Inside Le Monstre (with Dennis Cooper and Matt Graves)

and trying to solve this insane and terrifying case. As always, thank you for listening and enjoy the bonus episode.

are there. And I moved here in June of nineteen ninety five, which was right when the true affair sort of started, so I kind of lived through that as a bystander, if you will, but totally new to the country, which made that whole thing something that just sort of left a mark on me. I remembered it from the time. At the time, I had no idea I would ever

be involved in in doing true crime investigations. But you know, when I did my first true crime investigation, I chose that story because that story had marked me so strongly, because I remember it vividly.

Is that something you can kind of expand on, I guess, like how you first learned of these and what about each of these stories?

myself being interested in. But that particular case has so many twists and turns it really, I mean, it's cliche, but it's like a Hollywood script couldn't do a better job. I mean, this guy he went on way too long and wasn't caught. There's potential corruption, there's definitely in competence,

there's he escaped, you know. I mean, it's just it goes on and on, and that story is just such a big part of the psyche in this country and a sign for that time of what they called in Belgium, they always call it dysfunction mo, you know, the dysfunctioning of the system. And actually Belgium has reformed incredibly since then and is much much better, because I do remember it in nineteen ninety five, and I do remember the

cops and the way it was here. It was very different than it is now, to be honest, it was there were almost parts of Belgium that felt kind of thorough world, which is strange because it's a fairly rich with great culture and beautiful architecture and everything else. But it was, especially in that time, a very strange place in certain ways. And the crazy thing about to link it to this new case is that this new case actually started just after the true affair was getting started.

And it's a case that was beneath the surface, really because everything, I mean, the true affair was such a big deal here on the news, in the newspaper, in politicians, I mean, everything was like it was a big national thing, the biggest protest in the history of the country and one of the biggest, maybe the biggest in the history of Europe. Almost around that whole thing. But underneath the surface there was a really vicious and awful serial killer

at work abducting young women. And the crazy thing is that he was never caught. And I remember in French the name of this case I mean is Le depesur de Masse, which means basically, it means the slicer technically, but any translation is always going to end up with

the Butcher of mass. And I remember originally thinking, I don't think I want to cover this story because it just sounds like a slasher, you know, it sounds just like a sensationalist type of thing, and you know, I got enough of that maybe with the the true affair, you know. And it was becoming obvious because I do cases. I do stuff in French as well that's not published via the normal channels but for the national broadcaster here in Belgium and some of the people that listen to

those and so forth. Everyone's like, well, you're going to have to cover this case now, and I was like, didn't want to do it necessarily because I thought, oh god, I just don't want to be the guy who's doing every sensational case. I'd rather find like like what you do, Dennis Unculpable. I mean, I just absolutely the biggest fan of your podcast and love everything you do and listen

to every season you cover. And one of the things I love about what you cover is there small stories that aren't necessarily, you know, big sensationalized events or affairs, and I was wanting to do something more like that, but I looked at this case then and I thought, oh my god, this case is crazy. And I mean the crazy crazy part of this case is that it's never been solved. I mean, the butcher of Monts is still out there somewhere.

town cold cases. But these are big cases that you know, rocked that country, that there's been stories told about, and so that challenge of coming at it from a different angle, I'm sure that presented some challenges for you, but I think it's something that you navigated really well, just being sensitive to the victims, giving everyone a voice, in that

I'm just telling it. I don't mean this a negative way, but just in a very straightforward way that for me, as an American listener, was very easy to follow along with a to Z understand the story, understand the persons in it, and you know, just this long history of this case, between the crimes happening and the trials and eventual conviction and everything else that's woven into it. I mean, if you haven't listened to season one, he's just done an amazing job on it. I would highly recommend you

listening to it. Was that your first podcast or had you already made the ones that you mentioned previously in French before doing that one?

the border of North Vietnam and Laos. And what was interesting about that one is all of the key players in that story were like all eighty five years old, and I interviewed them and captured their real voices to tell that story. But that was a good storytelling, of course, the production quality and several when I listened to parts of it now I kind of cringe. But that was my start. And then and then, but this was the

big one, right. Luckily I had a little bit of experience before I went into this, but this was big, and working with Tenderfoot TV and Donald Albright and so forth, it was a massive undertaking for me season one, and yeah, it really sucked the life out of me in many ways, to be honest, because at the beginning I thought I would just tell the story, but of course I got deeply involved and involved with families, involved with what's going on in the courts and new investigation angles and things

like that. So it really became just sort of like like you know very well when you get into a case, just completely overwhelming. Now on this season two, I also in the meantime done things in French only, and so I do have a lot more experience. And that's great because you make big mistakes in your first in your first fouries into this medium.

