The 4-year-old Belgian child, Dean Verberckmoes, who disappeared 5 days ago and probably kidnapped by his babysitter, a man who had already been in prison for the murder of another child, was found lifeless in the Netherlands. The child’s body was found at the height of searches that had mobilized dozens of men. In the morning, about eighty kilometers away, in the town of Meerkerk, a 34-year-old, Dave De K., known to the police because he was convicted of child abuse that led to his death, was arrested. The two were last seen together in the Belgian town of Sint Niklaas, near Antwerp. The man regularly took care of Dean and his younger sister, said the children’s mother, Elke Verberckmoes: he should have left the baby at his grandparents’ house on Thursday, but he didn’t.
The discovery took place in Neeltje Jans, an artificial island in the Dutch province of Zeeland, in the Eastern Scheldt, on the North Sea. For days an “Amber alert” had been launched, an alert for suspected kidnapping. The mother, 39, had launched an emotional appeal on TV: «I try to be strong, but in reality I am terrified. All I want is to have the light of my eyes back: “Put it at the door and then go away, but take my son back home.” The woman said she knew Dave had been in prison, but not for what crime. «In the last year he has been a pillar and a support for me. I am a single mother by choice, I have two children, but I have been suffering from depression for a long time. In the course of my therapy, I met Dave’s girlfriend and then Dave himself. We got along well and chatted almost every day. Every Wednesday they took care of my babies, so that my mother could breathe. Dave had the best relationship with Dean. “
De K. had made headlines in Belgium: in the house of his girlfriend at the time, he had abused her son, Miguel, just two years old, so violently that the child had died in hospital. He had spoken of an “accident” but acknowledged that he had been under the influence of cannabis and drugs. A court had sentenced him in February 2010 to 10 years in prison for “inhuman acts that resulted in death”. During the trial, psychiatrists described him as “a psychopath with a sadistic disposition.” Yet for the Belgian minister of justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, there was no place for him in a psychiatric institution once he had served his sentence; and once he was free, there was no reason to monitor him. In the Netherlands, there is still too little psychiatric care for “people with a very serious criminal past,” acknowledged Van Quickenborne.