2023-09-09 15:14:00
28 years ago, Alain Remue created the Missing Persons Unit, in a Belgium traumatized by the Dutroux affair and the disappearances of Julie, Mélissa, An and Eefje. Unit that he still leads today. Someone who started as a quartermaster in the gendarmerie before climbing the ranks enjoys national prestige as an expert. Le Gantois was chairman of the Interpol Specialist Group on Crimes Against Children from 2002 to 2010.
Commissioner Alain Remue, head of the disappearance unit ©Bernard Demoulin
Then a “narcotics” investigator at the Ghent surveillance and research brigade, the man who, today at 63, is a federal police commissioner, will experience, during the summer of 95, a pivotal season in his career.
” In June there was the double disappearance of little Julie and Mélissa. In August, An and Eefje, 17 and 19 years old, disappeared in turn. They are not found either. There was no missing persons cell. At the end of August, I became a lieutenant. I receive a call from a former boss, a captain from Ghent, who later became a major. He is in Brussels, at the central research office, and is looking for an assistant. The double disappearances created a lot of tension and pressure. Four days following I took office, the Minister of Justice Stefaan De Clercq wrote a letter to the general of the gendarmerie. We need an action plan. This letter finally reached my major. “Disappearances of children, that’s not something for you, is that? ” , he told me. “Make an action plan.” This is where we decided to create a specialized support service, the national disappearance unit. On September 4, the minister already gave us his response “Green light. Start. Begin now. ”We were expected to put an eight-course menu on the table and we didn’t yet have a kitchen. January 96, I went to the United States, to Quantico, FBI Academy, to obtain a patent. Return to Belgium at the end of April 1996.”
And right there, you know your first business…
”On May 3, a 2-year-old boy, Liam Vanden Branden, disappeared in Mechelen near a lock. He is the youngest child to have ever disappeared in Belgium. We never found him. We had failed our entrance exam. I still believe today that he fell through the floodgates. Her dad Dirk still thinks it was a kidnapping. I understand Dirk, with whom I became friends. This is the reaction of many parents. A kidnapping is the hypothesis that allows us to keep hope.”
The same month, we learned of the disappearance of Sabine Dardenne…
”A matter all the more emotional as she was the daughter of a fellow gendarme. We are doing searches everywhere, in the Scheldt, we are using the army, there are investigations… We can’t find her either, neither her nor her bicycle. Then I said to myself: “Holy shit, there’s something wrong here. ”. There are two little girls in Grace-Hollogne, there are two big girls at the seaside, there is Liam in Mechelen (Editor’s note. A case which, in the end, will have nothing to do with the Dutroux affair), and now a 12 year old girl in Kain. But we find no connection between all these cases. Big frustration. August 1996, new disappearance, Lætitia Delhez in Bertrix. Another girl on a bicycle. And there, for the first time, via the neighborhood investigation, we have elements, testimonies, concrete elements which lead us to a suspect who is already in the data bank. For the first time, the name of Dutroux emerges, notably as someone who had planned to build a cellar or I don’t know what. Dutroux is arrested. They go to search the cellar, but find nothing. Finally, Dutroux said “OK, I will give you two daughters”. He is brought there and opens the cache. Lætitia, missing for three days, and Sabine, for three months, were there.”
gull
At that time, we had the impression that all the disappearances in Belgium were Dutroux. In the process, we found Derochette and resolved the case of Loubna Benaïssa. It was war. We had a timeline with all the unsolved disappearances, the “cold cases”. And it didn’t stop.
What was your feeling following this discovery?
