From the bakers’ woman to the killed pigeon fancier and the teenager who did not get the pill: these Belgians suddenly appeared again after years of disappearance
Disappearing is not punishable in our country. Not if you have not been wrong. In the case of the now 37-year-old Aurélie who was sentenced in Optics in our country in February 2015 for darkening nearly 7,000 euros, it was different. But the facts are now barred. The woman should therefore no longer fear that one day the police will be at her door now that she has turned up again.
Marcel P. (49): 14 years without trace
That was different with Marcel P. (49) who seemed to disappear from the globe in 1989. That was just before the holidays and a few days after the fatal accident in which his wife died in Philippeville (names). An accident that was not an accident, it turned out a few weeks later. Because Josiane M. (39) was killed by violence. The accident was staged to mislead the police. But against the police knew with certainty, the Walloon farmer Marcel P. had already disappeared with the Noorderzon.
Yet he did not move to the other side of the world, it turned out in 2003. To Soignies, about 50 kilometers from where he lived when his wife died. There, in the province of Hainaut, he lived with his new wife, his third. Marcel O. – He had his name changed and that was easier than he thought – was a passionate pigeon fancier. And it was that hobby that eventually betrayed him. One day he won Limoges, a classic in the pigeon sport, and then posed proudly with his cup in the leaf of the Duivenbond. He was recognized by a former fellow countryman. The police called him the next day. In 2005, the Court of Assisen sentenced him to 10 years in prison for the death of his wife, fifteen years earlier.
Anny R. (50): A year and a half Spoorloos
Anny R. was also suspected that she was killed after she disappeared from one day to the next in the summer of 2006. Together with her husband Marc B., she operated a bakery in Aalst. The evening before her disappearance they had a fight about the finances. Anny was the accountant in the house, but Marc had discovered that different bills were not paid.
When Marc, who worked at the renowned Wittamer bakery on the Brussels Zavel, woke up the next morning, the customers were standing in front of a closed bakery full of fresh breads and cakes. Anny was gone. Without saying anything.
In the weeks that followed, all kinds of gossip were circulating. For example, Anny would have been killed by her husband and then fired in the oven in which the bread was baked. The bakery was laid on the schedule for hours the police, and a house search followed where search dogs even searched in the oven.
It all didn’t yield anything, but the stories stayed away because of the stories and the bakery eventually went to the bottle.
Investige dogs even searched for traces in the bakery ovens – © If
After Anny stood internationally for a year and a half, the Belgian police received a phone call from colleagues in Haarlem (the Netherlands) one day. Anny was just registered under her own name and was alive and well. She also did not understand why she was wanted. « I do what I want, » it sounded. She was tired of life in the bakery and wanted to start a new life, she explained.
Incidentally, it was not the local police in the Netherlands who discovered that she was being sought. She had become friends with a woman who was in the habit of first getting someone in her house, to google that person to see with whom she was dealing with. And so she learned that her new girlfriend was being sought.
The same day her husband was told the ‘good’ news. Although Marc B. was not dancing of joy, he didn’t need to know anything anymore.
Tiffany W. (15) Thirteen months without a trace
A mystery until today is the disappearance of Tiffany W. who was 15 years old when she disappeared from Vedrin at Namur. The girl lived with her family in a somewhat revolved social residential area. Eddy and Nathalie had six children. Tifanny was the second oldest and was tucked in tinkering. She wanted to stop school, demanded more pocket money, wanted to take the pill. But on everything she received a ‘njet’ from her parents. She first had to behave better.
On Saturday, August 27, 2004, she did what she had threatened with: she walked away from home. For the Dutroux case, the police would have considered such a disappearance as a runaway and reasoned that she would return soon. But now the disappearance was immediately taken seriously. The Missing Persons cell started an investigation and there was a massive search. Child Focus also hung in the whole of Belgium with the girl’s photo. But there was not one reaction.
Only in November came a first sign of life. An anonymous phone call from a telephone booth. « Bonjour, C’est Tiffany, » it sounded. Then it was hooked up. The conversation was recorded and both the police and her parents were sure: it was indeed Tiffany.
A very difficult period followed for the girl’s parents. Because a harsh winter followed after the fall. And she wasn’t dressed on that when she left. Then it became spring, summer. In the residential area, the couple were increasingly viewed. Because, it was said, she might have had something to do with the disappearance.
And then, in September 2005, a girl spoke to two fishermen in Hastière. One of them immediately recognized her. It was the girl from the posters. Tifanny was tired of her wanderer’s existence, she said. Her parents were crazy when they heard the news from the police. For a moment anyway, because the girl immediately indicated that she didn’t want to go home. The juvenile judge temporarily sent her to a youth institution and later she went to live with an aunt.
Where she had been sitting all the time, where she slept and how she survived has always remained a mystery. She always maintained that she slept almost everywhere, that she begged to buy food and occasionally clean clothes from a washing thread in a garden. She was waxed in watercourses or in sports halls, among other things. The police suspect that she was staying somewhere, since she was thickened and tidy when she was found. But she has always denied that herself.
