Morgan Vanlerberghe, an amateur investigator, published a 555-page book on the Skinner of Mons a year ago, and has since continued to investigate the case in his spare time. Despite having no official title, training or pay, Vanlerberghe is driven by the obsession to identify the author(s) of the five brutal crimes committed once morest women in the station area of Mons in the late 1990s. His book, “It’s minus five…”, resulted in at least five readers providing him with new and interesting information.
Vanlerberghe believes that the author(s) of the crimes are local and is following two leads, one implicating two individuals, one of whom is still alive. He believes that the Belgian police might take over the case, and that the truth is not far away. Although he has not received any concrete evidence, he is convinced that someone, somewhere, knows something important regarding the case.
Vanlerberghe’s surreal approach to the case has resulted in him continuing to investigate where the police and justice system have failed. For him, there are no small victims, and he remains relentless in his pursuit of justice for Carmelina, Martine, Jacqueline, Nathalie and Bégonia.
What pushes him once more and once more not to give up?
Just a year ago, on March 22, 2022, Morgan Vanlerberghe published a 555-page investigative book on the Skinner of Mons. A year later, we find this amateur passionate regarding this affair which traumatized the Borinage at the end of the 1990s.
And for good reason: five crimes once morest women who frequented the station area.
By more than a point of resemblance, a remake, a century apart, of the crimes of Jack the Ripper, also five crimes, equally unsolved, equally perpetrated in a restricted district, Whitechapel in London. Except that in Mons, the Skinner did not disembowel his victims. He decapitated them, dismembered them and dismembered them.
Since the release of his book, Morgan Vanlerberghe has continued his investigations in Mons from the Hôtel Métropole on rue Léopold 2, one of the three establishments that the victims, Carmelina, Martine, Jacqueline, Nathalie and Bégonia, frequented either way. His conviction has not changed. For him, “the author is necessarily local”. The book “It’s minus five…“published by Number 7 editions, had a beneficial result: between fifteen and twenty readers reacted, including at least five, he says, “brought me some interesting elements”.
Twenty-five years following the events, the “Skinker of Mons” remains untraceable
It must be understood that Morgan Vanlerberghe has absolutely no title to investigate. He is not a policeman. He is not a private detective. He is not a journalist. He is not paid by anyone. He has no special training. He works, in his spare time, solely driven by the obsession of identifying the author of five atrocious and abominable crimes, where justice, despite the pugnacity of the Corpus investigation cell, has failed. Along with that of the Brabant Killers, the Skinning Affair is the greatest Belgian criminal mystery of the post-war period. And by the way, two appalling failures, so far.
Intuition
So, Morgan Vanlerberghe returns to the scene and tirelessly remakes, to better immerse himself in it, the ‘circuits’ of the Skinner.
He does not exclude the participation of several authors. Let’s say that it would be surprising given that in principle, such madness is not shared. They are always the work of a single individual.
Still, the author(s) cut up the victims and got rid of the pieces by depositing them in garbage bags in different places.
“I wanted to understand”: amateur investigator, he relaunches the case of the Skinner of Mons!
It was by redoing once once more the route of the last places of deposits that he had an intuition. It was late that night, a little before midnight. Vanlerberghe was on rue du Dépôt, in Havré, one of the places where the human remains of a victim, Nathalie Godart, were found. A car drove up and Morgan reacted instinctively. He drove off, took a street to the left, then another and finally ended up on a main road. He crossed it and continued straight ahead, then, at one point, he came out into a poorly lit alley that he recognized: rue de Saint-Symphorien, the very place where the last remains of Nathalie were found.
In fact, car headlights had disturbed Morgan while he was on rue du Dépôt. Reacting on instinct, he had intuitively, without knowing it, retraced the path of the Skinner the night he got rid of the remains of a victim. He hadn’t just reconstructed the route. He realized that the Skinner himself must have been bothered by the arrival of a vehicle. He concludes that someone must have seen him when he got rid of the first bags containing the remains of Nathalie Godart. But this witness unfortunately did not realize the significance of what he was seeing.
Take over the cold cases
And so, step by step, Morgan Vanlerberghe continues to move forward. Until the day, he hopes, when the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. For now, he’s following two leads, he tells me, “which might be of interest to the official investigation if it took the trouble”.
In France, the National Gendarmerie recently created a cold case unit specializing in unsolved crimes, called DiANe (division of unsolved cases). Vanlerberghe believes that the Belgian police might take over the Skinning Affair. The truth is not far away, he says. “In my opinion, the identity of the author (or authors) is in the file, I am sure.”
He therefore follows two tracks. The first, he mentioned in half-words in his book released last year, and he still believes in it. It implicates two individuals who, at the material time, were in the area. And one of them, he says, is still alive.
The second track comes from new elements brought by its readers. It involves an individual whom he is told has met the five victims, without exception. “There are elements that I still have to dig into”.
Tuyau in gold
The Skinner’s third victim, Jacqueline Leclercq, had a sister, Georgette, whom Morgan knew well. “She also did not accept that the murderer had escaped justice and lived as if nothing had happened”. Georgette died last year and the release of this book was a source of satisfaction for her. He recalled the memory of his sister, murdered at the age of 33. Thanks to the book, Jacqueline was not completely forgotten.
Morgan Vanlerberghe does not despair of receiving, one day, the ‘golden pipe’. But despite trying so hard, “nobody, so far, has come to me with a name and solid evidence.”
He is convinced that, as in every criminal case, there is someone, somewhere, who knows, or who has seen something of which he did not realize the importance, someone who has been silent for twenty- six years.
His approach is quite simply surreal: it is that of an ordinary citizen who seeks all alone where the police and justice are out of order. For Morgan Vanlerberghe, there are no small victims. Carmelino Russo like Martine Bohn, Jacqueline Leclercq, Nathalie Godart and Bégonia Valencia are worth fighting for. The first trash bags were found on March 22, 1997. Many body parts were not found. Only the pieces of one of the five victims of the serial killer, Nathalie Godart, have all been. For his part, Morgan Vanlerberghe does not give up. With small means, but great relentlessness, he will continue.
“And if the elusive skinner of Mons was still alive?” : a relative of a victim speaks
In the case of the Skinner of Mons, it seems that justice has failed. However, Morgan Vanlerberghe, an amateur investigator, continues to tirelessly pursue the truth, driven by his obsession to identify the author of the five atrocious and abominable crimes. He works alone, with no training or special support, but remains committed to uncovering the identity of the killer. Although the investigation has not yet yielded the answers that he seeks, he is determined to continue in his pursuit of justice for the victims of the Skinning Affair. Who knows? Maybe someday, the ‘golden pipe’ will lead him to a breakthrough. In the meantime, Morgan Vanlerberghe remains an inspiration to those who refuse to give up on fighting for justice, especially for victims whose stories have yet to be told.