this story. And I've had lots of Belgians come tell me, you know, thank you for that, because you know, it's such a long and complicated story with so many political you know, irons in the fire and various it's a big it's hard to even explain how big this story is here and how much division there is around this story and stuff that. So I had a lot of people who were just like, great, thank you for telling this story, and we think you did it quite honestly.

I mean, I do have people that are like, you know, didn't think I told it exactly right. But look, like I said, there's all these different people with different agendas, which we won't go into necessarily right now, I don't think. But that was just like I had no idea what I was getting into it, to be honest. I mean again, because this case is so huge. These families in the

season one have been through so much. It's like, if you want to design the perfect torture for someone, you would do what happened to these families, not only losing their children, but just being lied to and run around by the government, and then you know, eventually maybe learning that there was complicity involved with the murder and abusive their children. So that that one is just so big, so political, so difficult. But I somehow did break through

because I had the time. I just decided I'm going to tell this right. I don't care how long it takes me. This new season is different in that it is still a big case. I mean to give you an idea like if this were in the United States, this case that I covered in season two, this would be one of the big ones, right, this would be like the Zodiac Killer or something to that level, because we're talking about five victims and we're talking about very

particular It's not just they just died. I mean things happen to them that are grotesque and it's just crazy. The story. I mean it links, you know, like there's a question about the sites in which the bodies were found, or I should say the dismembered bodies were found of the five victims, and those names of those places, like

the street names or the place names. A few will are very evocative names like the River of Hate, the Path of Worry, Fear Creek, Bethlehem Road, And it's like the entire country and including the police and judiciary, thought that they had a serial killer who was chopping people up and putting them in places on purpose with evocative names to taunt everyone. And that's what was going on. And it was like not just like they made one

big finding. These findings happened one after the other, and they kept finding and finding, and then they realized, like after they made the first find, the next day they made another find, and then the next day after that they made another find, and that the find that they made on the third day of discoveries was a new disposal, right, So, I mean it was like, holy shit, this thing is

happening in real time before our very eyes. A serial killer is terrorizing the city of Moss and murdering women, chopping them up and dumping their bodies in places with evocative names. It's just like it. It's really a crazy story.

because she was kind of living a precarious lifestyle. And then about a week after she disappeared, then there was this just incredible discovery of eight trash bags full of body parts just on the side, like kind of on a ditch on the side of the road, and the cops just couldn't believe it. And then they didn't even know. All they knew was that they didn't link it in any way to these missing women at all. They just suddenly found a bunch of trash bags full of body

parts of women. And the strange thing as well, is that the first dump of eight trash bags full of body parts, all the body parts were at different stages of decomposition, and so they were trying to figure out,

like who could these people be. They didn't even know in the beginning how many people they had, right, They really literally had to I mean, it's gruesome to think about, but they literally had to piece the bodies together, and of course they didn't have all the body parts, they didn't have the heads, and the killer had removed any distinguishing marks, like on one of the fore arms of one of those victims there was a tattoo and he had removed that with something and then they finally traced

it back to these two missing women. But then there was this third woman who was older. The level of decomposition was, you know, look to be six months old as opposed to recent They kind of traced that back and then without giving the whole thing away, right, I mean, this thing just blows up. And the thing is though,

that they can't find the killer. Not only are they like finding body parts after the first discovery that have been dumped since the first discovery, but then another woman goes missing and it's like, oh my god, she has a similar profile as to other victims, so you know he's still out there. I mean, it was crazy, like Belgium has never had a serial killer case like this

for I mean five victims. I mean, helicopters were in the air, everyone was afraid to pick up trash bags and when you look at this, you think, oh my god, they've had to have caught the guy, right, But they didn't. And that's of course what piqued my interest because what I really do like to do is try to contribute to an investigation like you do when I've listened to

your shows. I mean, with the True Affair, there was not necessarily a crime to solve, but there were people that were possibly involved that were never brought to justice, So you know, I was still looking for truth there in this case. You know, we're really just looking for the killer, to be honest, That's what we're trying to do.