”It was a moment of euphoria for everyone. It was “Wow”. We tell ourselves that it can only happen once in a police officer’s life to have the opportunity to free two girls kidnapped by a monster. But it didn’t last long. Two days later, it was “gedaan, finished”. Dutroux said, “I’ll give you two more,” and it was Julie and Melissa. And there we had to dig. The Dutroux affair was beginning. An and Eefje were then found, also dead. I worked for two years with everyone on this file. At that time, we had the impression that all the disappearances in Belgium were Dutroux. In the process, we found Derochette and resolved the case of Loubna Benaïssa. It was war. We had a timeline with all the unsolved disappearances, the “cold cases”. And it didn’t stop. Élisabeth Brichet in Namur (Editor’s note. Fourniret affair), Nathalie Geijsbregts… We also had the skinner from Mons, we had the serial killer Andras Pandy, Ronald Janssen who notably killed Annick Van Uytsel, 18 years old. We had Steve Bakelmans who killed Julie Van Espen. In 2006, it was Abdallah Ait Oud in Liège, with Stacy and Nathalie.”
How do you proceed in the event of a disappearance?
”We have three rules. One, every case is different, we start each case from scratch. Two: the first twenty-four hours are essential, especially if there remains a possibility of saving a life. Three: never say never. Our work boils down to this: “Giving answers to families who don’t have any” Where is dad? Where is my grandmother? Where is my daughter? Where is my son?”
Fifteen days following the floods, Alain Remue retraces two weeks in the heart of hell: “I managed 30,000 disappearances, I have never experienced that”
On a human level, do the disappearances of children affect you more than those of adults?
”Yes, all the same. There is always another dimension. Children are precious, we must take care of them. When the affair ends with the discovery of a small body, it’s horror. Let’s take Julie Van Espen, murdered by Bakelmans then thrown into the canal in Antwerp, she was 23 years old but she was still a child. She had her whole life ahead of her. And there she was on the tarmac, under a canvas. A beautiful, tall girl. At that time, my daughter Eva was also 23 years old, tall, beautiful and blonde like Julie. Eva is still there, Julie is no longer there. And there, we feel very close to this file. We say “fuck”, it might have been my daughter. Julie Van Espen, it might have been anyone. That day, Bakelmans wanted to do what he did to the first girl he bumped into. There, I got angry. People said Julie had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, damn it, she had every right to be there, it was the other one who shouldn’t be there. And do what he did. We must not turn things around.
”I also think of the case of sisters Amélia and Alison Decloux, the two little sisters who fell into the Meuse in 2011, a case in which we lost Olivier, one of our divers and a friend. I’ll never forget this.
”For Stacy and Nathalie, for 18 days we worked in 2006 with a superb team from the Liège PJ to arrest Abdallah Ait Oud. It’s also something I’ll never forget. These are files that remain in memory. It doesn’t come out anymore.”
gull
There are cases where I continue to ask myself the question: “But, damn it, did we make a mistake, miss something, something we didn’t see? “. These questions remain. On the other hand, I have never dreamed of dead children, fortunately.
The cases of disappearance where it ended badly, do they weigh on you or do they still haunt you today or can you turn the switch?
”Fortunately, I have the ability, not to erase, but to put it in a drawer quite quickly. Which doesn’t mean I forget. There are files where I continue to ask myself the question: “But, damn it, did we make a mistake, miss something, something we didn’t see? ”. These questions remain. On the other hand, I have never dreamed of dead children, fortunately. And yet, I have seen hundreds and hundreds of deaths and I can describe to you every dead child I have seen. Stacy and Nathalie for example, I remember very well the places and the vision of the two dead girls in the Saint-Léonard district, in the sewer. But life goes on. Tomorrow there is another case.”
32,000 disappearance files in 28 years: three quarters of the missing found dead committed suicide
In 28 years, the Missing Persons Unit has handled approximately 32,000 cases, of which barely 1% ended up being criminal cases. “We were able to contain 97% of the files thanks to the work of my team and all our partners, the helicopters, the dog handlers, the divers, Child Focus…” insists Alain Remue.
Around 12% of closed cases end with the death of the person, three quarters of which are suicides, the majority in water but also hangings, firearms, etc. “What strikes me is that it Among them there are many young people and more and more. My youngest case in the “suicide” category is a 10-year-old boy, who died by hanging following writing a little farewell letter. A problematic situation at home, a somewhat special character… Besides that, we also note that there are more disappearances of people at risk suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s.”
15 unsolved disappearances
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