From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our colleague Nol is not with us today, but we'll be returning shortly. They called b Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Ball Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Today's show takes us across the Atlantic Ocean to Belgium, where not too long ago, a serial killer terrorize the country. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Belgian citizens marched in a public protest against what they saw as a high ranking ongoing conspiracy, a genuine and horrific cover up. Matt. With any kind of episode or conversation like this, we always take pains to note this show will contain at times graphic descriptions of violence and abuse. As such, this may not be appropriate for all listeners. But we're not diving into today's show alone. We are joined by the one and only Mr Matt Graves, the host and creator of the new Tenderfoot I Heart Show, le Monstra, thanks for joining us today, Matt Hey, thanks for having me. Guys, thrilled to be here. We couldn't be more excited to have you on, Matt. Full disclosure everybody. As with most of these Tenderfoot shows, i am executive producer on it, so I've got a bit of a bias in how killer on the show. I a couple of times, but not as me, uh, just as like a random reporter number seven, I think a couple of times. But honestly, this is I wouldn't want to bring on any of these shows unless I felt strongly about the story, honestly, and this one is supremely important for everyone to know to listen to the show just to understand the story of what's going on here. Ben and I think you share that that feeling. This story is of high importance. Agreed. Yeah, we um on stuff that I'll wants you to know. We often, we often go on air with things that have personally captivated us. And this story, which you will you'll often here referred to as the Detro affair. Uh. This has been a story going on for decades and tragically there Uh, there's still many questions that remain unanswered in the modern day here in about this. So, uh, Matt, you're based in Belgium now, you're from Texas originally, and you are the creator of Harry as well as the creator and host of La Monstra. Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to investigate this harrowing case. Yeah? Thanks. Um. So, I'm from Austin, Texas, grew up there, um, and then wound up just by chance actually coming to Europe. I was bumming around after university and there was a girl involved and all that kind of stuff, and I thought I would stay in Belgium for just a little while, but ended up staying here for a very long time. And have you know, a house, a wife, kids and pets, the whole catastrophe. So I'm I'm completely living in Europe now and have been since. And was the year I moved to this country. And I actually moved here, I think within two weeks of the first disappearance that we cover in Laments the podcast. Um, and I remember it, I I just remember it. It was a big deal, this affair, and I even remember it before the perpetrator was caught because these posters of of of these missing girls were we're everywhere, and their parents were really fighting to try to find them, and you you know, you couldn't be a person living in Belgium without knowing who these little missing girls were. Almost their parents were doing such a good job of getting the posters out and you know, being on TV and talking about it and so forth. So it sort of literally corresponds with my that my my entire life in Belgium kicked off exactly when this affair started, and I've been here for the you know, for twenty seven years afterwards, with one exception, I spent one year living in the Great State of Oregon, which was a wonderful experience. Brought my whole family there for a year. That was a couple of years ago. But yeah, I've I've lived here and lived through the fair as a Belgian would have. In one of the episodes, you describe a scene in I believe a grocery store where a mother was desperately looking for her daughter. Could you just describe that really quickly. Yeah, it was a scene that played out a lot for quite a while here, and to a certain extent, maybe even still because what was going on is is you had a lot of girls disappearing and uh, you know, Belgium is a small place. It's a small country. It's like ten million people at that time, and um, you know, and then it starts coming out that there are you know, these awful stories that are happening. Um. And it was sort of like a psychosis that hit the street and people were afraid. And I remember, I mean I told that like in an opening I think in one of the episodes about it's a true story about being in a supermarket and just a woman looking for a kid, you know, and it's like she's calling out for a kid, and it's like, okay, yeah, I lost in a supermarket. I mean, I've lost my kid in a supermarket a few times, and you know, it wasn't that big of a deal. Um. And but she was hysterical. I mean she was going nuts, you know. And and then like people were like and then everyone everyone started looking for the girl and stuff. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll help find the girl too. And I was thinking, wow, it's a big deal to lose your kid here, you know, like um, and then it was leaving the supermarket. There, I saw the posters of of the first posters of Julian Melissa, who are the first two victims in this affair, and then the second posters were actually the last two victims, uh, Sabine and Letitia, and and they were just sort of on the same poster board and sort of hit me like, oh wow, yeah, that's right. There is a lot of stuff going on with Like, you know, I was twenty something years old. I wasn't real focused on it, but it was it was sort of like a hit me like, oh yeah, okay, this is you know, things are going on here. It's kind of people are terrorized about their kids getting abducted. And before we get into the primary person involved in this story, Uh, Mattter, I wonder if you wouldn't mind just describing how these disappearances were occurring, Like how were people being abducted? What do we know about that? Yeah, well, at the time, we knew very little because they were just disappearing. Um, almost no clues. There were no clues in in this In the six disappearances we cover in this uh, in this series, there were no clues at all for any of them. Um. It was literally girls just disappearing in broad daylight, um, which you know is quite uncommon. There's usually at least something, but in these cases there was absolutely nothing except for the last girl who disappeared, which thankfully there was a little something that led them to make an arrest. You know, one of the things that stands out, and that you emphasize in the show, through interviews and through archival reporting, is that the there's a fact that people kept sticking on with these um these appear disappearances that begin episode one, and it's that two victims disappear at the same time. And I believe what I believe that part of why this became such a subject of national attention was that same lack of evidence that you you describe, right at least in the beginning, Um, Matt, you set us up perfectly with the discussion of the the villain, the monster for whom the Detro affair is