WEBVTT - Silence [6] 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.040 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.920 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:12.040 and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, or 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:16.320 their employees. This podcast also contains subject matter which may 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:20.160 not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.680 We saw two young girls walking along the street and 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:32.839 he said, do you want to earn one hundred and 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.519 fifty thousand Belgian francs? And I said sure, but how? 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.360 And then he said we had to kidnap the girls first, 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:43.879 and then he'd show me. 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.640 These are the words of Claude Tirou describing a conversation 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.200 with Mark de True just after his release from prison. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.640 And I said, listen, I don't go around kidnapping young girls. 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.080 And he said, look, it's easy. You grab them from 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.040 behind the neck with one arm, cover their mouths. Then 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:03.680 you just throw them in the back of the van 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:05.679 and you can knock them out if you need to. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.560 I said, no way, I'm not going to do that. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.920 And after he dropped me off at home, I immediately called 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:19.200 the police and reported it. When I found out about 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.040 the disappearance of Sheli and Melissa, I suspected that Mark 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.560 was involved, and I went back to the police. It's 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.280 too bad they didn't listen to me. 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:49.200 Psychopaths is somebody who understands emotions, and. 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.640 I told them it is a very exceptional that somebody 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:54.880 abducts two children at the same time. 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.120 To have been the end of it in nineteen six, 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.440 but my god, it was just the beginning. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.360 I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days. 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:20.040 Welcome to la monstre. I'm your host, Matt Graves. The 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.160 release of Mark da True after his first prison sentence 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.120 marked the beginning of a new wave of depravity that 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:32.000 would change this country forever. It began on the eighth 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.360 of April nineteen ninety two, the day de True was 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.639 released from prison for good behavior after serving less than 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:43.079 half his sentence for thirteen and a half years. His wife, 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.200 Michelle Martin, marked the day in bold in her journal 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:51.320 with just one word freedom. Despite having later claimed that 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.120 she was manipulated, Michel was certainly excited to jump back 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.480 into life with de True. She had meticulously planned his release, 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.080 and their first stop was to see a doctor who 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.000 granted them with disability status. This allowed them to claim 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.600 benefits of eighty thousand Belgian francs a month, above the 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.639 average salary in Belgium at the time. Always thinking ahead, 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:17.280 the True got the doctor to prescribe him powerful tranquilizers 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:22.880 haldol and rhydnol. Hydnol is roughly ten times stronger than 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.320 valuum and has come to be known as the date 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.639 rape drug, often referred to as rufees on the street. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.480 So the state granted a psychopath convicted of raping children 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.440 with early release, a free salary and a steady supply 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.160 of rufees and sent him on his way. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.120 He was really a master manipulator. I mean, he is 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.760 a kibosh and known criminal who has been convicted of 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.320 raping and kidnapping children, and he somehow gets sort of 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.760 prison early and gets to stay to pay him a pension. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.320 On top of that, they gave him the kind of 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.360 drugs used to rape people. It's crazy, I mean, what's 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.160 on earth the way they think you. 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.880 As soon as November nineteen ninety two, eight months after 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.400 being released from prison, the police were called to an 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.359 ice skating rink where Da True was accused of molesting 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.960 a girl. Nothing came out of it, and De True 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.280 wasn't arrested. In September of ninety three, a mand True 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.760 had met while in prison reported that he tried to 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.760 convince him to help him abduct a young girl, but 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:32.120 this wasn't followed up either. 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:33.440 Then. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.800 In nineteen ninety four, Datru and his wife welcomed an 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.000 eighteen year old girl from Slovakia who wanted to spend 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.280 the summer in Belgium. He slipped her some roofies and 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.120 then raped her at home. She didn't even know it 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.839 happened until it later turned up on a video cassette 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.440 seized at one of Datru's properties. Apart from his sexual crimes, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.160 the True dove right back into stealing for a living 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.560 as well in nineteen ninety four. In ninety four, De 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.640 Truz started working with another criminal from France named Bernard Weinstein. 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.560 Weinstein had recently moved to Belgium from France, where he 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.679 had spent nine years in prison for theft and armed robbery. 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.640 He and De Drew worked together on various criminal enterprises, 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:20.360 mostly involving a vehicle theft ringd True's crimes with Weinstein 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.440 bring us to nineteen ninety five, where this series started. 