The trio wore masks and face paint – then set grocery stores on fire, killing 28 people, including children.

need to know

• Between 1982 and 1985, three masked men known as the Brabant Killers attacked grocery stores and other businesses in Belgium, killing 28 people.

• The survivors were David van de Steen, who lost his parents and sister, and Genevieve van Liedth, who later said she recognized one of the attackers.

• Investigators reviewed thousands of clues over decades and closed the case in 2024 without identifying the guilty parties.

Between 1982 and 1985, a masked trio known as the “Crazy Killers of Brabant” carried out a wave of supermarket massacres across the Brabant region of Belgium, killing 28 people, including families and young children.

The men used face paint during the raid and were nicknamed the Giant, the Killer and the Old Man by researchers and the press, according to the BBC. They were never identified.

The outlet reported that the attacks were spread in two main waves and targeted supermarkets, hostels, a gun shop, a bar and a restaurant. Some victims were tortured before being killed, the outlet reported.

On November 9, 1985, eight people were killed in an attack on the Delhaize grocery store in the city of Aalst, according to the BBC.

Two brothers, ages 7 and 10, later said they saw six men dressed in black running from the scene, and that the boys wrote down the car’s registration number in a notebook as a childhood hobby. CBS News, citing AFP, reported that the notebook was placed in the case file but the lead was not followed up for decades and the brothers were never questioned.

One survivor of the Aalst attack, David van de Steen – who was severely wounded at the age of 9 and lost both his parents and sister – was later yelled by his sister, “Don’t shoot, that’s my father!” According to him, before killing his father Bulletin.

Another victim, a woman named Genevieve Van Liedth, was one of the few people to see one of the attackers without a mask. In 1983, his car was stolen at gunpoint outside his home in Plansoit, Walloon Brabant.

She later described him as a man of southern European origin with short, curly black hair and a “guilty” French that made him appear well-educated, and said the Peugeot 504 chasing her car was later tied to the Delhaize attack in Genval. Brussels Times‘ Summary of his account.

“I always said he had a northern French accent, he’s not Belgian,” she said, according to the outlet, adding that she was “99% sure” she recognized the attacker when shown the photo years later.

The Guardian It was reported that investigators once examined whether the attacks were attempts to destabilize Belgium by current or former law enforcement officials with far-right ties. AFP reporting cited by the outlet also noted a long-standing theory that Giant may be a former member of Belgium’s national police force, the gendarmerie.

In 2019, a retired police officer was charged with allegedly dumping weapons and ammunition in a canal in 1986, but he was never convicted, according to The Guardian.

In 2017, The Guardian Christian Bonkofsky, the brother of the Belgian ex-policeman, admitted to being ‘The Giant’ two years ago. Patricia Finn, whose father was among the 28 killed, told the outlet that the revelations were “the first serious revelations in 30 years”.

“I really hope this leads to the destruction of the rest of the gang, whether they’re dead or not,” she told the outlet.

The total amount stolen in the robbery was estimated at around €175,000. The Guardian Reported.

According to the outlet, prosecutors told the victim’s family that investigators had examined 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 been convicted in the case yet.

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In 2020, police released a photo of an unidentified man standing in the woods near a pond with a gun. Investigators described it as a “significant lead” in the case and appealed for help to identify him, the BBC and The Guardian reporting.

In June 2024, Belgian federal prosecutors announced that the case was closed after more than four decades of investigation, despite Bonkofsky’s 2017 “huge” confession. The Guardian Reported. According to the outlet, the families were told “all possible investigative work has been completed”.

“It 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, according to the outlet.

CBS News, citing AFP, reported that an appeals court in Mons later ordered investigators to hear two more witnesses, including the brothers who recorded the license plate number before the Alest attack.

“We will not give up,” said Christian Vandenbussche, a lawyer representing the victim’s family, according to the outlet.

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