On Saturday, March 22, 1997 in the morning, the police officer Olivier Motte, head of the equestrian brigade of Mons, in Belgium, patrols on his horse in the south of the city. The policeman surveys the rue Emile Vandervelde, where it borders the Paris-Brussels railway line. His attention is attracted by a big red cat which, in the embankment, goes after what appears to be a plastic toy.
Olivier Motte ends up distinguishing what looks like a white hand emerging from a black garbage bag. A bloody, human hand. The bag appears to contain other remains of the victim.. The Mons police station is alerted. The area is sealed off. Everybody go then go from terrifying surprise to terrifying surprise…
After all, there is not a single trash bag that contains human remains, but eight in total, discovered over a hundred meters. They were disseminated in a methodical way, all perfectly attached to make them airtight. The eighth bag was suspended in the branches in a staging that could evoke the exhibition of a trophy…
Bodies left in evocative places
Packages contain arm, torso, leg pieceswhich belong to three different people, all adult women. They have all been methodically cut as one would in a butcher’s laboratory. The heads are however absent…
On Sunday March 23, 1997, a ninth bag was discovered, containing the bust of a woman, bringing the number of victims to four. Then a tenth bag… And it doesn’t stop. A total of five women killed and 37 body parts always left in places with evocative names. Investigators do not believe in chance…
For Alessandra d’Angelo, guest of The time of the crime this January 25, if the killer still remains untraceable today, it is largely because the investigators have not sought enough to establish the profile of the perpetrator of these crimes. “We have profiled the victims and not enough the clues that the author has voluntarily left”she explains.
The lawyer and former investigative journalist continues: “A psychopath has this desire to be publicized, he had this double need for recognition, emotional with the women he killed and media. Butchering is a form of fetishism. I think this man must have been a believer, Catholic, practicingand if we had followed those kinds of clues, we might have targeted him faster.”
The guests of “The hour of crime”
Alessandra d’Angeloformer lawyer at the Brussels Bar and investigative journalist
Liliane SchrauwenBelgian writer, author of the book Major criminal cases in Belgium published by De Borée
Ronald Dersinpress photographer for the Belgian edition of Paris Match
Skinner of Mons: what is the profile of this assassin who dismembered his victims?