WEBVTT - The Perfect Psychopath [5] 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.800 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:07.680 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.800 and do not represent those of iHeartMedia, Tenderfoot TV, or 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:16.080 their employees. This podcast also contained subject matter which may 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.919 not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.800 I don't know if it's possible to create a monster, 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.240 but this is what happens. He had a difficult childhoods 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.400 in a negative and viomence, but it is not enough 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.320 to explain what he became twas a man who took 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.000 pleasure to hurt everything around him. He in shot, causing 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.880 pain to others. It was his way to take revenge 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.199 on what he believed life had done to him. On 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.880 top of that, yet no feeling whatsoever of other people. 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.880 It was what they call a perfect psychopaths. 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.680 A psychopath is somebody who understands emotions. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.039 And I told them it is a very exceptional that 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.040 somebody abducts two children at the same time. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.240 Told have been the yen of it in nineteen and six, 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.560 but my god, it was just a beginning. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.800 I think Belgium was a paralyzed for perverts in those days. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:49.920 Welcome to La Monstra. I'm your host, Matt Graves. The 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.680 arrest of Mark de True and his accomplices led to 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.840 the incredible rescue of Sabine Darden and Letitia d LEAs 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.920 and the shocking discovery of the conditions of their captivity. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.560 An entire country was rocked by these crimes, but four 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.600 young girls were still missing, their families desperate for answers. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.240 This basement and the crimes committed here have made this 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:16.200 house notorious. Every Belgian knows about Marked Truth's chamber of horrors, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.000 that they must come here and see. 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.000 What we knew at the time was only the tip 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.400 of the iceberg of this unbelievable story. But who was 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.800 Marked a True and how did he get away with 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:34.520 kidnapping kids for so long? His story begins in Brussels, 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.639 in a neighborhood I know well, less than two miles 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.240 away from where I'm sitting today. Da Truth's parents hadn't 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.600 been together very long, and his father later claimed that 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.760 he thought Mark wasn't his biological son. Da True later 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.480 described his father as an agitated and unstable man and 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:58.079 his mother as calculating, selfish, and devious. Both parents were teachers, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.000 and the family spent a short spell in a hours 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.000 and what was called the Belgian Congo at the time. 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.720 You may recall from episode one that I interviewed a 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.760 profiler named Karen Hutzebau who established a profile of the 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.519 type of person she believed police should be looking for 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:18.160 after Julian Melissa disappeared. She had some fascinating things to 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:24.440 say about the Tru's life during that interview. What can 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:26.840 you tell us about the Truth? 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.680 It's a narcisstic personality, that's first, okay, he was the 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:37.760 first born, and he's even born in Congo, the colony 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.160 of Belgium at the time. 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.840 A quick note to correct this small error. The True 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.800 was actually born in Brussels, but moved to Congo shortly afterwards. 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:52.560 And I know people personally who were also in Congo 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.320 at that time and who told me that the father 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:03.440 of Mardu True. They called him Loma, the man with 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:08.920 the big how do you say in English? He just 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.000 jumped on everything that moved his father, his father, And 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.400 when he came into the house of my witness, when 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.640 he came in his mother to call her children and 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.800 said stay here, all of you, everybody was terrified of 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:25.600 the father. 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:26.080 Of the Truth. 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:31.440 On the other hand, the Truth Mark was over protected 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.640 by his mother correct and already when they were back 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.440 in Belgium, the Truth had become kind of the. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.479 Leader of the tribe. 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:48.120 So you can make psychopaths in two ways by too 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:54.799 much violence during childhood, physical violence, emotional violence, sexual violence, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.520 name it or and they are worse the children that 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:06.600 are are overprotected because they will never ever take responsibility 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:08.800 for their own wrongdoing. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.839 It is always somebody else's fault. 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.400 These are the man when they are older and they 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.400 rape a girl or they kill a girl, it was 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:17.960 her fault. 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:19.760 It's always somebody else's. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.400 Do you think that, because apparently, just from what I've 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:27.360 read that Mark the True his father was violent. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.560 That's part of it. He was mother overprotecting and mother 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:31.480 was overproductive. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.880 So when you talked about the formation of a psychopath, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.400 you said, you know, can go two ways. One is 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.520 extreme violence and another is overprotection. Would you think that 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.120 he had both? Do you think Mark the True had both? 