be, we
Speaker 2: were getting nowhere, so I asked her to switch her
Speaker 2: focus to searching for a woman who spent time at
Speaker 2: the Hotel Brazil in Belgium before fleeing back to Brazil.
Speaker 2: You'll recall in episode two that I spoke with a
Speaker 2: man who described an incident involving a Brazilian woman at
Speaker 2: the Hotel Brazil.
Speaker 7: My father came in conflicts with this person because they
Speaker 7: found outside the front door of his house, we found
Speaker 7: a young woman, a Brazilian woman, crying and who had
Speaker 7: been beaten, and my father took the woman inside, and
Speaker 7: it turned out that this woman had been fetched from
Speaker 7: Brazil and she had been brought to Belgium with an
Speaker 7: expectation that she would have work, but in reality it
Speaker 7: was meant for prostitution, and mister had taken all documents
Speaker 7: passport so that he controlled this woman. My father then
Speaker 7: contacted the police and the police went inside the house,
Speaker 7: found another woman and also found weapons.
Speaker 2: Our goal is to try to find this woman and
Speaker 2: hopefully have her lead us to the Hotel Brazil owner.
Speaker 2: After six months of searching, we believe we actually found
Speaker 2: this woman thanks to the dogged work of Fernando.
Speaker 11: It was really hard to find her because her name
Speaker 11: he in Brazil, is so common that made my researchers
Speaker 11: almost impossible. I did locate a boy who seems like
Speaker 11: being her son because the name was exactly the same.
Speaker 11: So I decided to go to Facebook and Instagram to
Speaker 11: find this boy and to try to discover if the
Speaker 11: woman we were looking for was his mother.
Speaker 2: Fernando was able to contact him and confirm that he
Speaker 2: was indeed the son of the woman we were looking for.
Speaker 2: He verified his mother's name and that she'd spent time
Speaker 2: in Belgium in the mid nineties.
Speaker 11: And then the most important question I asked him was
Speaker 11: can you give me your mother's cell phone? And he
Speaker 11: was like, okay, I can give you. So I was like,
Speaker 11: oh my god. So many months in his search for
Speaker 11: this so is it.
Speaker 2: This is the voice of the victim. Fernanda located. Will
Speaker 2: withhold her name and location as she was initially afraid
Speaker 2: to speak about this and I want to respect her privacy.
Speaker 2: Fernanda explains what she learned through their many exchanges.
Speaker 11: So when she arrived in Belsion, she was thinking that
Speaker 11: she was going to work as an anie, because that
Speaker 11: was the promise. But once she arrived, she was talking
Speaker 11: to a hotel. So she started to live there in
Speaker 11: the hotel and walk there in a hotel. But one day,
Speaker 11: also in this hotel asked her to sleep with her
Speaker 11: and her husband, and she thought that maybe it's something
Speaker 11: wrong that because I am here to work as an ani,
Speaker 11: but I am in a hotel and right now these
Speaker 11: crazy couple are asking me to sleep every day, and
Speaker 11: so she told that something strange that and later other
Speaker 11: strange situations happened, such as saved her. She keept in Belsion,
Speaker 11: had to marry with Belgian and she didn't want to
Speaker 11: get married with anybody, but she agreed to meet the guy,
Speaker 11: but she doesn't remember unfortunately, how he's lookalike and his name.
Speaker 11: But after all that situation, decided to get back home
Speaker 11: to get back to Brazil and did not allowed her
Speaker 11: to get back, so they took her passport. They forbidden
Speaker 11: her to have contact with phones at this time. At
Speaker 11: this point she started to find really strange and one
Speaker 11: day she could have assessed to a phone and she
Speaker 11: called to a place the invasion that she doesn't remember
Speaker 11: the name. She asked for help and saw her asking
Speaker 11: for help and just say to her that he was
Speaker 11: going to kill her, and he was going to throw
Speaker 11: her downstairs, and he grabbed her arms and really hurted her.
Speaker 11: She was really really afraid of him, and she wanted
Speaker 11: to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2: The fact that this woman was originally afraid to speak
Speaker 2: and wishes to remain anonymous after twenty five years speaks
Speaker 2: volumes about this man's reputation. Fernanda shared a picture of
Speaker 2: Mark the True with her and she said that she'd
Speaker 2: never seen him, nor did she ever see children at
Speaker 2: the hotel Brazil. It could all truly be a coincidence,
Speaker 2: but to find out, I need to speak with the
Speaker 2: owner of the hotel Brazil to hear his side of
Speaker 2: the story. He didn't seem to be in Brazil, so
Speaker 2: I refocused my search on Germany.
