1-23-09 Fabeltjesland nursery/day care stabbings, Belgium, Kim de Gelder, 20
aka "The Joker Killer"
At 10am on the 23rd of January, a Belgian man, Kim De Gelder, 20, entered the 'Fabeltjesland'("Storyland") 'crèche'(a nursery/day car center) in the town of Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde through an unlocked side door, claiming he had an appointment, and then walked into one of the rooms and attacked children before moving up some stairs and continuing in another room. He was armed with three knives, an axe and a fake gun, and wearing body armor. He killed two babies and one nurse and injured 10-12 other babies-six of them seriously--and three more nurses before riding away on a bike. De Gelder deliberately aimed at the chest and throats of the children.
Theo Janssens, the deputy mayor:
"He went straight for the babies and attacked them. The smallest ones were in their beds, they were probably asleep. The two who were killed were just babies."
The Dead:
--Leon Garcia-Mannaert, a six-month old boy
--Korneel Vermeir, a nine-month old girl
--Marita Blindeman, a 54-year-old employee
He was captured by police an hour and a half later in a nearby town, allegedly at a clinic where he had been receiving in-patient treatment. Though other reports said he was captured in a supermarket. He fought back against the policemen who detained him, injuring himself and two officers. Though other reports said he had surrendered without incident:
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-quoted-Heath-Ledger.html
Patrick De Mey, the police officer who arrested Mr De Gelder, described the suspect as being in a passive and trance-like state."When I asked him to step off his bicycle and put his backpack on the ground he obeyed perfectly," he told the Gazet Van Antwerpen.
"But in answer to my questions, he clearly had no understanding. He continued to stare at me all the time with wide open eyes and a large grin on his face."
Witnesses described him as unusually tall and thin, with ginger hair. According to some witnesses De Gelder had painted his face in black and white. It is said that he had a hit list of 75 people including all babies and nurses from at least three other kindergartens in the area.
The public prosecutor had this to say after they captured the suspect but before they knew his name:
"(He) was not under the influence of drugs or alcoholic beverages. He acts strangely and mocks his interrogators. He is not a patient of a psychiatric institution. He has so far given five different identities."
He is said to have no known connection with the nursery.
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html (pic also)
His lawyer sid that his client 'obviously understands that he did something which is inhuman', but said that his client "had no specific memories of what happened in the daycare centre."
Speculation was initially heavy that de Gelder was inspired by the "Joker" character in the Batman movie "The Dark Knight," starring the late Heath Ledger. This was due to his makeup, his reddish hair, the fact that 'Gelder' is an anagram of the name 'Ledger,' his comment at the beginning of the rampage--"I have a question"--which mimicked a line in the movie, and that it occured a year and a day after Ledger's death.
Three days later, Belgian officials named De Gelder as the lead suspect in a further, fourth murder, of 73-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in her apartment near Antwerp seven days earlier, on the 16nth.
Background:
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html
His lawyer spoke of De Gelder troubled youth. 'When he was 15-16, he had an, apparently serious, depression,' he said. At 18, he was considered for 'a forced entry into psychiatry which, for reasons unclear, did not happen'. '.....at a certain point, he spoke of certain voices in his head.'
[Comment: Oddly, police initially claimed that there was no history of mental problems.]
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-Gelder-admits-guilt.html
Mr De Gelder's parents had wanted to confine him in an institution for the mentally ill.
But the attempt failed because their son was already undergoing treatment for depression and the medical authorities ruled out any need for residential care.
--Former classmates of the unemployed suspect have continued to describe his obsession with horror movies, which he would describe to fellow students accompanied with "strange laughter".
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html
De Gelder was known to local police and had been arrested on more than one occasion for drug-related offences.
http://www.expatica.com/b...hunned-others__48974.html
Kim De Gelder is unemployed and lives alone. He lived in a new apartment in a block where there are many families with young children.
Neighbours describe him as a loner, who shunned contact with his neighbours.
Until recently the killer worked for a wholesaler that supplies shop equipment. He gave up his job; nobody knows why. Colleagues portray him as "clever" and a "movie addict." He was also an introvert and did not reveal much of his character.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/n...le-loner-115875-21071783/
A neighbour described him as "very polite, a recluse, incredibly thin and very pale."