named. So, uh, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about this character, uh, this individual Mark Detro, and how he how the Belgian public and law enforcement first began to associate him with this string of horrific crimes. Yeah, and as you mentioned, two girls disappearing at once is very rare and it's much more difficult to do than kidnapping one victim. Um. And he tended to go in pairs and um. So the true was a you know Belgian guy who came up in a family two teachers. His parents were both teachers. Uh, not a great family like most times when you have these awful sort of psychopaths. His mother was super protective, his dad was a bit rough with him. And he also spent some time in the Belgian Congo very young in his life. So at that time it was called the Belgian Congo. Now we know it is Congo um and you know African country that was once a colony of Belgium. And so they were there, I guess they were doing a teaching stint for for a little while, and then came back to Belgium and ended up living in this place called Charleroi, which is really kind of like almost like a Pittsburgh type of place, you know, kind of gritty, um industrial and at that time very poor, uh, and lots of crime and sort of just seedy, seed nous and underworld. And and he kind of came up in that the grimy streets of Charleroi as I say, um, and he was, Yeah, he was a bad kid early on and got kicked out of school a couple of times and was always involved with just bad stuff like being a bad kid basically. UM. And then his mother she ended up leaving his father, and then his mother got a new boyfriend who was basically like a year old or than the true or something like that, and that was a real shocker for him. He frequently comes back to that as being a key moment in his life. And I think he was sixteen and he left home after that, and then he really that there's a real whole in terms of our understanding of his details of his life at you know, from sixteen until about We do know though that he he was basically he studied and he became an electrician technically on paper, but really what he was doing is becoming a petty thief, stealing cars, uh, doing all kinds of you know, basic street crime and all of that. Um. And you know, that's the sort of that there was Also when when he was eighteen, it's believed that he ended up living with a pedophile UM and that it was it's believed that during that time he himself became a male prostitute. Um. I don't think that was his main job, but he was just doing it. Um. So it kind of goes from bad to worse with this guy. Um, he's you know, living in a bad neighborhood, becoming a thief, not getting along with his dysfunctional family, leaving leaving home at sixteen years old. Uh, you know, getting into more crime, living with some deranged pedophile, and becoming a male prostitute. Uh. And now he's only eighteen, right, So from there, um, he like I see, we don't know all that much. But afterwards, in the eighties, he really starts getting into crimes against women or I should say girls and young women. Uh. And that's his first wave of crimes outside of his regular criminal activity because he was constantly a criminal. Basically, he was a full time criminal, mostly involved in in stealing cars and not just stealing but trafficking them. Right. There's a big there's a big sort of almost mafia lad deal in Europe, and Belgium was a big place where a lot of that took place. So you know, stealing cars and thin numbers and then moving them on and doing all that sort of car theft stuff. Uh. And then but I guess he made his first forays into into raping people and he he you know, the first ones that we know about, which there probably were others. Uh, you know, we're young girls. I think one of his first victims was eleven years old, UM, and he abducted her and raped her, UM, threatened you know that if she's told me one, he would kill her, took pictures and that's another recurring theme with him, and let her go. Um. And then from there, you know, there were four more girls that we know of at this time that were abducted, UM, sequestered and abused up to twenty four hours I think was the longest he would hold them. Um. They are known. It's known that there were other perpetrators involved. And at this time as well, his wife got involved, or his second wife, I should say, and she was actually involved. I mean she she was literally driving the van when they would go abductive girl. UM. And so yeah, it's really dodgy and it's really dark, but then it gets darker after that. Let's pause here for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive back into the harrowing story. The Monstra and we're back, Matt, can you tell us about the timeline a little bit like when when is de tro Kidney happening girls or at least assaulting girls? And then how does that lead up to the victims that are talked about in La Monstra. Yeah, so that that that spade that I kind of went through. That started five when he was twenty nine years old, he met his second wife. He was had a drifter who was living in a caravan in his uh in his shitty a house that he had down in Charlois, and those three of them, his wife, this guy who was a guy named Jean van Pettigum who's not real, not real smart guy, basically kind of a loser. Um. And uh, he the True and the and his wife, and this guy went out and kidnapped and raped these five girls um and eventually got caught and John van Petegem spilled the beans on the True and his wife and they were both arrested, and all three of them were arrested, and and uh, you know, he was held in in jail and then went to trial and then was convicted um of of raping and abusing these five girls. And they also convicted him because he had he had done a shakedown on an elderly woman as well, and basically yeah, it was violent and and and extorted money from her. So he got sent in killed. None of them were, none of them were. They were all left alive. And I think you know that changed his calculus for his future wave of crimes. But what happened then is he was you know, he was convicted. He was since the thirteen and a half years um, and he only served a total of a belief six years. I mean, he was convicted in nine and he was out by that. He had time served before that, so um into the true was let out of prison, and the week or something before, his mother wrote a letter to the warden begging them not to let her son out of prison, saying, we're worried about what he's gonna do. Um, so she was. I think she wrote a couple of letters. Right. Um, So he rolls out of prison and his wife at that time waited for him, Michel Marta. And yeah, then you know that he Belgium is a strange place. You know, you can you can get a pension or or or social support here more easily than you could in other countries, and he managed to you know, he was such a manipulator for everything actually, so he really always was always manipulating everything to his advantage. And he figured out away with him and his wife to get this state pension um and then he got them to prescribe him powerful sort of tranquilizers and including rypnol. And it's sort of like, you know, suddenly here you got a guy he raped five kids and and not just raped them, I mean it was bad. It was like he raped them and you know, abused them and held them for twenty four