Speaker 5: H THANKI Chabalis become cutting off.
Speaker 2: Of This Man's name and location will remain confidential given
Speaker 2: the nature of his work, but I have a lot
Speaker 2: of confidence in his ability to find people.
Speaker 5: Size.
Speaker 2: He explained to me that the man we're looking for
Speaker 2: isn't in the system in Germany, and that he'd have
Speaker 2: to mobilize other sources to find him, and that it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be easy. I kept searching myself in Vain and
Speaker 2: was about to give up when I got a text
Speaker 2: to call back my contact. He doesn't speak English and
Speaker 2: my German isn't all that great, but we managed. He
Speaker 2: explained that he had indeed found something, and according to
Speaker 2: his info, he could give me an address, which I've
Speaker 2: bleeped out here. He said he couldn't promise the man
Speaker 2: was there, but that he was pretty sure he'd located him.
Speaker 2: It would be a scoop if I could actually locate
Speaker 2: this man. The parents of Anne and Efja, the king's
Speaker 2: prosecutor Michel Bourle, and several journalists have wanted to question
Speaker 2: him for over twenty five years. Although my chances of
Speaker 2: actually speaking with him were low, I felt I had
Speaker 2: to give it a try. The investigative journalist Douglas d'aconick
Speaker 2: originally broke the story about the hotel Brazil. So I
Speaker 2: invited him to join me on a trip to Germany
Speaker 2: to find this mysterious man. Okay, they've got a lot
Speaker 2: of car noise here, so he jumped at the occasion
Speaker 2: and we found ourselves cruising down the Autobahn towards a
Speaker 2: destination that will remain unnamed. So summary of this guy
Speaker 2: is that he was a sergeant in the army.
Speaker 5: He was certainly.
Speaker 12: Involved in being a pimp, had a hotel, got accused
Speaker 12: of human trafficking, I was arrested, was convicted of arms
Speaker 12: imports I believe importing an illegal arm.
Speaker 2: And there's another point, and that's.
Speaker 12: The red car that was seen in Gasadonia with the
Speaker 12: license plate that starts with NKV, and that this license
Speaker 12: plate is the same first three letters as a license
Speaker 12: plate that Mazara was using at that time.
Speaker 5: The red car is interesting because.
Speaker 8: A few hours before the kidnapping of Julia Minissa, there's
Speaker 8: another someone else tries to kidnap two girls in will.
Speaker 5: Ye with a red car. Yeah, with a description that
Speaker 5: doesn't fit seem to fit.
Speaker 2: Much or true. Douglas is talking about the other attempted
Speaker 2: kidnapping of two girls nearby on the same day Julian
Speaker 2: Melissa were abducted. In this case, the mother got a
Speaker 2: good look at a man driving a red car, but
Speaker 2: a description doesn't really match that of Mark the True.
Speaker 2: The True has always insisted, and still insists today, that
Speaker 2: he did not carry out the actual kidnapping of Julian Melissa,
Speaker 2: but that they were brought to him. The parents of
Speaker 2: Julian Melissa still to this day do not know how
Speaker 2: their girls were taken or who actually abducted them.
Speaker 12: So I don't think, you know, I don't think he's
Speaker 12: gonna threaten us with violence or anything, but.
Speaker 5: Be ready in case he does.
Speaker 12: Because he's a guy who has guns, we know that,
Speaker 12: and he has a history of attacking people physically apparently
Speaker 12: as well.
Speaker 5: So oh great, because he had the dangerous duns. Probably
Speaker 5: that's where that's where I run away.
Speaker 2: As you've heard a lot of information about the Hotel
Speaker 2: Brazil connection, so let me remind you, in the simplest
Speaker 2: of terms, of why this hotel owner may have the
Speaker 2: answers that we've been seeking and why I need to
Speaker 2: speak with him First, when Anne and Iffia disappeared, they
Speaker 2: were seen in front of his hotel that night. Second,
Speaker 2: he had an indirect connection with Mark de True because
Speaker 2: his friend who stayed at his hotel that summer, was
Speaker 2: also an acquaintance of De Truz. This friend's license plate
Speaker 2: can possibly be tied back to the disappear parents of
Speaker 2: Julian and Melissa, therefore potentially linking the two separate abductions. Third,
Speaker 2: you recall that when they arrested the True, they found
Speaker 2: the hotel Brazil owner's name and number written on a
Speaker 2: piece of paper next to the phone. And finally, after
Speaker 2: being questioned by police, he disappeared and has never been
Speaker 2: seen since. Drove all day long to surprise this guy.