And you know, one of the things that I've learned and that has proved invaluable in this project and a couple of previous ones in French that I did as well, is to build what I call a cold case team around the case, right, and you need to find people. They have to be the right people to help you

solve it. And in this case, I have a team of really talented people, a guy who wrote a book about this case, a very famous investigative journalist who writes for Paris Match, the famous French magazine, as well as a private investigator myself, and then someone who was actually involved with the judiciary who's kind of remains unnamed. And the five of us are really just going hard and

heavy into this. And it's really interesting because to those guys, they don't really care that much about the podcast, right, They're like, they want to solve this case. You know, everyone wants to do a documentary about this. There have been documentaries about it in French and the French TVs and everyone's after this thing, right, and these two guys, especially the guy who wrote the book and the journalist, they're the real tip of the spear that they know

everything what's going on in this case. And what's fantastic is they agreed to work with me because they had heard the approach, right, the sort of tenderfoot approach, if you will, of not just like trying to sensationalize a story, but actually trying to move it forward. We're still very

deep into the very very deep into it. Actually. That's what really gets me up out of bed, is to say, like, maybe we could find the killer or at least maybe you know, we can shed light and help someone else or help the investigation move forward, which we've already done.

But to your point about kind of surrounding yourself with the team, I mean, I'm such a firm believer in that you've probably picked up on that listen to Culpable. You know, everyone has their limitations, and ultimately, I just feel like, you know, there is strength in numbers just make such a huge difference. It's something I've always been

a firm believer of. And I think you know that excites me about this too, that you've chosen to go that route and kind of build a team around you, because you know it's it's cliche, but it really does take a village to like make movement on these cases, especially ones as old as this one. Have there been any specific challenges that this has presented you that maybe season one did not or just overall, like what's been the biggest difference.

of that here. It like dates back to the Nazi era when like you know, people would not tell anybody about anything, because you know, the Nazis were occupying Brussels or whatever, and like, you know, they were looking for for victims or people to you know, to persecute, and and that just everyone's like, you know, don't say anything. And that was the culture for a long time. And it's I don't know, it's a central European country that's

had a lot of invasions. It's been occupied by Spain and Italy and France and the Netherlands and and so like it's there's a long history of sort of being occupied in war and strife and all kinds of stuff here and I don't know, I guess all of that historical trauma has made the Belgians just they don't just talk very easily about stuff. And this is so god this case. It is just so hard to get people

to talk. And there are some people that are afraid to talk as well, because they really believe, well, they know that the killer is most likely still out there. You know, the people that I want to talk are people that the killer knows that I want to talk. So there's a whole scare element which is very different. And then there's another element, which is that this is

an active case. And in Belgium, they don't have this phenomenon of like, you know, active investigation podcasts, and they just think of a podcast as just like telling a story or talking on the radio, right, And so they're starting to understand like what we're doing here, and they're like, wait a minute, who do you guys think you are? You know, so not only have we gotten the attention of the police, but we've gotten the attention of the judiciary and they know exactly what we're doing. And this

is a big case. So like it's on the message board, like there's message boards and forums and stuff around this case, and it's like, oh, we hear that. You know, these guys are doing something. And now you know, one of the guys on our team was kind of warned by an ex judge that he shouldn't be getting mixed up with this and we need to be careful and so on and so forth. And it's all true because it is an active case. But what we've seen is that

the active case is not very active. And I think, to be honest, well that's changing right now, and I think it's in part because of us, because they've just named a new investigating judge just very recently while I was making episode eight. It's very special in Belgium to have someone poking around like this.

and he's a very very smart young man. He has interviewed and talked to is just literally every almost everybody in most like anybody who will talk to him about this thing. He's just been trying. He's been working this thing for a long time. And then when I came along. I was like, hey, build a team around this, because you're sitting there doing this alone, right, And he's like, oh my god, I would love that, you know, because

I'm all alone. And then so then we've got you know, this great journalist, Frederick Lohre, and he's been writing in this case and he is from mass and he was a journalist at the time the case broke, right, and he's still a good journalist and he's right on it. And then we've got Exavier, who's this really great investigator who could just find anybody anywhere. And then me kind of like just keeping the trains running, right, Like we're having zoom meetings every week, we're meeting once a month

face to face. We're and like so every time something really interesting pop because there's all kinds of bullshit out there, as you know, in any case, right, and this one especially a lot of it, And so anytime something bubbles up, that's sort of like we can we can crosscheck, crosscheck, Okay, this looks real, let's go talk to this person. Right.