[Comment: After he was arrested, he reportedly went on a hunger strike and had to be fed intraveneously. I wonder if this guy might have been anorexic?]
A few sources say De Gelder was a goth, though this has generally been played down in the mainstream media accounts.
http://www.side-line.com/...ents.php?id=39461_0_2_0_C
De Gelder was known for wearing a long dark coat.. "The few reports that we heard that already indicated De Gelder as a goth, again talk about "a weird subculture where death is omnipresent." The laywer of De Gelder denies he is/was a goth."
http://femmebot3000.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!ABCB75507DB21B7A!1681.entry
De Gelder, not dissimilar to stark raving loonies who paved the way for such inexplicable acts of nastiness, was apparently wearing a long black coat and was sporting a painted face when apprehended by police officers.
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-quoted-Heath-Ledger.html
He was nicknamed Satan because of his long black hair.
[Comment: Or could it have been because he was a satanist?]
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-Heath-Ledgers-death.html
Neighbours who knew Mr De Gelder's parents described their son Kim, one of two children, as "someone who lived alone in his own world." "He was sometimes seen chattering away to himself," said one. "He was local but he was a stranger to everyone here. He was a loner who shunned contact with others." Another close neighbour of the suspect's parents said: "Kim was a quiet and reserved child who did not join in with children his age."
His landlord, speaking anonymously, described a young man with "no hobbies, no social life and no friends." He was pale "as if he never saw the sun", he added. (vampire?)
Mr De Gelder started work last April as a casual empoyee at Van Remoortel, a cash-and-carry company. He was offered a permanent contract after the summer but resigned suddenly on Dec 22 after one of his colleagues was fired.
Here's a strange item:
http://www.timesonline.co...europe/article5572617.ece
It took about half an hour for the first of a fleet of ambulances to reach the scene and begin ferrying the wounded to several hospitals....
[Half an hour In a town of 42,000? Hmmm....]
aka "The Joker Killer"
At 10am on the 23rd of January, a Belgian man, Kim De Gelder, 20, entered the 'Fabeltjesland'("Storyland") 'crèche'(a nursery/day car center) in the town of Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde through an unlocked side door, claiming he had an appointment, and then walked into one of the rooms and attacked children before moving up some stairs and continuing in another room. He was armed with three knives, an axe and a fake gun, and wearing body armor. He killed two babies and one nurse and injured 10-12 other babies-six of them seriously--and three more nurses before riding away on a bike. De Gelder deliberately aimed at the chest and throats of the children.
Theo Janssens, the deputy mayor:
"He went straight for the babies and attacked them. The smallest ones were in their beds, they were probably asleep. The two who were killed were just babies."
The Dead:
--Leon Garcia-Mannaert, a six-month old boy
--Korneel Vermeir, a nine-month old girl
--Marita Blindeman, a 54-year-old employee
He was captured by police an hour and a half later in a nearby town, allegedly at a clinic where he had been receiving in-patient treatment. Though other reports said he was captured in a supermarket. He fought back against the policemen who detained him, injuring himself and two officers. Though other reports said he had surrendered without incident:
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-quoted-Heath-Ledger.html
Patrick De Mey, the police officer who arrested Mr De Gelder, described the suspect as being in a passive and trance-like state."When I asked him to step off his bicycle and put his backpack on the ground he obeyed perfectly," he told the Gazet Van Antwerpen.
"But in answer to my questions, he clearly had no understanding. He continued to stare at me all the time with wide open eyes and a large grin on his face."
Witnesses described him as unusually tall and thin, with ginger hair. According to some witnesses De Gelder had painted his face in black and white. It is said that he had a hit list of 75 people including all babies and nurses from at least three other kindergartens in the area.
The public prosecutor had this to say after they captured the suspect but before they knew his name:
"(He) was not under the influence of drugs or alcoholic beverages. He acts strangely and mocks his interrogators. He is not a patient of a psychiatric institution. He has so far given five different identities."