Speaker 2: He's probably not home.
Speaker 12: Yeah, if that's the case, we're gonna go get a
Speaker 12: beer somewhere, which should be gonna do anyway, what you're
Speaker 12: gonna do anyway, After a long day of driving, we
Speaker 12: went straight to the address we had and decided to
Speaker 12: try and make contact right away without any warning. He's
Speaker 12: going to do a last check to make sure this
Speaker 12: thing is actually recording, and it says it is.
Speaker 2: How does my recorder look?
Speaker 5: Does it?
Speaker 2: Is it is it popping out too much? It was
Speaker 2: a relatively quiet neighborhood on a beautiful spring day, and
Speaker 2: as luck would have it, he was standing outside in
Speaker 2: front of his house as we made our way up
Speaker 2: the driveway. Hi, my name is Matt Graves, and I
Speaker 2: am looking for you, I believe. When I greeted him
Speaker 2: in English, he answered in French, saying that he didn't
Speaker 2: understand what I was saying. When I switched to French,
Speaker 2: we immediately noticed his expression turned dark and that he
Speaker 2: knew exactly why we were there. He said, Okay, get
Speaker 2: out of here. This is private property.
Speaker 11: Just say.
Speaker 2: I told him we wanted to ask him questions about
Speaker 2: his old friend Mazara, and he kept repeating auvoir or goodbye,
Speaker 2: and he said, am I clear? This is private property?
Speaker 2: Get out of here. No. I explained that we drove
Speaker 2: a long ways to ask him questions and that we
Speaker 2: didn't want to accuse him of anything. We just wanted
Speaker 2: to hear his side of the story.
Speaker 7: Watte.
Speaker 2: He kept repeating goodbye and get out of here. So
Speaker 2: I asked why he didn't want to talk to us.
Speaker 2: The more I insisted, the more angry he became. He
Speaker 2: ducked inside of his front door for a few seconds,
Speaker 2: and I have to admit I was concerned he might
Speaker 2: come back out with a weapon.
Speaker 11: Jim, Why, oh what.
Speaker 2: Nos your It's just explicated.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 11: No.
Speaker 2: He yelled loudly that he wasn't interested and said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to tell you one last time, get.
Speaker 11: Out of here.
Speaker 2: I suggested that we could talk in the street, and
Speaker 2: he said, do I look like a guy who's going
Speaker 2: to meet you in the street. Do you think I'm
Speaker 2: an idiot or what that is.
Speaker 12: In vain?
Speaker 2: I made it clear that I was there with questions
Speaker 2: on the behalf of the parents off and he said,
Speaker 2: I don't care. Get out of here. I told him
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell the parents the truth, and then
Speaker 2: I think he knows it. But there was no use
Speaker 2: in continuing. I'm pretty sure it was about to get violent,
Speaker 2: so we walked away. Well that didn't go so, well,
Speaker 2: let's get the fuck out of here before he goes
Speaker 2: and gets his gun.
Speaker 7: But I would have rather had it talk.
Speaker 8: But it was obvious for the first second that.
Speaker 2: Both Douglas and I were confident that we had just
Speaker 2: talked face to face with the owner of the hotel. Brazil,
Speaker 2: more than two decades after he disappeared. There was no doubt.
Speaker 2: The first thing I did after confirming this man's whereabouts
Speaker 2: was to send a copy of the recording to the
Speaker 2: parents of Anne Marchal and Effie A. Lumbricks. I got
Speaker 2: a WhatsApp message straight away from.
Speaker 3: Else Matt High. Oh my god, I have been so
Speaker 3: curious all day long and I had to wait until
Speaker 3: three minutes ago to listen to your tape. Well, no,
Speaker 3: not welcoming, and as far as I'm concerned, that is personal.
Speaker 3: It actually proves what we are thinking, that this person
Speaker 3: is majorly involved in the case. Anyway, we can talk
Speaker 3: about this whenever you want to to discuss how to proceed.
Speaker 3: I hope you had a pretty good journey to Germany
Speaker 3: and that anyway you had them, well a normal day
Speaker 3: by Matt, have a nice weekend.
Speaker 5: We'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.
Speaker 2: I also reached out to the former King's prosecutor, Michel Bourlat.
Speaker 2: He was very surprised to hear that we actually found
Speaker 2: the owner of the hotel Brazil and suggested that if
Speaker 2: the case ever gets reopened, his DNA profile should be
Speaker 2: collected and compared with any unknown profiles. The challenge is
Speaker 2: that this case is officially closed and apparently it will
Speaker 2: only be reopened if a concrete new element is discovered.
