In February 1978 a Belgian nun known as Sister Godfrieda, the head nurse of a geriatric ward in the Flemish town of Wetteren, confessed to killing three elderly residents in her care with injections of insulin. She was 44. Police charged her with three murders. The case drew reporters and photographers from across Europe and beyond, while much of the Flemish press, closely tied to the Catholic Church, gave it little space.
She never stood trial. Psychiatric experts ruled in 1980 that she was insane, and instead of a trial she was interned in a psychiatric institution. She was released ten years later, returned to her convent, and died in 2019, aged 86. No court ever ruled on whether she caused the deaths she confessed to, or the many others that investigators and colleagues suspected.
Her name appears in several forms. Time magazine, reporting in March 1978, called her Sister Godfrida and gave her birth name as Cecile Bombeek. The Flemish journalist Tom De Smet, who published a book on the case in 2023, spells it Cecile Bombeke and her religious name Godfrieda, and her gravestone reads Sister Marie-Godfrieda, Cecilia Bombeke.
Cécile Bombeke was born in 1933 in Wichelen, in Flanders, into a Catholic farming family, according to De Smet, writing in The Brussels Times. VRT NWS, the Flemish public broadcaster, also described her as growing up in a Catholic farming family in Wichelen. Time described her in 1978 as a local woman from Wetteren.
She chose religious life as a young woman. De Smet writes that she joined the convent of the Apostolic Congregation of St. Joseph in Wetteren at the age of 24 and took the name Sister Godfrieda. VRT gave 1958 as the year she entered. Time identified the order the same way, calling its members Josephites, and described her as a short, plump nun.
Wetteren lies about 10 kilometers east of Ghent. In 1978 Time put its population at about 25,000 and described the surrounding region as conservative and Catholic.
She worked as a nurse. VRT reported that she first worked as a midwife at the public home linked to the convent, run by the town's public social welfare center, and later became head nurse in its geriatric section. De Smet writes that she became head nurse in 1967, leading a small team on the geriatric ward that staff called "the Chronic," and that she was the only nun working on it. Time described the ward as having 38 beds and called the institution a public hospital.
The turn in her life, as De Smet tells it, began with her health. From 1970 she complained of severe headaches. Doctors prescribed painkillers, and she became dependent on them; her mother superior, De Smet writes, looked away because she wanted to keep her. A neurologist in Ghent diagnosed a brain tumor, and she had an operation in 1974 to remove it. The headaches continued, and she was given a morphine derivative meant for limited use. She began stealing drugs and forging prescriptions. VRT summarized the same period as a failed operation for headaches in the mid-1970s, after which she became addicted to strong painkillers and started drinking.
Years later, according to De Smet, an expert board found that she had never had a brain tumor; its probable diagnosis was chronic encephalitis, a treatable condition. De Smet suggests the neurologist may have invented the tumor to explain damage to her skull, while noting that the doctor has since died and the point cannot be confirmed. In De Smet's reading, her belief that she was dying led her to treat herself with morphine and alcohol, lose her inhibitions and turn on the patients in her care. He writes that she took on a second persona, "Madame Cecile."
Time reported in 1978 that she was addicted to morphine. Its correspondent also relayed reports that she had relationships at the same time with a retired missionary priest and with a teaching nun in Wetteren, that she and the other nun shared an expensively furnished apartment near the hospital, and that the two ate at top restaurants and had costly meat, seafood and wine delivered. Police, Time said, believed she stole from patients to pay for both the drugs and the spending. De Smet likewise describes her going out to restaurants and cafés with a fellow nun with whom she had a relationship.
By 1977 the staff on the geriatric ward were worried. De Smet writes that jewelry, checks and cash went missing from the ward, and that on three occasions staff saw her handle an elderly patient roughly in ways they believed could have killed. The ward recorded 21 deaths in 1977, he writes, against an average of 13 a year. Time reported the same figure from a 1978 press conference, at which Dr. Jean-Paul De Corte said that 21 of the 38 patients had died in a single year. "When 21 out of 38 die in one year," De Corte said, "it is too much."