hours and warehouses and took pictures and you know, awful stuff. And then he gets out with a really light you know, spend six years in jail in prison, and then he gets out and gets a punt pension which is enough to live on because he gets it both for him and his wife. And then uh, they gave him a bunch of for hypno and it's like okay, so now he's he's collecting his for hypninal and he gets right back into the game. He starts uh stealing again, getting involved in the criminal networks and Charle Wau and then he gets you know, called out a few times for he was molesting girls at like ice ice rinks. Um. You know, he got caught for that as well, you know. Uh. And he then at that time started going to Slovakia as well, Uh, Slovakia and Eastern Europe. And I think he had thoughts that he could do good, you know, dodgy illegal things between Slovakia and and Belgium involving probably human trafficking. Um. And it's known and he was known that he did rape at least two victims in Slovakia and he actually had to um girls who visited him in Belgium with his wife, you know, almost like as exchange student type of things, and he raped them too, um. And he he drugged them and raped them. And in fact, one of the victims never knew she was raped until after he was arrested the second time, and they found a cassette of him raping her. So he was a he was a real piece of ship, uh, this guy. And he then what was started started putting together his plans for his next big crime spreef or or or sexual crime spree if you will. This is again this is incredibly dark and disturbing stuff. But folks listening along at home believe it or not. This is only the beginning of the larger story. And one thing that you point out there, Matt is not just his activities going abroad regarding the abuse of children, but he was still doing the petty crime you described throughout this period as well, which we mentioned in no way are we drawing an equivalency between the gravity of those uh those crimes. We mentioned this because it is further evidence that someone at the very least dropped the ball in in the course of this investigation and when when Matt, Frederick and I were getting familiarized with this. Of course, you know we are not Belgian legal experts, right, We don't know, We don't know the Belgian justice system. But it does seem astonishing just from the outside looking in that someone could commit any sort of crime at such regular intervals, right, let alone sexual abuse, torture and kidnapping and you know, later murder. It seems astonishing that someone could continually go through the system and then come back out. And one thing you point out in the Monster is that he Detroit Detroit is the pension he and his wife were receiving at this point is higher than the average Belgian salary at that time. Yeah. So here's a guy who's on pension now and then he sets about buying houses. He was a clever person. He likes to think he's in a super intelligent person. Maybe he's, you know, decently intelligent, but he's very clever. He's very crafty and manipulative. He ended up on this state pension together with his petty crimes, buying five different properties. He bought these run down, shitty houses and then he would become a slum lowered and rent him out to people. Um. So he built up a whole sort of life despite having already you know, I think about it. You got you got a guy who rapes five kids, gets thrown in jail for six years, comes out and start buying houses. And he didn't have any money from to start with. He didn't inherit any money, this guy. Um, and then you talk about dropping balls. Well that's where this gets really really crazy, right, So we only talked about the first crime spree. The second rhyme spree is what we're covering in the most and there we have starts with the disappearance of two girls, um, and then uh, there's more disappearances and then more and then another one Um. And the crazy thing about this is just so crazy, is that these parents were so convinced that their kids were still alive. Now, most parents usually are they don't want to give up. But these particular parents of the first two victims, Julie and Melissa were their names. They were eight year old girls who disappeared. They were only away from their mother for fifteen minutes. They wandered off for fifteen minutes and wound up being abducted, abducted, and you know, it was like it was a small you know, it was not that big of a deal. Wasn't a national story. You got two missing girls, right, So, Um. The thing is though, and they did a campaign. They never gave up with their campaign, and for fourteen months, fourteen months they they they were still in the media, still fighting, and police and justice sort of abandoned this family. And all that time, all that time, police is number one suspect. After two weeks after the girls went missing, was marked the true And then this whole thing becomes really like very It's it's hard. I mean, if balls can be dropped at that level, then this is the you know, ultimate ball drop in the history of police work. But it's so blatantly awful that you think maybe there's a reason they didn't want to find him. I think we need to arm our listeners with a little bit of context around the police or the authorities at that time. Matt Um, just tell us really quickly, what is the gender marie and how does that different from the local police force. Yeah, so in in Belgium at the time, you had technically three police forces. You have the municipal police, you had them the judicial police, and then you had the Gendarmerie, which was like our FBI, and the judicial police, which is like sort of a big national police, but separate than the separate from the FBI. Uh. The Gendarmerie is a military structure, so um. You know, the heads of the genemie were colonels and whatever generals or whatever, um, and so you had and you definitely had a backdrop of strong rivalry between jurisdictions, and so the genre marie, we're constantly trying to undermine the judicial police and vice versa. And so you know what kind of happened here is that the Gendarmerie were the ones who kind of started picking up on the true as a possible suspect here and what they did is they went off in secret and decided to start trying to surveil him and and to do their own little secret operation normal Lee. They needed to ask for a warrant and to and to do that you have to go to a judge, and that judge works with the judicial police, not the gendamerie, right, so the gean Marie. Uh didn't want to give up the scoop, if you will. They wanted to be the guys who caught or a lot of people think they wanted to be the guys who caught these girls because they're these girls. Faces were plastered all over the media, and you know, suddenly they've caught on to market the true as a possible suspect. But they never arrest him. They never arrest the guy I'm talking fourteen months later their bodies were found, those two girls two weeks after they disappeared. He was already a suspect, and then a month after that he was their number one suspect. And and they never issued a warrant, they never did a search, they never did anything. And it's just it's just mind boggling. It's mind boggling, Yeah, it is, Uh And and the idea of jurisdictional turf wars makes sense. That's