Stephaan Du Lion was convicted in February 2023 of the murders of four women in and around Antwerp, Belgium, between 1992 and 1997. The dead were Ariane Mazijn, Lutgarda Bogaerts, Maria Van den Reeck and Eve Poppe. For more than two decades the cases stayed unsolved. A cold-case review in 2017 connected him to the first of them, and in the two years that followed he confessed to all four. On February 14, 2023 the assize jury in Antwerp found him guilty of murder on every count, and on February 15 the court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Stephaan Du Lion was born on May 12, 1964 in Borgerhout, a district of Antwerp. His defense later put before the court that his childhood had been dominated by an aggressive father, and he said the same when questioned at trial. He left school at sixteen and began work as a window cleaner, and he was known as a hard worker. He later lived in Deurne, another district of Antwerp.
His record with the courts began early. In his early twenties he was convicted of two sexual assaults, and his later convictions were mostly for intentional assault and battery. In 2015 he was convicted of attempted theft.
Ariane Mazijn was 30 when she died in Antwerp in June 1992. Du Lion had worked for her as a window cleaner. Investigators questioned neighbors and acquaintances and collected samples from many people, but the inquiry produced no result, and the file was closed in the following years.
Lutgarda Bogaerts was 28. She died in July 1993, and her death was recorded at Oelegem, a district of Ranst, east of Antwerp. No one was identified. The inquiry into her death was among those closed between 2002 and 2010.
Maria Van den Reeck was 46 and lived in Borgerhout. She died in late November 1994. Her case went cold until the autumn of 2018. By the time of the trial, most of the original file had been lost, having been destroyed during a Justice Department budget cut. Only the first findings, a technical report and a few short police reports from 2010 remained, and her family's lawyer told the court that the case now rested almost entirely on Du Lion's own statements.
Eve Poppe, 38, died in the Luchtbal district of Antwerp in September 1997. She was the last of the four. Du Lion had worked for her as a window cleaner and was questioned about her death at the time, but he was not charged. Her case, like the others, was closed unsolved.
The first breakthrough came in 2017, when a cold-case review of the Mazijn case connected Du Lion to it on May 23, 2017. He was arrested in October 2018. Asked about Mazijn, he at first did not recognize her photograph. About two weeks later he confessed to her murder.
Police then saw similarities with the Poppe case, which was reopened in March 2019. Du Lion was arrested for that murder in September 2019. On October 1, 2019 he made a spontaneous statement before the investigating judge in Antwerp in which he confessed to the murders of Bogaerts and Van den Reeck, and he also confessed to the murder of Poppe. Those two files were joined to the investigation.
The relatives of the dead reacted as the confessions became known. A half-sister of Eve Poppe said the confession confirmed what she had long felt and that she wanted to face him. The lawyer for Ariane Mazijn's family said the relatives had waited 27 years to learn who was responsible.
An Antwerp court referred Du Lion to the assize court on June 2, 2022. He was accused of four murders committed between 1992 and 1997: Mazijn, aged 30, in 1992; Bogaerts, aged 28, on July 10, 1993; Van den Reeck, aged 46, in November 1994; and Poppe, aged 38, in September 1997. He was 57 at the time of the referral. The trial was expected to open late in 2022 or early in 2023.
The assize trial opened in Antwerp on Friday, February 3, 2023. The jury consisted of eight women and four men, and the proceedings were expected to last about ten days. Dirk Thys presided, and Christian Clement appeared for the defense.
On the first day Du Lion told the court that he was responsible for the deaths of four women. He said he had overcome his aggression and lack of self-control, but far too late, about twenty years earlier, and that since his last murder in 1997 he had kept his impulses in check without being able to explain how. To many questions about how and why the killings happened he answered that he could not reply. He said that he could not recall much and that he had suppressed the memories for years. Experts who examined him considered the memory loss feigned. Psychiatrists described a personality disorder with antisocial and narcissistic traits but found him legally accountable for his actions.
The trial brought the relatives of the dead face to face with him for the first time. The daughter of Eve Poppe testified, and Du Lion was visibly moved. He apologized to the families on the second day, saying that the pain he had caused could not be undone. He also said, "Ik weet dat ik het niet verdien, maar ik hoop ooit vrij te komen" (I know I do not deserve it, but I hope to be free one day). On another day the partner of Mazijn at the time gave evidence, and Du Lion apologized to him as well.
On February 14, 2023 the jury answered yes to the questions on guilt after about three and a half hours of deliberation. His lawyers had told the jury it could do so. The jury held the murders proven on all four counts, found them premeditated, and found that he had been in a sufficiently stable mental state when they were committed. No acquittal or finding of non-responsibility on any count is on record.
The sentence was decided the next day by the jury and the professional judges together. The prosecutor asked for the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, citing the number of crimes and Du Lion's personality, and said that three murders too many had been committed for any credit to remain. The defense pleaded mitigating circumstances: a difficult childhood, a violent father, a possible genetic predisposition to psychopathy, and the help his confession had given in solving other cases. After more than four hours the court rejected every mitigating circumstance. It said that a bad upbringing does not automatically produce a serial killer and that the seriousness, scope and effect of the crimes outweighed the argument. Du Lion received life imprisonment (levenslange opsluiting) on February 15, 2023. He had been in pretrial detention for about five years.
In a Belgian assize case the jury first decides guilt, and the jury and the professional judges then decide the sentence together. Murder is punishable by life imprisonment. The presiding judge explained at the sentencing that a life term does not necessarily mean permanent detention: after fifteen years a prisoner may apply for conditional early release, and the decision rests with the sentence enforcement court and depends on behavior. For Du Lion, the earliest possible application falls in October 2033.
The case also fed a debate on Belgium's cold-case work. In March 2023 an expert at the national criminology institute pointed to it as an example of how a 2014 change in the law, which widened the list of offenses that require a sample from convicted offenders, allowed matches with unsolved cases.
In March 2023 Du Lion, then 58, was serving his sentence in a Belgian prison. He said he still hoped to be released one day. No appeal is on record.
The exact days on which Van den Reeck and Poppe died are not on record. Du Lion's claimed memory loss was considered feigned by experts. The motive was never explained; he said he regretted the killings and did not understand why he had committed them.
May 12, 1964: Du Lion born in Borgerhout.
June 1992: death of Ariane Mazijn, Antwerp.
July 10, 1993: Lutgarda Bogaerts, Oelegem.
November 1994: Maria Van den Reeck, Borgerhout.
September 1997: Eve Poppe, Antwerp.
2015: convicted of attempted theft.
May 23, 2017: cold-case review links him to the Mazijn case.
October 2018: arrested for the Mazijn murder.
March 2019: Poppe case reopened.
September 2019: arrested for the Poppe murder.
October 1, 2019: confesses to the Bogaerts and Van den Reeck murders, and to the Poppe murder.
June 2, 2022: referred to the assize court.
February 3, 2023: assize trial opens in Antwerp.
February 14, 2023: jury finds him guilty of four murders.
February 15, 2023: sentenced to life imprisonment.