Two of the three deaths she later confessed to came that summer. According to De Smet, Leon Matthys, 81, died on July 29, 1977, the afternoon after she gave him an injection, and Irma De Backer, 79, died on August 14, 1977, in the evening after an injection from her. The third, Maria Vanderginst, was 87; the date of her death was not reported. Beyond their names and ages, little has been reported about the three residents' lives.
Early in 1977, Time reported, some of the ward's nurses had begun keeping a secret diary. In it they recorded each death and its circumstances, and incidents they saw as mistreatment of elderly patients. Over time, Time said, they saw that one person was common to all of it: Sister Godfrida.
The nurses took their concerns to the chairman of the body that ran the home, Romain Verschooris. De Smet writes that he dismissed them with insults as women plotting against the nun. VRT, summarizing De Smet's book, reported that colleagues who raised the alarm were told they were making things up. Time quoted Dr. De Corte's suggestion that a "conspiracy of silence" had protected her, and wrote that officials had apparently overlooked her failings for some time.
The response, when it came, was quiet. Time reported that she was suspended in August 1977 and sent to a hospital in Ghent for a drug cure, which failed, and that police suspected the nun who shared her home had brought her drugs during her stay. De Smet writes that Verschooris sent her to a rehabilitation clinic and told the staff to keep silent. Four months later, he writes, she sent a Christmas card to the ward with the message "See you soon," a sign that she meant to come back. VRT reported that she returned to the home in January 1978. According to Time, she came back unchanged.
Her return pushed the nurses to act. Time wrote that they decided to confront the hospital administrator with their diary. De Smet writes that three staff members went to Jean-Paul De Corte, a young general practitioner known for his discretion, and that he told them he needed proof. Time described De Corte as a member of the hospital's governing board and credited him with starting the investigation. VRT said the young doctor helped gather evidence.
The first solid evidence concerned prescriptions. An official who monitored the region's pharmacies, De Smet writes, confirmed that prescriptions had been forged.
Sister Godfrieda was arrested on February 10, 1978, at first for forgery, according to De Smet. Time reported that she was first accused of stealing more than $30,000 from elderly patients to pay for her morphine habit, and that she was held in jail in Ghent.
In custody she confessed to killing three elderly patients with insulin overdoses. De Smet names them as Irma De Backer, Leon Matthys and Maria Vanderginst. She said, in words both Time and De Smet report, that they had been "too difficult at night," and she said she had done it "sweetly," so that none of them suffered. Police then charged her with three murders.
De Smet writes that she later denied deliberately killing the three, and said she had only calmed them.
From the start, people close to the case thought the toll was higher. Dr. De Corte told reporters in 1978 that it "could just as well be 30 people as three," Time reported.
The judicial investigation tried to find out. Time reported in March 1978 that a judge had ordered five bodies exhumed, those of the three residents she had confessed to killing and two other possible victims, and that police were waiting for autopsy results before deciding on further murder charges. De Smet, writing in 2023, gives a larger figure: seven other possible victims besides the three. The results of the autopsies have not been reported.
The investigating judge, Leo Tas, listed 17 people whose deaths she may have caused, De Smet writes; the list was not made public until his book appeared in 2023. VRT also reported that a document from the investigating judge referred to 17 murders. Much of the evidence, according to De Smet, consisted of statements and circumstantial details. He gives one example: the son-in-law of one resident said she had predicted that she would die on Christmas Eve 1976, and she did.
None of these other deaths led to a charge. The 17 deaths in the judge's file, and De Corte's estimate of 30, remain suspicions.
By early March 1978, Time reported, she was undergoing psychiatric tests, and if she was found mentally unstable she might never stand trial.
That is what happened. In 1980, De Smet writes, experts ruled her insane, which spared her a public trial. VRT summarized the outcome as a declaration that she was not criminally responsible, followed by committal to an institution. She was interned in a psychiatric institution in Melle.
De Smet argues that the finding suited many people. In his account, a public trial would have exposed the neurologist who diagnosed the tumor, her mother superior, the doctors who kept prescribing morphine and the chairman who sent the nurses away. VRT reported that he believes the investigation, run from Dendermonde, was not thorough and was sabotaged. These are De Smet's conclusions; no court or official inquiry has tested them.