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.280 What is it that you think made him? Is it 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.640 more the protection of his mother or the violence. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.719 Combination of both, that's a combination of Yeah. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.120 Probably each time he has been hit by his father 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:59.440 or maybe raped who will tell he sought protection by 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.440 his mother and she gave it to him. 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.720 Anyway, it is. It is very confusing upbringing. 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.640 It's not an excuse, but it explains that these people 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.920 and their way of thinking of things and lacking humanity, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.839 how that comes. They say that children are born that way. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.800 That is not true. You know, I've seen too many 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.040 criminals and child killers, and I do not judge them. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.600 I judge their acts. So I always have very good 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.640 contact with him. Why did you? 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.040 I can be very harsh with them. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.400 One of the offenders I have in treatment and I 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:43.320 film this life and it starts explaining to me, Yeah, well, 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:44.240 what happened? 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:46.560 You know the things that happened? 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.040 I say, what what are you saying? 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.280 We are the things that I said happened? No, no, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.520 I know, I know the things I did. Ah, now 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:58.120 we're talking. 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.400 They really I get out of my mind if they 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.240 use where it happened? 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:05.680 You know what happens. 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.760 A storm can happen, an earthquake can happen, you know, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.360 things of nature can happen. But this is nothing that 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.800 is not something that happens. This is something you did, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.720 You decided to do, and you liked to do it. 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:26.960 And all those psychchatter definitions of disorder. It's bullshit, they 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.360 all tell me after six months of therapy. 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.880 I did it because I like to do it. 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.320 Upon their return from the Congo that the True family 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.520 settled in the gritty working class region around the city 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.600 of Charlware in Belgium. Charlottlah is a difficult place to 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.920 explain to people who haven't been there. It flourished economically 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.880 during the Industrial Revolution, with a huge build up of 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.240 steel and mining industries and an influx of migrants from 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.760 across Europe. After the nineteen fifties, it went from boomtown 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:14.040 to gloomtown, and factories were shuttered and unemployment skyrocketed. Its 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:19.400 nickname became Lepaignoire, or the Black Country. With the gloomy 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.560 remnants of industrial decay, the regions parked marked with shuttered mines, mills, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.280 and spoiltips polluting the landscape. Crime flourished in the sixties 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.960 and seventies, and the name Charlevaugh soon became synonymous with 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:37.080 organized crime and corruption. Marke de True grew up as 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.960 a child of the sixties in this region, not the 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.440 flowery sixties of peace and love, but a much darker 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:48.880 existence his grade school teachers described him as undisciplined and intolerable. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.079 He got caught stealing from one of his schools, from 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.440 which he was expelled, and was later kicked out of 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.960 another school for selling pornographic pictures to other students. His 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.920 mother said he was always trying to profit from something 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:06.520 and described him as quote dominating people with less personality 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:12.880 and never expressing any feelings whatsoever unquote. In nineteen seventy one, 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.040 his parents divorced, and at some point after that, his 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.040 mother started seeing a young man who had apparently been 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.000 one of her students. You'll remember from the last episode 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.360 that I was able to interview the True's lawyer, Ronnie Bodwin. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.559 I asked him to share what he could about where 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.280 things started to go wrong with Mark Detrue when he 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:32.680 was young. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.880 I think that, you know, the main turning point in 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.360 his youthful life was at the time that he must 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:49.480 have been like fifteen years old and his mother started 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:55.280 a relationship with one of her students who was like seventeen, okay, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.280 And he is always returning to that point as could 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.640 not accept first of all, that his parents were going 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:07.120 to split up. Secondly, he then got confronted with some 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.480 kind of stepdad who was barely older than he was 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.760 at that time. And that's also why he explains that, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.520 for instance, he is different than his younger brothers and 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.520 sisters because they were younger. The age difference between those 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:27.320 brothers and sisters was bigger towards the student with whom 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.960 his mother was supposed to have relationship, and therefore they 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.640 didn't live that the same way. Yes, there was a 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.200 new man in the house, and that new man should 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.360 have been him, and it was somebody else who was 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.760 barely older than he was. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.839 This was obviously an important turning point into True's life, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.520 which ended up with him leaving home at the age 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.400 of sixteen. We don't know a whole lot about this 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.480 time of his life. It's rumored that he lived for 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.959 a while with an older pedophile and that he got 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.520 involved with male prostitution. He worked on and off as 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.920 a mechanic while developing his skills as a small time criminal. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.520 In nineteen seventy nine, he was convicted of theft and 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.480 spent three months in prison. His favorite hobby was ice skating. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.120 In the early eighties, he started to spend more and 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:25.040 more time at ice rinks On several occasions, he was 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.080 kicked out of rinks for purposely causing girls to fall 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:33.520 down and then fondling them while helping them up. At 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.960 the age of twenty, he met a seventeen year old 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.320 orphan named Francoise Dubois, and the two got married. They 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.440 had two children together, but the relationship was troubled from 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.960 the start, and Francoise accused Mark of beating her. While 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.840 his wife was pregnant, Mark continued to hang out at 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.920 ice rinks, where he met a young woman named Michel Martin. 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.840 He divorced his first wife in nineteen eighty three, and 0:11:57.880 --> 0:11:59.880 then Michele moved in with him and they had a 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.920 boy together in nineteen eighty four. All the while he 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.520 got deeper in the crime, from stealing cars to shaking 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.280 down elderly women. He also started traveling to Slovakia for 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:16.880 various shady dealings. While there, he was accused of raping 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.840 two teenage girls and also brought young Slovakian girls with 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.840 him back to Belgium. His wife, Michelle Martin, was aware 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.440 of these rapes and even assisted Mark in tricking victims 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:29.760 and filming the crimes. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.680 To me the moment he met Michelle Martin, she was like, 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.400 I don't know whether I pronounced it right. By the catalisator. 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:46.400 You know, for instance, if you want to put a 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.080 piece of sugar on fire, you will not succeed. But 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.280 if you put some ashes which has already burned on 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.240 the piece of sugar and you put your match to it, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.280 it will take fire. And that's exactly what happened. Those 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:04.439 two met and by themselves they were a potential danger 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.040 most probably, but it's only by meeting and coming together 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:13.200 that suddenly the danger really got out. Indeed, people forget 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.079 or tend to forget that she was taking the pictures, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.160 that she was filming it on camera and stuff like that. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.719 She was involved right from the very first moment. So 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.800 it's not like she was an innocent bystander. I know. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.040 I've studied the file and I've studied, amongst other things, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 I've studied the relationship between them both, and I'm sure 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.360 that at that time it was possible for him to 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.080 do that because he had found literally but also in 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:41.880 a figure of speech, a partner in crime. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:42.360 Right. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:44.280 Do you think she was a psychopath? 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.439 Absolutely, I'm personally convinced that she is. First of all, 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.600 to do those things what happened, you have to be 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.320 a psychopath. And especially also the way in which those 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.559 things were done. Don't forget that. For instance, they also 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.560 went to Slovakia, and there is all so a list 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.880 of Slovokian girls that got raped and stuff like that. Eh, 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.160 I mean, this was not something they did just once. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.760 That was a way of life almost. 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.080 It was nineteen eighty five and Mark and his second wife, 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.720 Michelle Martin, were living in marginal existence in the shadows 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:25.360 of Charlevois. They befriended a man named Jean van Pettigam, 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:27.760 who was a drifter looking for a place to live. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.040 Jean van Pettigam left the army in the spring of 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.200 nineteen eighty five to marry his sweetheart and settle down 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.600 in the working class region of Charlewas. The marriage only 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.160 lasted a week, and Jean soon found himself penniless and 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.000 looking for a place to live. His new friend, Mark 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.240 the True, agreed to let him live in a run 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.840 down caravan parked in the yard of his house. Jean 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.560 was a perfect mark for the True. Young, broke and 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.520 not very clever, he was soon doing his bidding in 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:04.520 the market underworld of Charlevois. Although educated as an electrician, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.480 da True preferred stealing for a living, and he and 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.560 his new protegee, Jean, were learning the ropes in the 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.920 world of petty crime, from stealing cars to raiding work sites. 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.360 The two would hustle any angle to make a buck. 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.200 We know a lot about Jean van Pettigem's experience with 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.000 D'true from statements he later made to police and journalists. 