Between 1982 and 1985, a masked group dubbed the “Crazy Brabant Killers” executed violent robberies across Belgium’s Brabant region, killing 28 people—including families and children—in attacks on supermarkets, a gunsmith, bar, restaurant, and hostels.
Key Attacks and Tactics
The trio—nicknamed the Giant, the Killer, and the Old Man—used face paint for disguise and often tortured victims. Notable incidents include the November 9, 1985, Delhaize supermarket massacre in Aalst, where eight died; two young brothers witnessed six dark-clad men fleeing and noted a car plate, a lead ignored for decades. Survivor David Van de Steen, aged 9, lost his parents and sister there, with his sibling pleading before their father’s death.
Witness Accounts and Theories
Geneviève Van Lidth survived a 1983 carjacking by an unmasked attacker with curly black hair, southern European features, and fluent French, linking a Peugeot 504 to another raid. Theories implicated far-right ex-law enforcement, including the Giant as a possible gendarme; Christiaan Bonkoffsky’s brother confessed in 2015 to being the Giant, but no convictions followed.
Investigation Status
Despite exhaustive efforts—1,815 tips, 2,748 fingerprints, 593 DNA samples, and 40+ exhumations—prosecutors closed the case in June 2024, though an appeals court mandated hearing the plate-note brothers. Total loot: ~€175,000. Victims’ families, like Irena Palsterman, decry the closure as burying justice.