that's a very real thing. But also we have to, you know, we have to objectively ask ourselves some really difficult questions when we talk about what what you describe as the biggest ball drop in the in the history of policing. Um, I tend to agree, and it's it's quite understandable, even if you consider yourself a died in the wool skeptic, it is quite understandable how so many members of the Belgian public would begin to suspect that there was something beyond incompetence that could explain some of the missing steps in these investigations. And what what you're saying now here about the jurisdictional police relationship with with justices, it makes me wonder without sounding too conspiratorial, hopefully it may makes me wonder whether the Jenda Marie was concerned that they would get shut down by the judges if they asked for a warrant. Would you say that would is that a possible motivation for them. It's very interesting that you're asking that question, because what they ended up doing was this state did this stupid surveillance operations so they think the true could be involved, and so they do this secret literally secret Operation a Fellow they called it. And they started surveiling his house, but only during daylight hours, which is odd, um, and they were filming it and they were taking you know, uh, license plate numbers of people driving it out of the neighborhood and that kind of stuff. But it's sort of the next logical step would be you have to do a warrant or make an arrest or something, but you can't do that legally without going to the judge. And as soon as you go to the judge, the judge is going to say, Okay, let's get the judicial police on this, right or you know, or maybe okay, gendarme, you need to work together with the judicial police and and and go in and do this together. But they didn't want to do that. They really wanted to keep it as their own. But keeping it as their own made it such that they had to keep it a secret. And so it gets so ridiculous at some point after the surveillance, and it's one of the saddest parts of the whole story is that, um, they don't ever go into that house until the true gets arrested for something else, He gets arrested for something else. He gets arrested for some car theft thing. Okay, this is in December. This is six months, seven months after the girls disappeared. And only then did they go in the house and guess what, they didn't do it with a warrant to search for girls. They used the warrant for this car theft thing, and they secretly went and looked for the girls, apparently as they say they did it. It's just so weird. It's like, Okay, you know, obviously there's a warrant out for this guy because he was involved in stealing cars, but they still they can't get a warrant because he's possibly involved in kidnapping children. It's crazy. It's just crazy. And we'll pause here for a word from our sponsor before returning with more from Matt Graves. And we've returned. What we're what we're seeing is, from some perspectives, a a matter of tracing bread crumbs, right with the benefit of retrospect when you're looking at the ensuing investigation. Um we're talking about, you know how, maybe there was a bit of shooting oneself in the foot by having this secrecy right for whatever motivation. Um, let's get to let's get to the moment where they do find evidence that whether an OTHELLO or related related incidents. Let's get to the moment where they do find evidence that de Trourou has has been committing these crimes or has been abducting and holding these victims. How do they find this out? So we're we're in the we're in the house were one of the properties. We have the we have to go ahead to look into uh, car theft or you know, auto related crimes. But we're we're using that as a cover to figure out what's going on with this wave of abductions and torture. How do they break the case? Well, what happens is that the gendarmes don't break it on their own. Um. And and that's always that That's why this is so mysterious, because when you look at it, you could say, Okay, this isn't that hard to understand. These guys wanted to be the Knights insurance shining armor, right, I mean, these poor cute little girls, Julia Molliss had been missing. It was highly televised and people were you know, everyone felt concerned and they didn't want the judicial police to make the rest. They wanted to go make the arrest. That would have been all logical. The part that gets illogical as they never made the arrest, and so the only way the arrest was made was afterwards they were they were forced to make an arrest because there was the last victim, Leticia de Liz went missing and she was a fourteen year old girl and she was abducted in a place called Bertri, which is in the south of Belgium, in the Ardennes region, beautiful region. And um, there were a couple of witnesses who noticed a few things, one of which was this dirty white van. I mean it sounds like stereotypical. I mean there they were in a dirty white van, you know. Um. And and then there was another witness who who was actually a sister in the order, um, a sister at a Catholic church, who also saw that van. And the police sort of zeroed in on that, and they had this in what you call a king's prosecutor. The Belgium isn't monarchy, and so a high level prosecutor are are called the crown prosecutor or a king's prosecutor. And this particular prosecutor had the jurisdiction over this area where this girl had disappeared. And he just happens to be this wildly incredible individual who just jumped on it immediately, Unlike a lot of the other paper pushing kind of people. He just was like, oh was this girl went missing? And he got in his car and drove to this you know, drove to the town and started running a police operation basically um and and basically you know through him and his investigating judge that he you know, in Belgium you have to have an investigating judge. When you're gonna go do something serious and start asking for warrants and all that, you needed judge behind you. And so he got his judge, this guy named Conrad so Boulet is the is the famous prosecutor, and Conrad is the famous judge. And these guys just went whole hog and they found the true and they arrested him and they got it through a license plate, and they did a bunch of work. It wasn't easy. They had to They really had to do a bunch of police work to get to find him. Right, because there was these two witnesses who witnessed them and is strangely, this second witness, this young man, he remembered the first three letters of this license plate and the make and model of that fan. And he did because A he was kind of an engineering kid who loved to like memorize things and be and he's an engineer today, by the way, um and be is that he uh, he was afraid that this crappy looking van parked in the street might try to steal his bike or something, so he's like made him in the note, I'll remember that license plate. And then it only came up really by chance. It was literally by chance, because they were interviewing everyone canvassing the area and someone said, oh, well, you know, and then he was the boyfriend of someone who knew the sister, and it was almost random that they interviewed this guy and they thought he had seen someone and he