Can humiliation create such deep furrows? A 37-year-old man was imprisoned this week in Belgium for the murder of his former teacher, sixteen months after the fact. On November 10, 2020, Maria Verlinden was found at home in Herentals, in the north of the country, in a pool of blood. His body bore the marks of 101 stab wounds.
Nothing was missing in the house, not even the purse on a table. After dismissing the trail of a family conflict and a heinous crime, the Belgian police had three elements in the file: a trace of unknown blood, a piece of blue latex glove and the imprint of the sole of a shoe. orthopedic.
The comparison with 435 DNA samples from known profiles of justice had given nothing, no more than the testimonies collected after the broadcast of special programs on television. In recent months, investigators had summoned a hundred people linked to “juf Mieke”, “prof Mieke” in Flemish. As a former student, Gunter Uwents was on the list but the Antwerp resident had claimed Covid contamination to miss the meeting. A new summons had to be sent to him.
Knowing that he was going to be confused, the young man ended up giving himself up to a friend who notified the police. He was arrested without incident on Sunday afternoon.
“My client wanted to tell everything in as much detail as possible because he believes that the victim’s family is entitled to answers,” his lawyer, Ben Crosiers, explained on Tuesday afternoon after a close hearing. three hours by an investigating judge from Turnhout. “He regrets a lot and is struggling mentally. He is very emotional, not only because of the facts, but also because he realizes that he has caused Mieke’s family a lot of pain,” he said.
In 1991-1992, when Europe voted for the Maastricht Treaty, Gunter Uwents, aged 7 to 8, was in the second year at Klavertje primary school in Noorderwijk, in Mieke’s class. He would have experienced this schooling very badly because of the behavior of the teacher towards him. “It belongs to the secrecy of the investigation”, merely said his lawyer, all the same referring to an “incident” that year, “because afterwards, my client no longer had any contact with the victim” .
“Unfortunately, Mieke is no longer here to discuss it”
The investigation must corroborate these statements. Interviewed by the Dutch-language daily Het Laatste Nieuws, three classmates at the time said they had no memory of a traumatic event that could have affected Gunter Uwents. But they said that their former teacher could sometimes be abrupt, to the point that some regularly returned home in tears.
Michel Peeters, 62, the husband of Maria Verlinden, told the press that he had never heard the name of this student. As for the humiliations invoked by him, “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Unfortunately, Mieke is no longer here to discuss it. It would be a shame if he sullied his memory…”
The analyzes confirmed that the blood found on the victim’s clothing was indeed that of Uwents. The young man, brought up in the Christian faith and involved in helping the homeless in Antwerp, did not contest his placement in pre-trial detention. According to the Belgian press, he claimed not to have had a knife on him at the time, nor the intention to attack his teacher. The investigation will have to determine if he wore latex gloves because he had premeditated his gesture or to protect himself from the Covid. Gunter Uwents should also be the subject of a psychiatric evaluation in the coming weeks.