Speaker 2: But if there's one thing we've learned about the surviving victims,
Speaker 2: the victims' families, and the citizens of Belgium, it's that
Speaker 2: they won't simply take no for an answer. Locating the
Speaker 2: owner of the Hotel Brazil is a good first step,
Speaker 2: and while it might not be enough to reopen the case,
Speaker 2: it surely warrants some investigative measures by authorities, like an
Speaker 2: interview or, as Prosecutor Boulat suggested, a DNA sample. It's
Speaker 2: my belief that the judicial authorities will never act unless
Speaker 2: they're forced to. It's up to us to hold them accountable.
Speaker 2: The recent breaking news about Dutch authorities requesting DNA information
Speaker 2: from the true file in connection with the Tanya Grooon
Speaker 2: case might provide additional momentum in the argument not only
Speaker 2: to retest the evidence, but to seek new evidence. While
Speaker 2: this project may be coming to an end, the work
Speaker 2: isn't done. I've decided to send all of my findings
Speaker 2: throughout this investigation, including the whereabouts of the Hotel Brazil owner,
Speaker 2: with the parents of Julie LeJean, Melissa Rousseau, Anne Marschal
Speaker 2: and Effie Lambriks, so that they can pursue this fight
Speaker 2: for justice if they so choose. When I started this project,
Speaker 2: my plan was simply to recount history of this incredible affair.
Speaker 2: I never intended to find myself personally tracking down suspects
Speaker 2: and having strategy meetings with the former King's prosecutor and
Speaker 2: victims families, lawyers and DNA experts. I've become emotionally invested
Speaker 2: in this affair in a way I didn't anticipate. My
Speaker 2: family and friends have suggested on more than one occasion
Speaker 2: that I should take a step back and that I've
Speaker 2: unnecessarily put myself at risk. But of all the incredible
Speaker 2: aspects of this affair that we've covered and uncovered, there's
Speaker 2: one thing that I simply cannot let go. The blood
Speaker 2: of an eight year old girl found on the wall
Speaker 2: that awful dungeon in Masiinelle, mixed with the DNA of
Speaker 2: an unidentified person. We shouldn't rest until that person is
Speaker 2: identified and held to account. The name of that eight
Speaker 2: year old girl whose blood was found on that wall
Speaker 2: is Julie Lejeanne. I leave you with a trans relation
Speaker 2: of a letter published by her father, Jean de Ni
Speaker 2: Lejeune in twenty fifteen. To you, my Julie, my dear,
Speaker 2: It's been twenty years since they've rich you away from me,
Speaker 2: twenty years that you're no longer here. You'd be twenty
Speaker 2: eight and a half today, maybe you'd be married with children.
Speaker 2: I still see your face at eight years old and
Speaker 2: can't imagine what you'd look like today. As I write this,
Speaker 2: it's a painful day, just like the seven three hundred
Speaker 2: other days until now. I'm still enraged with those responsible
Speaker 2: for your disappearance, and those who cowardly let you die
Speaker 2: in that dungeon, and also those in whom we had confidence, police, gendarmerie, magistrates.
Speaker 2: How many times did we hear trust the professionals? We
Speaker 2: didn't have a choice. I will never forgive the system.
Speaker 2: It's not in the normal course of nature to lose
Speaker 2: a child, and certainly not as you were lost. As
Speaker 2: I write these lines, I wanted you to know that
Speaker 2: although you didn't survive, others have because of the fight
Speaker 2: we led and are still leading today. But at what
Speaker 2: price the life of my daughter, My Julie, I Love You.
Speaker 2: The Monstra is a production of tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: hosted and executive produced by Me Matt Graves, produced by
Speaker 2: Thomas Resimont of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay
Speaker 2: are executive producers on the behalf of tenderfoot TV with
Speaker 2: producer Makeup and Vanity Set. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams
Speaker 2: are executive producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with producer
Speaker 2: Trevor Young. Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design by
Speaker 2: Cooper Skinner and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner.
Speaker 2: Cover design by Trevor Eiler. La Monstra includes archival audio
Speaker 2: from Sonoma, RTBF archives and CNN Archives. Special thanks to
Speaker 2: back Media and marketing Station sixteen, Jean Savigna and the
Speaker 2: teams at iHeart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. Find us on
Speaker 2: social media at Monster Underscore pod. For more podcasts from
Speaker 2: iHeart Radio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.