Gustaaf Van Eycken BELGA PHOTO
Incarcerated for more than 50 years, he is the “record holder” in Belgian prisons. Stef Van Eyken, alias “The Vampire of Muizen”, committed three murders for which he was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment. He owes his name to Muizen, which is a locality in Mechelen, the city in which he committed his assassinations. The vampire side is inspired by his modus operandi.
Complicated family context
Van Eyken grew up in a very complicated environment: an alcoholic father, who disappeared overnight to join the Foreign Legion because he had a murder on his conscience. His mother remarried, but the stepfather was also aggressive, violent and an alcoholic. His mother developed multiple sclerosis and found herself in a wheelchair. Another confession from the serial killer: he was sexually abused by his aunt for four years starting when he was nine.
He began his crimes very young, as he attacked an 11-year-old girl and was sent to an asylum. He then completed his military service, and subsequently became a railway worker at the Muizen marshalling yard.
The murders
In the 1970s, he began his assassinations. He mainly targeted women, whom he sexually assaulted and raped, then killed them by strangulation. It left three victims: Marie-Thérèse Rosseel, Ida Smeets and Lutgarde Van der Wilt. They were murdered between 1971 and 1972 in Muizen and Bonheiden, with an absolutely abominable modus operandi.
He bit his victims in various places on the body, including their private parts and breasts. This is why his nickname “vampire” was chosen. The women killed were 17, 19 and 47 years old.
-After his third victim, he will be suspected. Following the discovery of Lutgarde Van der Wilt’s body, he passed the scene by bicycle, but the inspectors found his behavior strange. So they decided to follow him to his home. Very quickly, they notice that the man has a blood stain on his sleeve: they have found the culprit.
Not a first
He immediately confessed to the facts, and asked to be locked up (even though he was obviously going to be), finding himself a danger to others.
Obviously, a minor, he would have tried to attack and strangle a young woman, but who had survived. Little by little, the investigation revealed that he had sexually abused many other women, attempting to kill them. But these acts were not recorded in his criminal record, given the desire to give minors a second chance at the time.
The name of the serial killer returned to the news in 2016, when the Minister of Justice Koen Geens (despite a negative opinion from the prison administration) authorized the man to leave the prison for a day to go to the bedside from a sick friend.
Currently, he is the longest-serving prisoner in Belgium, and is expected to remain so for the rest of his life.
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