Trio wore masks and face paint – then opened fire on grocery stores, killing 28 people, including children

HE NEEDS TO KNOW

• A masked trio known as the Brabant Killers attacked Belgian grocery stores and other businesses between 1982 and 1985, killing 28 people.

• Survivors included David Van de Steen, who lost his parents and sister, and Geneviève Van Lidth, who later said she recognized an attacker.

• Investigators sifted through thousands of clues over the 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 spate of supermarket massacres in the Brabant region of Belgium, killing 28 people, including families and young children.

The men used face paint during the raids and were dubbed by investigators and the media the Giant, the Killer and the Old Man, according to the BBC. They were never identified.

The station reported that the attacks took place in two main waves and targeted supermarkets, guesthouses, an armoury, a bar and a restaurant. Some victims were tortured before being killed, the media reported.

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

Two brothers, then aged 7 and 10, later said they saw six men in dark clothing fleeing the scene, and the boys jotted down a car’s license plate number in a notebook as part of a childhood hobby. CBS News, citing AFP, reported that the notebook was filed in the case file, but the lead was not followed up for decades and the brothers were never questioned.

A survivor of the Aalst attack, David Van de Steen – who was seriously injured aged 9 and lost both his parents and sister – later said his sister shouted: “Don’t shoot, that’s my father!” before their father was killed, according to Bulletin.

Another victim, a woman named Geneviève Van Lidth, was one of the few people who saw one of the attackers without a mask. In 1983, her car was stolen at gunpoint outside her home in Plancenoit, Walloon Brabant.

She later described the man as apparently of southern European origin, with short, curly black hair and “flawless” French, which made him appear well-educated, and said a Peugeot 504 that followed her car was later linked to a Delhaize attack in Genval, per The Brussels Times‘ her account summary.

“I always said he had a northern French accent, that he wasn’t Belgian,” she told reporters, adding that she was “99 percent sure” she recognized her attacker when shown a photo 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 reports cited by the media also noted a long-circulated theory that the giant was a former member of the gendarmerie, Belgium’s national police force.

In 2019, a retired police officer was accused of dumping guns and ammunition related to the case into a canal in 1986, but 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 press that the revelation was “the first serious revelation in 30 years”.

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

The total amount stolen from the robberies was estimated at approximately 175,000 euros, The Guardian reported.

According to the publication, prosecutors told the victims’ families that investigators 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 was ever convicted in the case.

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In 2020, police released a photo of an unidentified man standing in a wooded area near a lake while holding a rifle. Investigators described her as a “vital lead” in the case and appealed for help to identify him, according to the BBC and The Guardian reporting.

In June 2024, despite Bonkoffsky’s 2017 confession about “The Giant”, Belgian federal prosecutors announced that the case was closed after more than four decades of investigation. The Guardian reported. The families were told that “all possible investigative actions have been taken,” according to the publication.

“This means that 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 media reports.

CBS News, citing AFP, reported that an appeals court in Mons later ordered investigators to interview 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 the victims’ families, according to the publication.

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