Trio Wore Masks and Face Paint — Then Opened Fire in Grocery Stores, Killing 28 People, Including Children
Trio Wore Masks and Face Paint — Then Opened Fire in Grocery Stores, Killing 28 People, Including Children
The so-called Brabant Killers gunned down shoppers, families and children across Belgium, and the case remains unsolved decades later
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NEED TO KNOW
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A masked trio known as the Brabant Killers attacked Belgian grocery stores and other businesses between 1982 and 1985, leaving 28 people dead
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Survivors included David Van de Steen, who lost his parents and sister, and Geneviève Van Lidth, who later said she recognized one attacker
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Investigators reviewed thousands of leads over decades and closed the case in 2024 without identifying the men responsible
Between 1982 and 1985, a masked trio known as the “Crazy Killers of Brabant” carried out a wave of supermarket massacres across Belgium’s Brabant region, murdering 28 people — among them families and young children.
The men used face paint during the raids and were nicknamed the Giant, the Killer and the Old Man by investigators and the press, according to the BBC. They were never identified.
The outlet reported that the attacks unfolded in two main waves and targeted supermarkets, hostels, a gunsmith’s shop, a bar and a restaurant. Some victims were tortured before being killed, the outlet reported.
On Nov. 9, 1985, eight people were killed during an attack on a Delhaize grocery store in the city of Aalst, per the BBC.
Two brothers, then ages 7 and 10, later said they saw six men in dark clothing fleeing the scene, and the boys wrote down a car’s registration number in a notebook as part of a childhood hobby. CBS News, citing AFP, reported that the notebook was logged in the case file but the lead was not pursued for decades and the brothers were never questioned.
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Police sketch released on June 2, 2010, showing a portrait of one of the alleged “Brabant killers”
One survivor of the Aalst attack, David Van de Steen — who was seriously injured at age 9 and lost both his parents and his sister — later said that his sister shouted, “Don’t shoot, that’s my dad!” before their father was killed, according to The Bulletin.
Another victim, a woman named Geneviève Van Lidth, was one of the few people to see one of the attackers without a mask. In 1983, she had her car stolen at gunpoint outside her house in Plancenoit, Walloon Brabant.
NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty
She later described the man as having seemingly southern European origins, with short, curly black hair and “impeccable” French that made him seem well-educated, and said a Peugeot 504 that followed her car was later tied to a Delhaize attack in Genval, per The Brussels Times’ summary of her account.
“I always said he had a northern French accent, that he wasn’t Belgian,” she said, per the outlet, adding that she was “99% sure” she recognized her attacker when shown a photograph years later.
The Guardian reported that investigators once examined whether the attacks were an attempt to destabilize Belgium by current or former law enforcement officers with far-right ties. AFP reporting cited by the outlet also noted a long-circulated theory that the Giant may have been a former member of the gendarmerie, Belgium’s national police force.
HERWIG VERGULT/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty
In 2019, a retired police officer was charged with allegedly dumping weapons and ammunition linked to the case in a canal in 1986, but he was never convicted, according to The Guardian.
In 2017, The Guardian reported that the brother of a former Belgian policeman, Christiaan Bonkoffsky, had confessed two years earlier to being “the Giant.” Patricia Finne, whose father was among the 28 people killed, told the outlet that the disclosure was “the first serious revelation in 30 years.”
“I really hope that this will lead to dismantling the rest of the gang, whether they are dead or not,” she told the outlet.
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The total amount stolen across the robberies was estimated at about €175,000, The Guardian reported.
According to the outlet, prosecutors told victims’ families that investigators had checked 1,815 pieces of information, examined 2,748 sets of fingerprints, compared 593 DNA samples and exhumed more than 40 bodies without identifying the killers. No one has ever been convicted in the case.
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In 2020, police released a photograph of an unidentified man standing in a wooded area near a lake while holding a shotgun. Investigators described it as a “vital lead” in the case and appealed for help identifying him, per BBC and The Guardian reporting.
In June 2024, despite Bonkoffsky’s 2017 confession about being “the Giant,” Belgian federal prosecutors announced that the case was being closed after more than four decades of investigation, The Guardian reported. Families were told that “all possible investigative actions have been carried out,” according to the outlet.
“This means the case is now buried and it makes me very sad,” said Irena Palsterman, whose father was among the eight victims of the Aalst attack, per the outlet.
CBS News, citing AFP, reported that an appeals court in Mons later ordered investigators to hear two additional witnesses, including the brothers who recorded the license plate number before the Aalst attack.
“We don’t want to give up,” said Kristiaan Vandenbussche, a lawyer representing families of the victims, according to the outlet.
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