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.520 Over the next fourteen months, de True in his accomplices, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:31.120 would abduct six young girls whose names we should never forget, 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:40.919 Julie Lejeanne, Melissa Rousseau, Anne Marchal, Effi Alambrichs, Sabine Darden, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:47.560 and Letitia DALs. Despite the warning signs his criminal passed 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.919 and reports that De True might be responsible for the abductions, 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.080 authorities failed to ever even question him. It wasn't until 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.560 August of nineteen ninety six, weeks after Letitia de Les 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.479 was abducted, that Detrit True would be arrested. A witness 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.000 came forward to identify the license plate of his van 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.920 seen near where Letitia had disappeared. Eventually, he would admit 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.919 to abducting Sabine and Letitia, and he led police to 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.800 his dungeon in Charlewai, where the girls were found alive. 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.160 You'll recall from episode four that I interviewed a police 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.560 officer named Michel du Moulin, who got to True to 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.599 admit to the kidnapping of Letitia d LEAs and took 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.640 him to the secret dungeon from where Letitia and Sabine 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:34.440 d'arden were rescued. After discovering the scale of d Truz's activities. 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.880 Police strongly started to suspect his involvement with a disappearance 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:43.080 of Julian Melissa in nineteen ninety five. De Moulain continued 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.680 to interrogate to True about this after the discovery of 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.600 Letitia and Sabine. Here is words from an interview read 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:50.400 by an interpreter. 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.120 Mark de dru said that he kidnapped Leticia because Sabine 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.239 wanted a friend. She wanted me to bring her Julie 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.640 le Jeanne, and I thought, wait a minute, Julie la jean. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.320 I was convinced he made a Freudian slip. Julie le 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.280 jean had gone missing way before Sabine was kidnapped. I 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.600 knew at this point that we were onto something, so 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.960 then I really started to squeeze him about Julian and Melissa. 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.600 After a lot of back and forth, he admitted that 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.920 Julie and Melissa had been in the dungeon, but that 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:24.680 someone else had brought them there. 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.640 Two days after taking police to where Sabine and Letitia 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.720 had been locked away, the True cracked again. On August seventeenth, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:39.480 nineteen ninety six. He said that his friends Bernard Weinstein 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.640 and Michel Lievre had kidnapped Julian Melissa and brought them 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.800 to him. He said that they were at one of 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.720 his properties in a town called sarce La Boussier, and 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.520 agreed again to take police there. The excitement of finding 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.680 Sabine and Letitia two days earlier had given the families 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.640 of Julian Melissa hope. After fourteen months of the worst 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.440 kind of fear and anxiety, they learned that the true 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.880 may have been involved with the disappearances of their beloved girls. 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.640 The fathers of Julian Melissa wasted no time in heading 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.840 the Charlela to speak with locals and distribute flyers. In 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.000 interviews with the news media at the time, you could 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.080 feel a sense of hope in their voices. This is 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.920 the voice of Gino Rousseau, the father of Melissa. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.600 Knowing that Sabine and Letitia were fond, I came to 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.680 deliver a three thousand flyers. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:33.000 We've never lost hope. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.160 But everything we've said since the disappearance of Julian Melissa, 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.040 and by that I mean the hypothesis of pedophilia and 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:47.680 sexual kidnapping, if I can say that way, I ended 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:52.360 up being true. So we still have hope, but we 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.600 are frustrated because it's been fourteen months. But in a way, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.640 we're happy to see that everything we've done for Julian 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:01.679 Melissa has held other children. 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.360 And this is Jean de ni Le Jeanne, the father 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:06.960 of Julie from the same interview. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.480 It's wonderful for the two families to be able to 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:14.080 get their children back. It's a feeling we'd like to 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.000 be able to taste as well. We couldn't sleep last 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.960 night because we're thinking that if the true says something 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.839 that could help us find Julia Melissa, we don't want 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.599 to miss anything. Do you think there could be a 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:28.240 connection between these two cases. 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:29.320 We think so. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.560 In any case, we hope so because it could be 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.600 the end of the thread we've been looking for fourteen months. 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:38.960 And if we could find the end of that threat, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.920 even if the girls aren't in Charlotte, Wah but somewhere else, 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.320 if they came through here, it would at least be 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:46.840 a trace. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:48.520 It's what we hope. 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:49.240 In any case. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.520 It's hard to imagine actually hoping that your child was 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.040 in the clutches of a man who was just arrested 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.080 for kidnapping girls and locking them away in a dungeon. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.840 Such was the desperation of these families, it could mean 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.800 their girls were alive, certainly damaged, but at least alive. 