Andras Pandy was a Protestant minister who served Hungarian refugees in Brussels and taught religion in Belgian schools. Between 1986 and 1989, six members of his household disappeared: his first wife, the two sons he had with her, his second wife and two of her daughters. For years he gave the authorities explanations for each absence. In the autumn of 1997 Belgian police arrested him, and his eldest daughter told investigators that the six were dead and that she had helped him kill five of them.
No trace of the six has been found. In 2002 a Brussels jury convicted Pandy on six counts of premeditated murder, with other charges, and he was sentenced to life in prison. His daughter was convicted as his accomplice and sentenced to 21 years. Pandy denied everything to the end. He told the court that his family was alive in Hungary and that he spoke with them "through angels," according to Reuters. He died in prison in Bruges in December 2013, at 86, without having confessed.
Pandy, whose name is written Pándy András in Hungarian, was born in 1927 in Csap, a town in Subcarpathia (Kárpátalja), the Hungarian news site 444 reported at his death. Reuters called him Hungarian-born, and Belga described him as a Hungarian pastor.
He said he had studied theology in Hungary, according to the Hungarian news site Origo. In Belgium he taught Protestant religion in Flemish schools and served as pastor to a congregation of Hungarian refugees. VRT NWS, the Flemish public broadcaster, later described him as a Protestant minister and religious instruction teacher. Origo reported that he owned three houses in Brussels and was financially comfortable. His family lived in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek (Molenbeek-Saint-Jean), a district of the capital, VRT NWS reported.
Pandy met his first wife, Ilona Sőrés, in Hungary in 1957, before the couple fled communist Hungary for Belgium, 444 reported. They had three children: a daughter, born in 1958 according to 444, and two sons, Dániel, born in 1961, and Zoltán, born in 1966. The marriage ended in divorce. Origo reported that the three children stayed with their father after the divorce.
His second wife was Edit Fintor, a Hungarian woman whom he met through a classified ad, according to Origo; 444 wrote that she was still married to another man when Pandy courted her. Origo dates the marriage to 1984. She brought three daughters from earlier relationships to Brussels, among them Tünde and Andrea. Origo described the girls as Pandy's adopted children. Pandy and Edit Fintor had two more children together.
The six people Pandy was convicted of murdering were all members of his own household.
Ilona Sőrés was his first wife. She had come with him from Hungary to Belgium, and she was the mother of his three eldest children. Origo reported that in 1988 she objected to Pandy's plan to adopt Edit Fintor's daughters.
Dániel and Zoltán were their sons, born in 1961 and 1966 according to 444.
Edit Fintor was his second wife. She was still married to another man when Pandy courted her, 444 reported, and she came to Brussels with her three daughters.
Andrea and Tünde were two of Edit Fintor's daughters. Their ages when they disappeared have not been published. The third daughter survived and moved abroad.
Little was reported about the six outside the household: their work, their schooling and, apart from the two sons, their dates of birth.
According to the chronology Origo published, Edit Fintor and her daughter Andrea disappeared in 1986. Pandy produced a letter in which his wife said she was leaving him for Germany. Origo reported that he had made her write it, and that a few days after the two disappeared he took her daughter Tünde to Germany and mailed the letter from there to his own address in Brussels. On October 8 of that year, Origo reported, Pandy told the authorities that his wife had abandoned the family.
In 1988 Ilona Sőrés and her two sons, Dániel and Zoltán, disappeared. Origo reported that the sons were killed some two weeks apart, and that their mother was killed the same day as Dániel.
In 1989 Tünde disappeared. Origo reported that she vanished while the eldest daughter was away on a holiday at the coast, and that the daughter concluded on her return that her father had killed Tünde in her absence. Reuters reported at the verdict that the daughter was not present when Pandy killed her sister.
The jury found that all six had been murdered, Reuters reported. None of the bodies has been recovered.
For years Pandy explained each disappearance. He told the police that his second wife had gone to Germany. Origo reported that in 1994 he bought a house in Hungary and obtained a divorce from Edit Fintor through a Hungarian court, even though she had been dead for years by the account later accepted at trial. The same report said he paid young drama students to write letters from Hungary in the names of his missing children. At the trial he insisted that his family was alive and well in Hungary.
In 1992 Pandy's eldest daughter went to the police. According to Origo, she accused her father of abusing her and told officers that six family members had disappeared. Pandy answered that his daughter had joined a sect and that her mind was disturbed. The complaint was filed away, and nothing further happened for several years.
Origo reported that the file was reopened in 1996 and that a new investigation began.
In the autumn of 1997, Origo reported, the police arrested Pandy first and then his daughter. VRT NWS later described Pandy as having been detained for questioning in 1997 over the disappearance of family members. The Hungarian site 444 summarized the sequence differently, writing that he was arrested after his daughter confessed that the two of them had killed relatives together, including her mother.
The confession came in November 1997, according to Reuters, and the prosecution's case rested largely on it. She told investigators that she had taken part in the killings of her mother, her two brothers, her stepmother and one stepsister. Origo reported that the 48-page indictment was built mostly on information she gave.