was like, no, no, didn't see anyone. Didn't see anyone, and only a sort of in the middle of the interview and they said, is there anything else that you saw? He was like, oh, yeah, I did see this van. It was a little weird. I thought they were gonna steal my bike. Ah. And oh, by the way, I know the license plate number, damn. And then they did the search and then they got seventy seven hits, and then they narrowed it down and then they pops up to Truth's name. And of course, you know, now you've got the John Darmes can't control this anymore because you've got an investigating judge and the King's prosecutor on the case. Right, So this these guys are like, who the hell is this guy? And then they look into the files and they're like, oh my god, Yeah, this is guy's a he's awful. He's raped, you know, five kids and went to jail for it, and he's been you know, there's multiple leads that he's building basements and his seller. Let's go get this guy. You know, That's what happened. And and so the gendarmer he didn't do it on their own. They they they almost didn't want to do it, you think, actually, and somehow they got undermined by the by the investigating judge and the and the prosecutor. Well, let's talk about the consequences that that occur, because the Gen. D. Murray kind of slows their role for some reason early on in the investigation. Let's talk about and and Fa and some of the other victims, because if many more victims were picked up after they knew the true was the guy, or at least had deep suspicion. Yeah, and that's that's the real sad part of this story, is that you know he's their number one suspect. But after that, he went and kidnapped to teenage girls on the Belgian seaside, seventeen and eighteen year old Anne Martial and if Lambres come from the Flemish side of the country, so speaking a different language, Flemish is like Dutch. And then in the south where Julie Melissa disappeared as the French speaking region and um then uh, he kidnapped two more girls, um and and these were both French speaking girls. But you think about it, like all four of those, you know, should never have really been kidnapped, because he should have been investigated, and if he would have been investigated properly, they certainly would have found Julian Melissa his first two victims, because this is where the story gets really dark. But he built a seller, He built a dungeon in his basement where he kept these eight year old girls, and he kept them there locked up in a dark, damp, tiny room, and um, he would take them out every once in a while and abuse them and put them back in. Um. And it's it's the saddest story you'll almost ever come across, because, um, what happens to those two girls is when he's arrested, okay, for a car theft, they're still there. And now they're in an empty house and it's December in Belgium. It's cold, and it's damp, and it's dark, and the true is not there, and no one's there except for the stupid ass gendarmes who are still, you know, trying to surveil him somehow, and go look at his house and and you know, we think that most likely those girls were sitting there when they went in and did that search that they were faking. You know, they were pretending to be searching for car stuff, but they were supposably looking for little girls. And you know, underneath their noses were these two little girls in this basement, starving to death. And and you know, it even gets worse in that while they're down there in the basement looking and this guy Michaux, the John Darmos in charge, knew he was looking for girls. Knew he was looking for Julian Melissa. And he's there with a locksmith. And the locksmith is there to open doors and do things that you need to do when you're doing it, you know, a search. And the locksmith has no idea why he's there. He's just there with the police, right, it's not his business. So, but there's voices they hear a little. The locksmith is sure he heard little voices and he heard this whispering voice sound and he's like, white stop and and and basically this this John Darme says, shut up to everybody, uh, and then the voices stopped right. And afterwards, when you learn what happened to these girls and how they were manipulated and how the true told him a story, how they were bad people coming to get them and he was actually protecting them, you understand that if they heard that, they were like, oh, very quiet, the bad people and maybe here, and so they were really quiet, and then they didn't find them, um, and so they left the house. And and afterwards, you know, under oath at the court of the proceedings, this this locksmith, you know, he said, I don't know anyone if they would have known that they were looking for girls, which I did not at the time. I don't know anyone who would have left that house without tearing it to pieces. Um And you know, it's just another one of those things. It's just another one of this story. And believe me, we've only gotten to a little tip of the iceberg here. This story keeps going. This story goes and it goes and it and it has almost every thing that you can imagine. Um, I don't want to. I've got there. There's there. There's parts of it where it gets so crazy that it's not just crazy police stuff. The story just gets crazier on many levels. Um. And and around episode nine, it's going to take a big turn that people are going to be like, what, that's the last thing in the world that they were going to be expecting and it happened, and it's all true. It's just all true. That's why I did this. I started this being suspicious. I I hate conspiracy theories. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I thought, oh, this was just incompetence. And but it's an incredible story, you know, because it almost led to the demise of the entire country. Actually the biggest protest in the history of this country. Um. But but you know, when I came into it, I was very skeptical. But now I'm like, oh my god, something something was going on there, Something was going on. Right, It's unusual for a criminal investigation to lead to things like the judge being kicked off of a case, ministers resigning, hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets. Uh. And this maybe we talk a little bit about this because we don't look, folks fell conspiracy realists listening along at home. There is excellent, excellent research in this show. And again it is. It is disturbing, but as you said, Matt, it is also undeniably true. The facts are there. One thing I think we could we could talk about a little bit is maybe we can We're mentioning some of the missed opportunities and investigation and I'm being very diplomatic calling them that. But let's let's also go back to the first judge. You called him the famous judge, right this Uh, this one comes up when people are learning about the story. But he's not the only judge because he was dismissed from the case due to a conflict of interest. Could you tell us a little bit about what led to his dismissal. Yeah, and that's really when the ship had the fan here in Belgium was when so this guy was these this couple of this prosecutor in this judge Boule and Conrad everyone like these guys, you could tell that they were just rolling up their sleeves and saying, damnit, these girls are going