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.600 The entire nation had gotten to know these families through 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.679 their relentless campaign to find their missing girls. Most all 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.120 of us living in Belgium at the time were familiar 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.520 with the faces of these two cute little girls, Julian Melissa. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.360 Everyone was on edge as news spread about the search 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.800 happening in the town of Sarcee la Buisiere. Douglas d' 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.120 konigo we heard from in episode two is an investigative 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.800 journalist who covered this case closely from the start. He 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.200 described what it was like to be caught up in 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.000 the whirlwind news cycle from the time that da True 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.040 was arrested and Sabinea and Letitia were rescued to win 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.439 the search for Julian Melissa in sarsh Labuisier started. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.360 So here we were the fifteenth of August nineteen ninety six. 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.240 I just came back from holiday with my colleague. I 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.120 was doing the news chief on this Thursday. So on 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.719 Wednesday evening, I remember I got a phone call from 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.960 my colleague Walter at the book, but he said something 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:15.240 might happen with this Lititicia case in Vertrie. She had 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.920 vanished a few days before, and they just gave me 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:24.640 the hints be alert for something happening with this Slatiticia case. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.280 You had no idea where to start, where to be, 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.760 where to begin. I just remember this Thursday evening, must 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.520 have been around eight o'clock. There was a news wire 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:39.560 on bellgaide the agency saying Letitia and being found a 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.360 live press conference in Charlaha within an hour or so. 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.880 This was the calmest day at work you could ever imagine, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:53.839 turned into the most crazy one ever. Be immediately sent 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.559 a reporter to Charleaa. We started doing phone calls to 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.920 the police. You have to change the car of the newspaper. 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.480 It was crazy, crazy evening, and we've been working up 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.360 long past midnight, I guess. And then came the next day. 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:16.360 It was Friday, when Belgium woke up with images of 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.959 Sabina and Lititzia getting out of this cage, welcomed by 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:26.760 hundreds of people. I remember the bonfire in Bertrid because 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.480 they had been copies of a four but a face only. 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.080 They had thousands, tens of thousands. The whole region was 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.439 full of these papers. They decided to recollect all these 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:40.960 photos of Lititzia missing to put them on a big bonfire, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.600 and that was the biggest party they ever had Pertrie. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.000 So for us journalists, we on this Friday, we still 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.160 were in a very small team. We started getting information 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.680 about Mark True. We started getting innovation information by Michelle Martin. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.800 We think we made a special edition of twenty pages. 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.680 We've been working like like hell this very first day 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.920 of the True affair, and we ended up in a 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.720 pizzeria around I think eight or nine in the evening 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.640 with some colleagues. We just found that we deserved a 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.960 good meal and a few bottles of good wine. Was 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.400 really we thought it was the end of a joyful 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.120 moment in our careers, witnessing deliberation of these two girls, 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.920 seeing people dancing in the streets. Yeah, and I think 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.600 just before the pizza arrived, there was the first mobile 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.800 phone ringing and then the second. And in those days 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.120 you had these beepers, and every journalist hurt the beep 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:49.280 and just a few words saying digging in Salabrizie. And 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:53.720 I think from the very first seconds were digging. We 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.720 knew that Mark the True had a second house in Salabrize. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:13:58.360 Yeah. 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:04.240 From that moment on the the story being so joyful 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:08.640 turned into a real nightmare. So we didn't finish our pizza. 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.120 I think some eight pizzas in their cars. We all 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.160 drove to Sleavisia, very difficult to find, but there was 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.280 no GPS in those days. I just remember standing there 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.800 in front of the little church of the very Salabia. 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.120 It is really the smallest village you can imagine, and 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.000 this whole village was one. Yeah, I was filled with 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:37.800 all these big cars, trucks, police cars of course were there. 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:42.440 I think we were like fifteen twenty journalists. We all 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.520 knew exactly what was happening, but who is going to 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:51.520 say it? And I remember this great friend and reporter 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.920 of the Flemish radio station was there really trembling, and 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.240 he said, I have to do a comment in the 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.680 midnight news and the radio. Am I going to say 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.760 that they are looking here for Julia Melissa? Can I 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:05.800 be the first to pronounce these words. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.560 Douglas and his colleague spent a long night in Sarche 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.400 Le Buissiere, and by the next morning more media had 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.720 flooded the scene around the search site, and everyone waited 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.120 in hope and fear. This is a news report from 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.320 that day. 