She was released in 1990 and went back to the convent in Wetteren, De Smet writes. In later years she moved into a home for the elderly, where she lived with dementia.
She died in 2019, aged 86. Her family was not told, according to De Smet, and only the priest, the dean and the undertaker attended the burial. She is buried in a small cemetery for the sisters in the woods behind the former convent, under a stone that reads Sister Marie-Godfrieda, Cecilia Bombeke, 1933 to 2019.
In 1978 the story traveled far beyond Flanders. Time ran it in its crime section in March 1978 under the headline "The Nun's Story," describing a town "reeling from shock" and church authorities, embarrassed, examining a list of the nun's alleged misconduct that, in the magazine's words, covered most of the Ten Commandments and several of the deadly sins.
De Smet writes that Belgium's Catholic newspapers largely ignored the case while the international press descended on the town. A nun sold photographs to German journalists, he writes, and a Japanese photographer went through her parents' garden. VRT quoted his summary: the case was world news, except in Flanders.
The case also inspired an Italian film, Suor Omicidi, released in English as Killer Nun, with Anita Ekberg in the title role, De Smet writes.
For decades the case was largely forgotten in Belgium. In 2023 Tom De Smet published Soeur Mourir (Borgerhoff & Lamberigts), a book on the case. VRT reported in June 2023 that it was in its third printing. In The Brussels Times that July, De Smet described her as Belgium's forgotten killer nun and set out his findings: the investigating judge's list of 17 names, the expert finding that she had no brain tumor, and the failures he saw in the home's management and in the judicial investigation.
His view, in both The Brussels Times and VRT's report, is that there were many more victims than the three she confessed to. That remains his argument; the courts never ruled on any of the deaths.
The number of deaths. She confessed to three and was charged with three. The investigating judge's file named 17 people whose deaths she may have caused, according to De Smet and VRT, and Dr. De Corte said in 1978 it could be 30. None of the deaths was tested in court, including the three she confessed to.
Her own account. She confessed in 1978 and later denied killing anyone deliberately, saying she had only calmed the residents, according to De Smet.
The exhumations. Time reported in March 1978 that five bodies were to be exhumed; De Smet writes of the three plus seven others. The autopsy findings have not been reported.
The brain tumor. She was operated on in 1974 for what a Ghent neurologist diagnosed as a brain tumor, according to De Smet; an expert board later found no tumor and a probable chronic encephalitis. De Smet's suggestion that the neurologist invented the diagnosis is his own and, as he acknowledges, cannot be confirmed.
The institution. Time called it a public hospital; VRT, an old people's home run by the public welfare center; De Smet, a retirement home.
Her birthplace and name. Time called her a local Wetteren woman named Cecile Bombeek; De Smet and VRT place her birth and childhood in Wichelen and spell the surname Bombeke.
1933: Cécile Bombeke is born in Wichelen.
1958: She enters the convent of the Apostolic Congregation of St. Joseph in Wetteren, according to VRT, taking the name Sister Godfrieda.
1967: She becomes head nurse of the geriatric ward.
1970: She begins to suffer severe headaches and becomes dependent on painkillers.
1974: She has an operation in Ghent for a diagnosed brain tumor; afterward she is given a morphine derivative.
Early 1977: Nurses on the ward begin a secret diary of deaths and incidents.
July 29, 1977: Leon Matthys, 81, dies.
August 14, 1977: Irma De Backer, 79, dies.
1977: The ward records 21 deaths.
August 1977: She is suspended and sent to Ghent for a drug cure.
January 1978: She returns to the home in Wetteren.
February 10, 1978: She is arrested, at first for forgery, confesses to killing three residents with insulin and is charged with three murders.
March 1978: She is held in Ghent and undergoes psychiatric tests; a judge orders exhumations.
1980: Experts rule her insane; she is interned in a psychiatric institution in Melle.
1990: She is released and returns to the convent in Wetteren.
2019: She dies, aged 86, and is buried in the sisters' cemetery behind the former convent.
2023: Tom De Smet publishes Soeur Mourir.