So unfortunately those so many of those discussions, they just the people refuse categorically to not only not be recorded, to like meet somewhere secret and no one can know, and like it's just a whole thing around this that it's frustrating as hell to be honest. And of course we don't have the case file. There's no such thing as a foia request in Belgium. But if you against shoe leather, right, so loads of shoe leather, I mean thousands of hours of shoe leather have gone into just

the investigation that you'll hear in this season. And I am not exaggerating when I say that this is not a for profit exercise, right, This is where the amount of time and energy going into this is beyond the pale, right, And so that's the way we've done it is literally just talking to anyone who will talk to us. And then of course you know, we're talking to some X cops.

But even like those X cops don't want anyone to like, I have to be real careful like in anything we say in French and so forth, because it's easy to find who they might be if they're talking to us. And so we've had a secret meeting those kind of guys and stuff like that, right, And there's lawyers as well, and you know, just you just do hooker crook. Getting information is very, very difficult, but we've really cracked this

thing open. And when this podcast publishes, by the way, there's going to be a version of it in French. And the real reason I really want to do it in French is that I want the people in and around the crime to hear this because we think that we will get new information right based on the podcast. But what's going to happen here when this thing publishes is it's going to be a big deal because there's information in here that no one at all has any

idea about, right. And What's been fantastic is the agreement I've had with the guys I'm working with here that even like Fredrik Loor, who is a journalist at Paris Match and like he's got it, you know, he's breaking stories for a living, right, But we've agreed that just the stuff that we're going to release gonna wait for the podcast to release it. So when it comes out here in French, it's gonna be it's gonna be a big deal.

already foresee what that's going to be. Like here if I, you know, put a national spotlight on this local case.

And then I guess ultimately, do you believe that this case can be solved?

teams meetings. She didn't commit until after that meeting she said yes, and then we literally walked her down the street into the lawyer's office and set them up to have him represent her and make requests to the judiciary

and so forth. In that discussion with the lawyer, he said that he is going to request and believes that he will or that the courts will decide that this could be treated as I can't remember what it's called in French even, but it's a there are some cases that are so big that they can delete the statute of limitations. So there's only one other case in Belgium

that has that apply. It's a brand new law. By the way, this was two years ago that this law was put forth, and that's for a major case with twenty eight victims. It's a crazy, crazy case and I'm sure i'll tell the story of someday. They canceled that thirty year automatic expiry just for that case. And the law that was written says that you know, it has to be a major publis almost like a terrorism attack

type of thing, to delete the statute of limitations. But he thinks that this case, given that there are five victims and that it was basically a terror campaign in months that it could qualify and that they could keep this case going.

so that's what the first part of this is. So you're going to have really, you know, five to six episodes where we're really going to just tell this story, but in a way that's interesting, right, that really brings it to life, and you understand what happened to you know, what time, who was where, where did this person disappear from, how long were they met, all the details that go into an investigation, but really just telling the story, and then you know, we're kind of start opening some cracks

into new things that we're finding. We get into something very very interesting with well two suspects to be honest, but then really one who is just so interesting as a suspect. And that's the part where not many people in Belgium even know about any of this. And we went all the way and got everything that we could find, and we found a lot, and we found information that

is unknown to the public still right now. It won't be known until all the episodes get published and are understood by the people who know the case, right, And then there are also some interesting twists, like there's a potential tie with a murderer from New York who killed a woman in the Bronx and believe it or not, that person, after he killed and chopped up a woman, moved to Belgium and was here during these murders. And

that's a crazy story. And I did a great interview with a fantastic journalist from the New York Times who actually covered that international sort of cold case that turned into a conviction of this crazy there's a crazy story within the story around that and some great sort of great discovery of this great New York Times journalists who covered that. So you do get to travel a little bit in this thing as well.

just search LOA Monstra wherever you get your podcasts. That's l E Space, m O N S t R Ela Monstra excellent.