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.880 We're here just a few meters from Detro's house. Since 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.720 early this morning. There's a certain effervescence here. The gender 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.280 Marie has sealed off the perimeter by a few hundred 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.360 meters to keep back onlookers. We can't imagine the worst. 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.200 We don't dare to pronounce the names of the girls 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.040 who've been missing for several months. The gendarmes are quite 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:49.840 calm and they're not letting any information filter out. Everyone's waiting, 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.240 waiting for a sign or a gesture that could announce 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.600 the fatality or the climax of one or the other cases. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.840 The entire nation was glued to their television sets, hoping 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.120 for the miracle rescue of Sabine and Letitia to repeat 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:17.120 itself for Julian Melissa. At one point, everything at the 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.840 search site stopped and search and excavation teams halted their activities. 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.600 At six point thirty pm on August seventeenth, nineteen ninety six, 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.080 the bodies of Julian Melissa were discovered at the Truce 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:40.760 property in Sarch Labuisiere. They were found very deep in 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:48.680 the ground with their bodies tightly tied up. It was 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:54.120 the most horrific outcome imaginable and the cruelest conclusion of 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.840 fourteen months of pain and suffering for the families. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:05.840 The accusations against Mark de Trux include kidnap, rape, and murder. 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.760 His victims were children. At one of da True's homes, 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.800 police found him digging out his basement but thought nothing 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.119 of it. By his own later admission, he was building 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.159 a prison to keep kidnapped children. By the time the 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.800 police found out, it was too late, the girls were 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:27.080 already dead. Patricia Kelly, CNN, Brussels. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.760 Well, I'm driving down the E forty towards Liege from Brussels, 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.360 and I'm on my way to meet with Karin Rousseau, 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.720 who is the mother of one of the victims, Melissa Rousseau, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.760 who was abducted along with Julu Lejeanne in nineteen ninety five. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:07.160 And I'm actually quite nervous about this. Karine Rousseau is 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.960 an incredible woman. She doesn't really like to talk to 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.639 journalists anymore. But after about a year of trying, I 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.280 finally somehow got her to agree to meet with me, 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.080 and I don't blame her. I mean, for the last 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:29.880 twenty six years, her life has been very difficult. Not 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.960 only did she lose her child, but she was lied 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:38.600 to by the police and mistreated by the judiciary, and 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.520 then of course the whole media circus that followed and 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.240 to a certain extent still follows her today. Anyway, I 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.040 don't want to just drag her through all of the 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.399 painful memories. I really want to ask her about some 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.760 of the loose ends, and of course I won't be 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.879 the first to look into that, but some questions that 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:11.520 still really need to be answered. Here, okay, Here I 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.720 am pulling off. 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:24.720 The bridge, arriving in goas a new liege, and I'm 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:30.960 driving by this god forsaken bridge where the girls disappeared. 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.400 Twenty five, almost twenty six years ago. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.320 I guess. 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.359 Kareine and Gino Rousseau are now two of the most 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.919 recognized faces in Belgium. They never wanted it to be 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:52.679 this way. Belgium is actually quite a separated country. The 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.560 Flemish speaking region in the north called Flanders and the 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.800 French speaking region in the south called Wallonia are very 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.560 different on speaking. They don't always get along very well. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.560 The families of Anne and Effia from Flanders and Julian 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.280 Melissa from Moolonia had created a bond that resonated with 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:14.679 the entire country. Their very public struggle capture the hearts 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.240 and minds of normal Belgians in a way that's hard 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:21.080 to explain. The moment that Julian and Melissa's bodies were 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.280 discovered is far from the end of this story. What 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.240 follows strains the limits of believability. I wanted to meet 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.080 with Karin Hussou and ask her about some things that 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:40.199 still don't sit right with me to this day. She 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.360 welcomed me warmly into her house. It was an unseasonably 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.840 hot day and Gino was mowing the lawn, which you 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:52.640 can hear in the background. Luckily he finished up before 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:58.479 I sat down with Karin to talk. You will, however, 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.440 hear a lot of background noise as we sat outside, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.800 and that infamous bridge over the highway is not very 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.399 far off in the distance. Karine looked great. It was 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.600 heartening to see her smile. You have to remember that 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.679 we all got to know her on television in the 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.560 middle of the worst circumstances imaginable. The footage of her 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.080 in the hastily organized press conference after the discovery of 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.240 Julie and Melissa's body. Is the purest physical embodiment of 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.320 suffering I think I've ever seen. She speaks extremely well, 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.960 with a distinguishable twang of Liege accent, which she says 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:37.359 she doesn't like, but I find charming. I'm relieved that 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:44.240 the atmosphere is comfortable and that she seems relaxed. I'd 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.720 like to share something from an incredible book she published 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.240 in twenty sixteen called Fourteen Months. It's a collection of 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.280 diary entry she made during the fourteen months between when 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.840 Melissa disappeared and her body was found. I asked Karine 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.280 if she might be willing to read a powerful passage 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.879 from this book, and she agreed. She wrote it on 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:06.960 December twenty seventh, nineteen ninety five, eight months before learning 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:11.000 of the death of her beautiful child, Melissa. 