disappearing. We're not going to let this stand in our country. We're going to find whoever did this, and we're gonna not stop until we find everybody involved. Right And and he was already almost sort of a hero of the people for for just getting so involved and getting results early on, as soon as it crossed his jurisdiction, right um. And then you know, suddenly, uh, they were both invited to like a dinner to say thank you, you know, for finding the Leticia Dudas who who had disappeared and was saved. Um and right. Like it was like a formal, like just a thing, potluck dinner. It was thrown by like the little village where she was from. It's a tiny little village and the parents and stuff. We're just like all these two heroes who found my daughter and we want to invite him for a spaghetti dinner, you know, like probably worth about three bucks, you know, total total investment. Uh. And lawyers for the True saw this picture of Conrad there. He was a judge, so technically he shouldn't be there because he's supposed to be neutral, although I don't think his neutrality was compromised by him being there, you know. Anyway, the Court of the Seas ruled all that and said, no, you're out, Um, we've got to take him off the case. And man, at that point, that's when everyone was already piste off about this thing. And then when that happened, everyone just you know, like I said, the ship hit the fan here in Belgium, I mean people, you know, the Hell's Angels rolled into town literally and you know that. One of the images that that I'll never forget is imagine a fired fire brigades like fire engines pulled up to the Supreme Court and hosing it down, just literally hosing it down to symbolize that the court and the law and is corrupt and we're turning our hoses against the Supreme Court to give it a washing down because it's all corrupt. And dirty and we've had enough. And and like it was, you're talking three over three percent of the entire population protested that day. That's that's the equivalent like ten million people in America rights unheard of level. You've got fire departments sprang down the Supreme Court, You've got uh all of the Hell's Angels of Belgium rolling into town. You've got just people, just everybody in the streets just going nuts about like no, we cannot have this. This has to stop. And and luckily, luckily the parents who are who are wonderful people, the parents of these victims, they're incredible people like that. That's part of the whole story is that they stopped everyone from tearing everything down. They were like, oh, come with us, and let's do a peaceful march insisting about how this all has to change and we need to clean up this system and get results in these cases. And it was a big moment of national solidarity. Everyone came together and supported these families. And these families were from two language. It's almost like, you know, a big congregation of Republicans and Democrats coming together and hugging each other and saying, we all need to you know, work better and be better and do things, you know, together and achieve greatness and fix everything. You know. That's because those are those communities don't mix very well. You know, they have long historical grievances, and so they really came together at this point and it was an amazing moment. It's incredible. It's a great picture too. And that's actually what episode seven is largely based around. Right, that just came out. It's called LaMarche Blanche. Oh, how how would you say it? Matt? I'm sorry, the Witch, the Frenches, La Marche blanche, the White March. Yes, um, And it really does focus on that, and just man, there's so much information in there. I just really want wanna ask you. You spoke with Karin Is that how you say her name? Russo? One of the mother of Melissa Russo, who is one of the victims. And she has this quick quote that I just want you to react to when it comes to I guess the White March and how people were feeling at the time. She states the gendarmes seemed like guys who wanted to find the girls, but at the same time, they seemed like they were afraid of everything. What what do you think that means that this police force was afraid of everything. Well, I think, and this is such a hard mystery about why the gendarmes didn't act right? Um? And I think and she thinks that those guys that she was talking to on a daily basis, and even the guy who missed, you know, missed the girls when they were looking for them, and that they were low level guys in the gendarmerie. But there was something bigger going on there. There were some people upstairs who had decided that they didn't want to do what they should have done. And the big question mark is why? Right? Uh? And I mean, I mean some people just say it was all incompetence. A lot of people still say that, But when you look at it and studied as hard as I have, you can't have that much smoke without some fire. There was something wrong, Something was going on right now? Was was it that they were protecting this crazy pedophile? No, I mean the Drew was a loser. They didn't give a damn about him. Um. Was it? Was it that they were protecting one of the Drew's customers who might be high ranking John darm or politician? Maybe? Was it something a lot more complicated, probably probably to do with the police war, war between the police services and and the stolen car network and various levels of of of sort of corruption within the police. And there was some reason, some reason that they didn't want to go in there. And I think they might have seen if you're skeptical, or if you're a cynic, you say they saw the girls as basically collateral damage. We have a big because they were in a war. They were literally trying to take over the police force at this time, and they were trying to to to to bury the judicial police, and they wanted to take over the judicial police and put them underneath the gendarmerie and make the gendarmerie the law of the land. And this was stated all the way from the top of the organization. And this was a ten year strategic plan like within these don't forget it's a military operation, and and they could have seen like this, they've got something and they're doing something here, and for some reason they didn't want to go get the true And as I swear to you, it's it's so hard to understand. Either they were protecting someone or it has something to do with a very complicated thing related to that stole and car ring that the judicial police were dirty on they were involved. The judicial police were involved, they were corrupt, they were involved with the mafia and the and the car theft rings in Shara, and so there's speculation that maybe they were trying to show up trying to catch the judicial police, but that the True was in the way somehow and they or or if they if they if they caught him, then they didn't get to win their long battle of of of undermining the judicial police. But it's just it's just crazy and it's it's Uh, whatever they were doing, they didn't do their job, that's for sure. Well let's you know, let's follow up on this, because one thing that stands out to me when you talk about we're talking about the Belgian public coming together in such an enormous show of solidarity, is that they were coming together, at least in some aspect