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.680 On June seventh, nineteen eighty five, Jean van Pettigam stumbled 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.320 out of his caravan and joined de True and his wife, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.720 Michelle Martin for dinner. In their kitchen, De True was 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.480 animated that evening and suggested, quote, let's go out and 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.320 have some fun. His wife, Michelle Martin, knew exactly what 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.840 that meant and protested that she didn't want him to 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.920 take her car for that kind of fun. But Detrue 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.000 wasn't the kind of guy to let a woman tell him. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:51.320 What to do. 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.160 Soon, they were cruising the streets of Charlevois, and Detruz 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.800 spotted a young girl outside a municipal pool and suggested 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.440 they pick her up. Isn't she a bit young, said Jean, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.000 Just my type. Replied De Drue. Jean said he didn't 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.480 want to do it, but was indebted to the True, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:14.040 so he followed orders and jumped out and grabbed eleven 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:16.600 year old Sylvia by the waist with one hand over 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.840 her mouth, and threw her into the back passenger seat. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.320 Although this scene played out eleven years before the kidnapping 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.120 of Letitia de Les in Bertrie, it was strikingly similar. 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.640 A young girl on her way home from a swimming 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.400 pool was brutally snatched by markd True in a lackey accomplice. 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.080 This probably wasn't his first rodeo, and we certainly know 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.200 it wasn't his last, but at twenty nine, De True 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.920 still hadn't perfected his technique. It wasn't until years later 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.000 that he would decide to change his approach and never 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.280 let his victims go again. To True, his wife, Michele 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.880 and Jean Vanpettigin would go on to kidnap an assault 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.000 several more girls and young women in nineteen eighty five. 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.080 Out of respect for the victims, I will only refer 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:13.320 to them by their first names. On the seventeenth of 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.480 October nineteen eighty five, nineteen year old Maria was walking 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.760 to the store near the town of Bansh. Jean waited 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.240 on the sidewalk until she walked by, and then pushed 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.440 her into De tru'z pugeat van. There were two other 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.840 accomplices in the van that day who's still never been identified. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.240 One of them was described by Maria as a balding 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.639 man in his fifties. They took her to a house 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:46.040 and raped her several times before letting her go to 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.919 Truth threatened to kill her if she ever talked. A 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.320 few months later, on the fourteenth of December, a University 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:57.040 of Brussels medical student named Aksel traveled home for the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.560 weekend to the town of Naileen, just south of s Charlewois. 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:05.119 She left Brussels on Saturday afternoon by train to Charlerois, 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:15.800 where she boarded a bus to her hometown of neelim 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.280 Axcel exited the bus just after seven pm and started 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.359 walking home when she noticed a dirty white van that 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:29.399 seemed to be following her. Michel Martin was at the wheel, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:31.960 while Mark sat in the back of the van and 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.280 Jean got out. As she passed by them, the back 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.600 doors of the van flew open. Jean pushed her into 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.240 the van while Mark pulled her in from the inside. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.800 They immediately put masking tape over her eyes and took 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.240 her to a house where she was forced to undress 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.600 in front of all three of them. Axcel was locked 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.760 up in that house for almost twenty four hours and 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:02.439 repeatedly raped. Blowing Sunday, they dropped her off near her parents' 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.840 home in Neilin, but not before stealing her cash and 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:12.160 her pencil case. Just four days later, the trio struck again. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.640 Fifteen year old Elizabeth was riding her bike to school 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:22.120 on a cold December morning. In an almost identical abduction 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.160 to what would happen ten years later to Sabine Darden. 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.560 Elizabeth was ripped off of her bike and thrown into 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.399 a dirty van. The story to True told her was 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.439 also very similar to what he would tell Sabine several 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.480 years later, that her kidnapping and rape was vengeance for 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:45.160 something her father had done. Unlike Sabine, however, they let 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.960 her go twelve hours later, a miscalculation that to True 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.240 would later correct. As I mentioned in the beginning, Jean 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.520 van Pettign wasn't the cleverest man. He had given so 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.320 many details about himself during his conversation with victims that 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.960 police were able to piece it together and figure out 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.879 who he was. They arrested him on February third, nineteen 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.600 eighty six, and Van Petticum confessed to the police that 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.800 he was one of Excel's three kidnappers. There was no 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.040 point in denying it because investigators had found the girl's 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:24.159 pencil case during a search of his house. Under pressure 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.480 from police, Jean spilled the beans and admitted to carrying 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.600 out the kidnappings and rape with Detru and his wife Martin. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:38.080 He confessed to the abductions and rapes of Sylvia, Maria, Axcel, Elizabeth, 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.639 and a fifth victim named Catherine, who was kidnapped and 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:47.480 raped under similar circumstances. The True and Martin were also arrested. 