Investigators searched Pandy's houses in Brussels, Origo reported, with few results. No bodies of the six were found. In Brussels, police recovered human bones that Origo reported probably belonged to seven or eight women aged between 40 and 50; 444 later wrote that the remains of seven women and one man were found in one of the family's houses. Origo reported that investigators at first suspected Pandy of killing 15 to 20 women. Those suspicions were not proven in court, and it has never been made public who those people were or how they died.
The trial took place before a jury in Brussels in 2002. A photograph from Agence France-Presse published by 444 shows Pandy in the Brussels courthouse on February 18, 2002. The hearings lasted two weeks, Reuters reported.
Pandy denied all the charges. He called the proceedings a "witch trial" and compared himself to Alfred Dreyfus, the French army officer whose wrongful conviction became France's most famous miscarriage of justice. He maintained that his relatives were alive in Hungary and said he was in contact with them "through angels." Shortly before the jury withdrew to decide his sentence, Pandy told the court that the trial represented the triumph of "fallacy" over "authenticity," Reuters reported.
His daughter testified against him. Sapa-AFP described her as a key witness against her father.
The jury deliberated for seven hours before finding Pandy guilty, Reuters reported. He was convicted on six counts of premeditated murder, with other charges. He was 74.
Under Belgian procedure, Reuters noted, the jury decides the sentence together with the judge. Pandy was sentenced to life in prison. BRF Nachrichten, the German-language Belgian public broadcaster, citing the news agency Belga, reported in 2013 that the life term was to be followed by a period during which he would remain at the government's disposal. Sapa-AFP reported later that he had been jailed for life in March.
The presiding judge, Karel Demyttenaere, said the father and daughter both had dangerous, antisocial personalities and had shown no respect for their victims, according to Reuters. Pandy's lawyer, Hein Diependaele, called the sentence logical given the guilty verdicts.
His daughter, then 44, was found guilty of five of the six murders and sentenced to 21 years. Reuters reported that her lighter sentence reflected her account of the psychological pressure and abuse she had suffered from her father. Her lawyer, Walter Muls, said 21 years was a long time and that the ruling had hit her very hard.
No appeal has been reported.
Pandy's daughter served her sentence at the women's prison in Bruges. In February 2009 BRF reported that she had been in prison for 11 years, and that a court in Brussels was expected to decide within weeks whether to release her early.
She was released on June 15, 2010, VRT NWS reported. She was 50. The conditions included an electronic tag and a curfew, and she went to live with Dominican nuns in Bruges. VRT NWS described her sentence as one for aiding and abetting her father in killing six family members at their home in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek in the 1980s. Belga, in its 2013 report, described her as convicted of complicity in five of the six killings and said she had confessed.
Pandy spent his last years in prison. His health declined in the years before his death, BRF reported. He died in prison in Bruges, and his death was reported on December 23, 2013, by BRF, citing Belga, and by 444. BRF gave his age as 86; 444 gave his birth year as 1927 but printed his age as 96, which does not match that birth year.
Belga reported that he had never admitted the crimes.
Several points in the record remain open or are reported differently.
Origo dates Tünde's disappearance to 1989; the exact date was not reported.
The order of the 1997 arrests is reported differently. Origo said Pandy was arrested first and his daughter afterward; 444 wrote that the arrest followed her confession. Reuters dated the confession to November 1997.
The people whose remains were recovered in Brussels have not been identified, and no charge over them was reported. Origo's report that investigators once suspected Pandy of killing 15 to 20 women describes an early suspicion, not a finding. He was not convicted of any killing outside his family.
The convictions rested largely on his daughter's confession, Reuters reported, and the bodies of the six have not been recovered. He denied the charges until his death.
1927: Andras Pandy is born in Csap, in Subcarpathia (444).
1957: He meets Ilona Sőrés in Hungary; the couple later flee communist Hungary for Belgium (444).
1958: Birth year of their eldest daughter, according to 444.
1961: Their son Dániel is born (444).
1966: Their son Zoltán is born (444).
1984: Pandy marries Edit Fintor, according to Origo; she brings three daughters to Brussels.
1986: Edit Fintor and her daughter Andrea disappear (Origo). On October 8 Pandy reports that his wife has abandoned the family (Origo).
1988: Ilona Sőrés and her sons Dániel and Zoltán disappear (Origo).
1989: Tünde disappears (Origo).
1992: Pandy's eldest daughter goes to the police; the complaint is filed away (Origo).
1994: Pandy buys a house in Hungary and obtains a Hungarian divorce from Edit Fintor (Origo).
1996: The case is reopened (Origo).
Autumn 1997: Pandy and his daughter are arrested in Brussels (Origo).
November 1997: The daughter confesses (Reuters).
February 18, 2002: Pandy appears at the Brussels courthouse during the trial (AFP photograph, 444).
2002: After a two-week trial, a jury convicts Pandy on six counts of premeditated murder, with other charges; he is sentenced to life. His daughter is sentenced to 21 years (Reuters; BRF).
February 2009: BRF reports that a court is weighing the daughter's early release.
June 15, 2010: The daughter is released on conditions (VRT NWS).
December 23, 2013: Pandy's death in prison in Bruges, at 86, is reported (BRF/Belga; 444).