He is said to have no known connection with the nursery.
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html (pic also)
His lawyer sid that his client 'obviously understands that he did something which is inhuman', but said that his client "had no specific memories of what happened in the daycare centre."
Speculation was initially heavy that de Gelder was inspired by the "Joker" character in the Batman movie "The Dark Knight," starring the late Heath Ledger. This was due to his makeup, his reddish hair, the fact that 'Gelder' is an anagram of the name 'Ledger,' his comment at the beginning of the rampage--"I have a question"--which mimicked a line in the movie, and that it occured a year and a day after Ledger's death.
Three days later, Belgian officials named De Gelder as the lead suspect in a further, fourth murder, of 73-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in her apartment near Antwerp seven days earlier, on the 16nth.
Background:
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html
His lawyer spoke of De Gelder troubled youth. 'When he was 15-16, he had an, apparently serious, depression,' he said. At 18, he was considered for 'a forced entry into psychiatry which, for reasons unclear, did not happen'. '.....at a certain point, he spoke of certain voices in his head.'
[Comment: Oddly, police initially claimed that there was no history of mental problems.]
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-Gelder-admits-guilt.html
Mr De Gelder's parents had wanted to confine him in an institution for the mentally ill.
But the attempt failed because their son was already undergoing treatment for depression and the medical authorities ruled out any need for residential care.
--Former classmates of the unemployed suspect have continued to describe his obsession with horror movies, which he would describe to fellow students accompanied with "strange laughter".
http://www.dailymail.co.u...eacher-slashed-death.html
De Gelder was known to local police and had been arrested on more than one occasion for drug-related offences.
http://www.expatica.com/b...hunned-others__48974.html
Kim De Gelder is unemployed and lives alone. He lived in a new apartment in a block where there are many families with young children.
Neighbours describe him as a loner, who shunned contact with his neighbours.
Until recently the killer worked for a wholesaler that supplies shop equipment. He gave up his job; nobody knows why. Colleagues portray him as "clever" and a "movie addict." He was also an introvert and did not reveal much of his character.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/n...le-loner-115875-21071783/
A neighbour described him as "very polite, a recluse, incredibly thin and very pale."
[Comment: After he was arrested, he reportedly went on a hunger strike and had to be fed intraveneously. I wonder if this guy might have been anorexic?]
A few sources say De Gelder was a goth, though this has generally been played down in the mainstream media accounts.
http://www.side-line.com/...ents.php?id=39461_0_2_0_C
De Gelder was known for wearing a long dark coat.. "The few reports that we heard that already indicated De Gelder as a goth, again talk about "a weird subculture where death is omnipresent." The laywer of De Gelder denies he is/was a goth."
http://femmebot3000.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!ABCB75507DB21B7A!1681.entry
De Gelder, not dissimilar to stark raving loonies who paved the way for such inexplicable acts of nastiness, was apparently wearing a long black coat and was sporting a painted face when apprehended by police officers.
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-quoted-Heath-Ledger.html
He was nicknamed Satan because of his long black hair.
[Comment: Or could it have been because he was a satanist?]
http://www.telegraph.co.u...-Heath-Ledgers-death.html
Neighbours who knew Mr De Gelder's parents described their son Kim, one of two children, as "someone who lived alone in his own world." "He was sometimes seen chattering away to himself," said one. "He was local but he was a stranger to everyone here. He was a loner who shunned contact with others." Another close neighbour of the suspect's parents said: "Kim was a quiet and reserved child who did not join in with children his age."
His landlord, speaking anonymously, described a young man with "no hobbies, no social life and no friends." He was pale "as if he never saw the sun", he added. (vampire?)
Mr De Gelder started work last April as a casual empoyee at Van Remoortel, a cash-and-carry company. He was offered a permanent contract after the summer but resigned suddenly on Dec 22 after one of his colleagues was fired.
Here's a strange item:
http://www.timesonline.co...europe/article5572617.ece
It took about half an hour for the first of a fleet of ambulances to reach the scene and begin ferrying the wounded to several hospitals....
[Half an hour In a town of 42,000? Hmmm....]