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:52.240 Martin first denied everything, then confessed, and then later retracted 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:57.880 her confession. Under pressure from de True, he denied everything, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.199 and when they later convicted him, he declared himself a 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:06.240 victim and complained about a grave miscarriage of justice between 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.920 the arrest and the hearing. The True also came under 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:12.280 suspicion for another crime that involved the brutal robbery of 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.679 a fifty eight year old woman who was tortured for 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.840 three hours by de Truan two companions in her house 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:25.280 until she told them where the money was. On April 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.560 twenty sixth, nineteen eighty nine, the True was sentenced to 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.040 thirteen and a half years of prison. Van Petticum got 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.639 six and a half years and Martage got five years. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.480 The True sentence was longer because he was also convicted 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.680 of the brutal robbery of the woman. I was able 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.600 to track down one of Mark d' true's former cellmates 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.160 from his time in prison. This man's name is Danielle 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:53.879 de Jas. Danielle is soft spoken and articulate. He looks 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.760 nothing like a man who's been to prison three times. 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.720 He was a drug addict for twenty years and found 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:01.800 himself often the same prison as the True in the 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.560 late eighties, after getting busted for robbing a pharmacy in Charlehaugh, 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:08.879 I asked him to explain how he meant the True 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:09.920 in prison. 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.600 During free time, he would walk around the prison yard 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.680 with a chessboard. That's how we met, and we probably 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.600 played chess in the yard and he asked me to 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.600 be a cell mate, and that's how I ended up 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:34.119 with him. Afterwards, he turned out not to be easy 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.960 at all to live with, because everything had to be 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:42.120 exactly has. He decided, for example, to play chess when 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:46.080 he wanted, even if I didn't feel like playing. And 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:50.160 another thing at the time, I still smoked, and Marc 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:55.040 Dueto said he couldn't stand cigarette smoke. One time, he 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.800 was coming back from the shower and I was smoking 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.480 at the window, and he grabbed a table leg and 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.080 threw it at my head, really violently, only missing me 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.840 by a couple of centimeters. He completely denied kidnapping and 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:14.439 raping the young girls, but apparently it was filmed. I 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:18.000 don't know if he filmed it or an accomplice, but 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.800 he insisted that he had nothing to do with it 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:25.560 and that he had only seen video during questioning, and 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:27.480 he said that it showed a girl who had been 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.320 forced to get undressed and was blindfolded standing up on 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:36.119 a sofa, and the poor girl, blindfolded while standing on 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.119 the sofa, lost her balance and fell on her face. 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:43.040 And while he was telling me this, he was laughing, 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.680 like yayena, he thought it was so hilarious. It wasn't 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:50.320 funny at all, you know. It was a scene that 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:54.080 provoked compassion and pity to see the spoor girl to 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:58.119 be forcibly undressed and falling on her face. But he 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:02.080 thought it was irresistibly. And it was that sort of 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.119 thing that convinced me he was guilty, because his personality 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.639 fits so well with what he was accused of doing. 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:11.960 At one point, he told me he wanted to build 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:16.119 a hiding place, extremely well built and discreet. And he 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:19.679 explained what he actually did a few years later, and 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:22.879 he told me he needed help to build it. I said, listen, 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:26.040 I'm not interested. Why would I help you to do that? 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:29.120 And he said, well, you can hide your drugs there. 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.040 And at that point I clicked and said you want 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:35.320 to build that to hide girls? And he didn't answer. 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:36.399 And then I'll. 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:39.800 Remember clearly when I saw on television years later that 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:43.040 it was marked du true, I thought, oh my god, 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:43.760 he did. 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:54.639 It while in prison, the true one about positioning himself 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:58.160 as a model in me. He even attended AA meetings 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:01.840 despite never having been a serious dress His good behavior 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:05.680 earned him several temporary releases, where, accompanied by a guardian, 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:10.160 he visited his ailing grandmother. She was incoherent and didn't 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:12.760 even know he was in prison at the time, he 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:15.639 introduced the guardian as a friend, and the latter was 0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:20.240 impressed with Detrue's devotion and generosity. Of course, Mark de 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:23.440 True knew that this guardian also sat on the parole board. 0:25:24.840 --> 0:25:28.200 Never want to miss an opportunity, he was also using 0:25:28.200 --> 0:25:30.800 these visits to sow the seeds that would help him 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.040 fleece his grandmother out of her pension and house after prison. 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:39.480 In nineteen ninety one, Mark's mother, Jeanine Lawance, wrote several 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.800