two, to protest against what they saw as another much more sinister form of operation. Right, the the allegations were that, uh, the True was not alone. Right, the idea that he was not simply I don't want to diminish this, The ideas that he was not simply a monstrous criminal with no other motivation than the commission of monstrous crimes, but that he had as you as you mentioned Matt, that he had customers, that he had financial motivation, that he was connected with some sort of larger, um larger operation on on its own. And this is I think one of the one of the aspects of the story that remains mysterious to a lot of observers, the the concept that this individual may have had accomplices. And sometimes when people are talking about that aspect, they point to things that we've discussed, like the fact that he was regularly getting off very easily for horrific crimes, or the fact that so many aspects of investigation seemed to be stone walled or somehow stymied or even just completely ignored, like um like DNA testing for instance, which feels like day one stuff. In this kind of investigation. You know all about the the alleged and the proven accomplices, proven being his wife for instance, uh and and some of his other accomplices in car theft and car trafficking crimes. But what do you think about the allegations that, uh, if we just look at this as a thought experiment, what do you think about the allegations that there was a larger network at play and that he was just sort of a field agent for that for that initiative. Yeah, this is the biggest question that still divides people today. Um for me personally, just looking at it, Uh, it seems you just got to go back to the facts again. Let's go back to the facts, like what was the true? The true didn't ever do anything for without money. Everything he did was to make money, every single thing. And he was notoriously cheap. I mean he bought the cheap ship for everybody else and saved the good stuff for him. He's still gas. He had this weird way of stealing gas for his car so he never had to pay for gas. He wouldn't pay for anything. He was really really known as a skin flint this guy. Um, and every single thing he ever did was for money. And by the way, he told people that he was going to kidnap girls and sell them. So the idea that he suddenly took on like oh, I'm going to take six girls and manage that right without any profit motive is hard for me to believe. Um. So I think if you just like back up and look at the general facts you think. Of course, he had to be, you know, looking to monetize this. I think he was a pervert himself and probably trying to have best of both worlds for himself to say, yeah, I'm gonna you know, be under rape and and abuse these people and then I'm gonna make money out of them. Um. So if you ask me, do I think there are people walking around today in the world that were never tried or convicted, I would say yes, I do believe there are, um, absolutely, and and for me that's that's you know, it's just out of control to to think about that. If it was a different crime, I'd say, okay, But we're talking about murdering, raping, abusing children. Yeah, there's a moment in La Monster where you have someone, i think a little girl read letters that were sent um to the parents of one of the victims by that were written by the victim. It's really harrowing to to hear at. I wonder when we're talking about monetary gain for this kind of thing, it seems as though rationally a strategy would be ransoming the children if you're really trying to make money off off of it. Um. I think the harder thing to think about is using the children, uh for sexual purposes, Like I don't even know, I say it without throwing up. Um. It seems as though that's more likely as to what was happening, if he was making money off of them. I just want to see if you heard, if you had any proof of you found anything that would would lead would lead you to believe that he was making money or profiting in some way off of the girls. Well, this is you know. I did an interview about this today actually, and I won't do any spoiler alerts. I don't even know if we're going to use it. But it was harrowing, let's just say. Um. And one of the things that you realize when you start looking at these types of affairs is that there's a lot of this stuff. Actually, there's really a lot of this stuff, not just in Belgium, everywhere. Um. And and there's definitely child trafficking networks. That's a proven you know, that's a proven for sure. There's lots of them and and um and it's lucrative business and so there's business behind it. And I think that as humans, I hate this kind of stuff. I never wanted to cover this I I thought, I'm covering this story, right. This is a crazy story. The country almost had a revolution. The FBI was canceled. I mean, there's there's no more FBI. By the way, that was you know, it's over. Uh, this affair killed the FBI. Imagine that a case so big in America that the FBI gets closed down. Well that's what happened here. Um. So you know, I was thinking just about the whole story, right, And I don't like the details, and I don't go into too many details about the abuse because the abuse was really bad, because I do know those details and have read them and and and all that. But um, the point is is that we just don't want to see that as humans. It's so unimaginable, especially those of us who are parents. It's just so terrible. Like my wife can't stand it. She can't stand this stuff. She's like, oh my god, you know. Like, but I kind of turned back to her sometimes I say, well, what do you want to just ignore it? Should we all just ignore it? Like She's like, oh, don't talk about that. How could you talk about that? Why? And I'm like, well, okay, what's the alternative? We just ignore it? And I think as people we tend to ignore it because it's so awful that we can't stand it, we can't bear it. But it's real and this stuff happens, and there's people right now that are that are suffering from this, and there's big networks. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist. You know, this has proven you know, um and and so one of the things that's opened my eyes and this project is because again I'm so skeptical, you know. I was like, there's not going to be a network or anything like. But you know, you start looking at it and you say, out there, of course there's networks. There's networks everywhere. Um, you know, it's a business and and it's a sickness, uh that's existed in humanity for a very long time and sweeping under the carpet. I don't think it's the solution. So we need to probably be able to face it. And because if you ignore it, and you're never going to solve it. Very well said that, and there are you know, there are so many things that we're not getting to in our conversation today candidly because they are addressed in the Monstra and they are you should experience them there this this is an ongoing, an ongoing mystery. Like you said, Matt, there are moult hard questions left in the wake of the official conclusion of the Belgian government. Right. And I think it's fair to say that even today two many people living in Belgium do not do not accept the entirety of the official conclusions. It may it may shock some people to know that