Belgium: 30 years after the murder of Katrien, 15, justice calls for witnesses

It is a

that dates back almost 30 years, but a call for witnesses has just been launched by the Belgian authorities.

Little Katrien de Cuyper, 15, disappeared on December 17, 1991 in Antwerp (Belgium).

But it was only a few months later that the body of the teenager was found on a vacant lot, in an advanced state of decomposition, recalls the Belgian media 7sur7.

She would have been strangled.

A month after the discovery of the body, the weekly Blik receives anonymous letters whose author explains that he accompanied the young Katrien the evening of her disappearance.

A few years later, his DNA is identified, it is a man named Karl VR from Kessel.

The suspect wanted to “make himself interesting”

Arrested, he denies any involvement in the death of the teenager and claims to have sent these letters "to make himself interesting", reports the Flemish daily Het Laatste Nieuws.

After several months in pre-trial detention, he was released for lack of incriminating evidence.

Now that the case is prescribed, the family of the young Katrien and the justice system hope that witnesses or even the killer will approach them to give them answers.

A call for witnesses has therefore just been launched.

Read alsoThe former house of Marc Dutroux demolished, replaced by a memorial dedicated to the victims of pedophilia

Anyone with information about the murder of Katrien De Cuyper can communicate it by email to opsporingen@police.belgium.eu or by telephone 0800-30.300.

Five years after the disappearance of Katrien, the pedophile Marc Dutroux had been arrested in Belgium for the kidnappings of seven young and adolescent girls, five of whom he killed.