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:19.399 Melissa, Mimi, Mimi, my little girl. I call you in 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.320 the empty house, just to hear my voice resonate with 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.600 your name like before, and a hope for a tenth 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.480 of a second that you'll answer. But alas I only 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.600 hit a wall of silence, the silence that is driving 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.360 me crazy. That wraps me up in thickens. The silence 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.879 that is drowning me, silence of your absence, silence of 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.280 your disappearance, silence of the legal system, silence of the powerful, 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:51.800 scandalous silence, accomplice of crime and misfortune. I could never 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:56.399 stand the silences, the things unsaid. Do you remember? I 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.200 could never stand to let any silence come between us, 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.480 between your father and me, between your brother and you, 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:07.639 between any of you and me. I've always been a 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:11.439 breaker of silence, no matter what the price, even if 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:15.920 it hurt for me. Silence is the beginning of the end, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:20.560 a harbinger of death, the opposite of life. Never could 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:21.640 I stand silence. 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:32.080 This was written on a cold December night, six months 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:36.360 after the disappearance of Melissa. The silence Karin wrote about 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:39.200 then was not only about missing a rambunctious little girl 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.520 running around the house. It was about the intolerable silence 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:47.720 of police and the judiciary. Was this silence just a 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:50.919 normal course of action for a case that had gone cold, 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:55.280 or could it be something much more sinister. It's hard 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:57.720 to imagine that police might have had an idea of 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:00.919 who kidnapped Julian Melissa, but never for a warrant or 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.119 made any effort to make an arrest. But if they 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:07.639 did know and did nothing, why who are they trying 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:11.960 to protect? It sounds like a conspiracy theory born from 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.679 the frustration of embittered parents and a community fed up 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:20.560 with law enforcement's lack of progress, and many people today 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:25.040 insist that's exactly what it is, nothing more than baseless accusations. 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:30.040 But sometimes conspiracies are more than theory and need to 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:34.119 be put to the test. Meanwhile, back at the crime 0:24:34.160 --> 0:24:37.479 scene and sarch Labuisiere, where Julian Melissa's bodies were found, 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:43.479 police made another shocking discovery. Approximately two hours after finding 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:48.480 the girl's bodies, the excavation team found another body. The 0:24:48.560 --> 0:24:51.520 corpse was that of a middle aged white male showing 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:55.880 signs of torture, and autopsy confirmed that this man had 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:59.040 been drugged and tortured, but the final cause of death 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.640 was asphyxiated after having been buried alive. What they didn't 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:05.600 know at the time was that there was a link 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.360 between this corpse and the two teenage girls, Anne Martial 0:25:09.560 --> 0:25:12.440 and Effie Alambricks, who had gone missing over a year 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:24.320 earlier from the Belgian seaside. Next time, on La Montre. 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:30.760 As people begin to learn about Dtrue's previous crimes of 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.000 child abduction and rape in his early release from prison, 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:37.480 angers start shifting towards the judicial system. 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:41.359 Public outrage at the catalog of atrocities attributed to this 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:45.840 man has escalated into nationwide anger at the system which 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:50.520 allowed the True and his accomplices to operate unchecked and 0:25:50.600 --> 0:25:55.320 at will for years. Belgian justice is on trial. 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:59.240 The country is on the brink of revolution. As citizens 0:25:59.320 --> 0:26:00.720 take to the street protest. 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:06.960 It brought to the surface all the frustration of the population. 0:26:08.200 --> 0:26:09.280 Now remember when I. 0:26:09.200 --> 0:26:12.880 Walked into the streets and we did the marcha blanche. 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:19.720 So it was like a huge national gathering where everyone 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:24.439 and all the souls of Belgians, being from Brussels, or 0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:28.359 being from Walloonya or from Flanders, even though we speak 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:31.720 different languages, were all in that together. 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:46.520 The Monster is a production of Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:50.720 hosted and executive produced by me Matt Graves, produced by 0:26:50.760 --> 0:26:54.919 Thomas Resumont of Bubble Sound. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.800 are executive producers on the behalf of Tenderfoot TV, with producer, 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:03.160 Makeup and Vanity. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:07.080 producers on the behalf of iHeartRadio with producer Trevor Young. 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:11.840 Original music by Jay Ragsdale, Sound design by Cooper Skinner 0:27:11.920 --> 0:27:16.040 and Thomas Resimont, mixed and mastered by Cooper Skinner. Cover 0:27:16.119 --> 0:27:21.200