Has Thalia Driessens (37) killed her adoptive mother? « If you give me a cigarette, I’ll give you a confession » (inland)

The police have to intervene for the first time in the Brigitte home in Steenokkerzeel on July 11, 2023, around 11 p.m. She opens the door herself, but immediately says that nothing is wrong. In the house on the Tervuursesteenweg, the agents still see a woman who is clearly under the influence. That appears to be Thalia Driessens (47). The woman lives at the time of the facts in Diest and told the agents to have been beaten, but there were no injuries to be seen. The agents leave again.

Read too. Adoption daughter (35) in the cell for murder of 68-year-old woman

Barely three hours later, the police will again receive a report. It is Thalia who calls, to say that her mother is dead in the home. « I think she has fallen down the stairs, » she explains. She tried to resuscitate her for fifteen minutes, only half an hour after her death did she call the emergency services.

The autopsy soon shows that Brigitte was not died due to a fall. She has injuries in her face and pointed bleeding in her eyes, which indicates a strangulation. There is no doubt about it: Brigitte was killed with violence. In her first interrogation, Thalia insists that she has found her mother that way. But one sentence – which she pronounces in her arrest – arouses a lot of suspicion among the investigators: « If you give me a cigarette, I give you a confession. »

Thalia is arrested and stays in the prison of Haren for a while, but after a while the confessions follow. She admits that she killed her adoptive mother, by first pulling her on the floor and then strangling with a white scarf. « When I saw her discolored tongue out of her mouth, I was sure she wasn’t there, » she said.

Repatriation Father

The relationship between adoption mother and daughter has been acidified for a while that day. Thalia was born in El Salvador and came to Belgium as a 22-month young toddler. During her childhood she mainly looked up at her father, who for the most part was responsible for the upbringing. But when he left for El Salvador after a divorce in 2003, she went downhill.

Brigitte and her husband had a good marriage, but that went on the cliffs because he wanted to move to El Salvador. She did not like this at all, which caused problems in the relationship. When he left, Thalia blamed her mother.

Father passed away

The Father Familias got sick in Central America and died in 2019. Thalia wanted to get his remains back to Belgium, but Brigitte did not want that. She thought that her ex-man had abandoned them and refused repatriation. Thalia never forgiven that decision.

That is how it came to the conscious confrontation during the night of 11 to 12 July. Her mother lay unconscious on the floor that night, Thalia then took a scarf and closed it around Brigitte’s neck. She kept her mother in a stranglehold for fifteen minutes. In her head she had already made a click: Brigitte had to die.