the the person we're discussing today is in fact still alive. Uh And I have actually gone and checked, trying to keep up with the news about this. But as as I understand, the true is still in prison, right, a sentence of life imprisonment. Yes, he's still around. Um and he's the problem with the TRUEZ. I thought about trying to see him, but he's such a liar. Um. You can never trust the word that comes out of a mouth. Um. And I've talked to his lawyers about that too, so uh And and the parents, you know, he said that he was going to tell them the truth because that they still don't know the truth. They still don't know what happened, that's the thing. They still don't know the actual truth. They know that their girls died, they know he was involved. But they don't know even the circumstances you know, of of how they exactly died, and and they want to know. But and the true at one point that I'll tell you now. But and he was trying to get something out of it, and he just can't trust this guy. He's a manipulator, he's a psychopath. He's really a bad psychopath. So I thought, you know what, I don't even want to talk to this guy. Um if I thought I could get something that would help the families, but all no matter what he says, they won't believe him. Probably, so it's just, you know, it's not even worth the time. That's one thing I do want to highlight here, Matt. That I think is Another thing I think is very well done is that this show is not exploitation, which, let's be honest, can sometimes happen. We're talking true crime. Uh So, I I think it's an immensely respectful and thorough objective investigation of some of the problems with this case. So I this isn't even a question on my end. I just want to say I think that was, uh that was very well done and and the correct way to approach this. Thank you. I really appreciate that it's haunted me when I started this because I have to live in this country, and um, you know, I want to be able to you know, I want Belgians, don't you know. There was a couple of big attempts to do documentaries and stuff about this that we're completely shut down by the families and the public just saying get out of here, leave us alone. We don't want you to, you know, make a big production out of our you know, awful uh misery um or story. Um. But so as I started the project, I thought my my goal and I said this to the my sound guy the first day, I said, my goal is that the families would listen to this and field that I did the story justice and I think I think I'm I think I'm getting there. Um. And and it was big in Belgium, by the way, when it came out, so they heard someone heard that this story is coming out, and before like the next day there it's hard to believe there's a front page article about it in major national newspaper papers. Actually uh. And then by the following Monday, I was already invited to the prime time TV interview like talk show right at prime time like Monday. Uh you know, like I don't know the equivalent of NBC News or CNN or Fox or whatever like the Big even not even like more like the BBC. It's like the BBC of Belgium. And so the BBC of Belgium had me on their primetime show like within days of learning about this project, and that that's how focused they are on this. And for me, I was really nervous about this because it's easy to talk to you guys, but talking to Belgians who lived through this and who know the case because they obsess about this case. This case is the most that there's there's no case where Belgiums have obsessed over more than this one. Um. But the good thing is is that, you know, I think it came off really well. I was. There's a press gave me a fair hearing, and the families have you know that I've been in contact with, remained supportive. So h that's a big load off of my back because I was a little worried they might, you know, not like this as somebody who's working on it with you. I'm really proud of the show because I I do point zero three of the work on that show, and I really do appreciate just what you're doing, So keep it, keep it going. How can people find the show and learn more about it? Yeah, so you can get it. It's on the I Heart radio app, It's on um Athhole, Spotify everywhere UM and it's called Monstra l E and then next word Monstra spelled French m O n s t r E. And it's gotten off to a huge start, um, more than I ever dreamed of. And it's a credit to the team at Tenderfoot and I heart to be honest that we've been able to have such a really, really strong show because the support and attention to detail is floored me, to be honest, UM, and I love it. It's it's you know, I'm I'm getting my rocks off for things that frustrate me elsewhere by working you know, with people that understand, you know, quality and don't accept anything uh that's not you know, fact checked a and be done correctly and with support. So I really find it. It's it's been fantastic to work with the team at at Tenderfoot and I are Radio, so I'm absolutely thrilled and hope to do another story at some point. You can also head over to Monster Dash podcast dot com to learn more. Fellow conspiracy realists, thank you, as always for tuning in. I do very much hope you enjoyed that interview. Again, we want to emphasize that there are ongoing questions. In this case, Matt Graves is doing an excellent job researching and exploring these. We have also only scratched the surface of this affair. So if you would like to learn more about the Monster of Belgium and the questions that remain unanswered, do check out the monstra available, as we said, on any podcast platform you prefer. In the meantime, we would like to hear from you. Don't hesitate to reach out if there's another story that you feel needs more public attention, and do not hesitate to reach out if you yourself may have some leads on the questions Matt Graves mentions in our conversation today, how do I reach out? You might be asking, Well, it's pretty easy. We want you to be able to find us online Facebook, Here's where it gets crazy, Instagram, Twitter, check out our YouTube where you can see me trying to convince my merry band of miscreants to uh to get a little weirder with things, So more to come on that front in the meantime. If you don't sip the social needs. But I have a story to tell, why not give us a phone call. We are say it with me one eight three three st d w y t K. You'll hear a familiar voice and a beep like so beep, and then from there you'll have three minutes. Those three minutes are yours. Go nuts with them, get really weird with it. We listen to every phone call we get. Just All we ask is that you give yourself a cool moniker nickname and a k A. Tell us what's on your mind, tell us uh what, whether or not you are comfortable with us using your name and or voice on the air, And most importantly, do not edit yourself. If you have a story that needs more than three minutes, you don't have to keep calling repeatedly, and you know, forgetting where you left off and then jumping back on. No, we've got your back. You can write it to us, send us those links, send us those photographs, take us to the edge of the rabbit hole, and we will do the rest. All you have to do is drop us a line at our good old fashioned email address. We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.