Body Heidi De Schepper did not find: « Scanner indicated new location, but the search did not yield anything » (Balen)
The police, civil protection and the Missing Persons Cell started again on Monday with the search for the body of the murdered Heidi de Schepper. A Defense scanner had indicated a new possible location, under a driveway. After a few hours, however, the search was stopped again. « The search did not yield anything, » the public prosecutor reports.
In total, the search has already taken fifteen days. The searches concentrated around the industrial zone in Balen-Wezel at the end of Poeierstraat, but so far did not yield a breakthrough. At the end of March the search was resumed again for three days, but again without results. The promotion was then stopped for the second time.
Read too. « New location in Poeierstraat emerged »: Parket is looking for Heidi de Schepper again next week
On Monday the search was restarted after the deployment of a Defense scanner. The scanner is said to have detected « something ». What exactly, was not clear, but the signal was considered sufficiently important to start searching again. Unfortunately, that search also yielded nothing.
Voluntary search
Volunteers from Search and Rescue Dog Association (Sarda Luky) had decided on Saturday afternoon to try to make a contribution on their own, or the dish that now wanted or not. « We often work at the request of relatives, but not in this case, » said Patrick De Cock of Sarda Luuky. « We consider it a bit of a good training for our dogs, and if we bump into something, it is all the better of course. We are often active abroad, recently in the Netherlands, but sometimes here too. »
On Sunday evening the public prosecutor asked the volunteers to pause their action for the time being, because a new, planned search was planned on the site at the request of the investigating judge. It started on Monday morning. « If that does not produce anything, the non -profit organization is free to search the site ourselves. But we first want the planned search to take place, » said public prosecutor Kristof Aerts on Sunday.
Missing since 2010
Heidi de Schepper, 26 years old and mother of three children, was last seen in 2010. Only in 2023 her disappearance came to light. Nobody had reported her disappearance at the time, not even her partner Nick M. at the time. It was ultimately the school of one of her children who raised the alarm last year with the police, after which an investigation was started.
At the beginning of this year, the disappearance was announced via an investigation message. Shortly thereafter it became clear that Heidi was being killed.
The breakthrough in the file came after Nick Geys had announced in just ten minutes during his interrogation in February that he had killed the young woman. According to his own statement, he did that on behalf of Nick M., her partner. Afterwards he would have buried the body with Nick M.. Michael D., the third person involved, stated that he witnessed it. On April 1, the council chamber decided to release Michael D.. According to his lawyer, there are no serious indications that his client would be involved in the murder of Heidi.
On Tuesday, Nick M. will appear again before the council chamber in Turnhout. Nick Geys’s arrest was confirmed last week.
