The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-27 00:00:00

THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 27, IB4S.

TRIPLE MURDER AT BRUSSELS.:4
BRA.BANT Coiner or ASSIZES.—The Triple assas- )
sination and robbery, committed at 13, Place St. I
Gery, Brussels, at the residence of' M. and Mdlle.
Evenepoel, on the evening of September 2, 1847.
The Procureur-General, attached to the Brussels
Court of Appeal, set forth that the Court, by its de-
cree of January 12, 1848, has sent before the Court
of Assizes of the province of Brabant the two follow-
ing persons :—Francis Rosseel, aged tvrentyrnine
years, cabinet-maker, born at Zedelghem (a little
village of Western Flanders, two leagues south-west
from Bruges) and domiciled of late in Bruges ; and
William Vandenplas, aged twenty-seven, without any
profession, formerly a baker, born at Vessem (a little
village in Brabant, about two leagues from Louvain),
and domiciled of late in Brussels. Both are accused
of crimes enumerated in articles 295, 296, 297, 302,
304, 381, 382, 384, 59, 60, and 62 of the penal code.
In consequence, the undersigned Procureur- General
has drawn up the present act of accusation, in which
the following facts and details appear :
Mademoiselle Evenepoel, her brother, and two
female ,servants, Marie Desain and Anne Smeets,
inhabited the house No. 13, Place Saint Gery, Brus-
sels. The holfse was separated from the street by a
court-yard, in which a small laundry and one of the
kitchen, entrances were situated. Mr. Evenepoel's
coachman, Cornelius Morens, took his meals in his
master's house, and slept in the stables in the Rue de
la Digue, where his employer's horses were kept. On
the 2,1 September last, Morens came as usual to the
house, to take his supper, between half-past nine and
ten P.M. Having rang three times at the street en-
trance, without having received any answer, he
observed that the door was on the latch. He then
entered into the court-yard and saw the servants' lamp
burning in the kitchen. He took up a small lamp
and went towards the laundry, in order to saw some
wood for the use of the house next morning.
On entering, he perceived the dead body of one of
the servants on the ground. Terrified at the sight,
he ran out out of the house and alarmed the neigh-
bours, who soon called the police. It was then dis-
covered that a triple as'assination had been committed.
The mangled bodies of the two servants were found
in the little laundry, and that of Mdlle Evenepoel in
the dining-room. At the bottom of the court-yard
and near the house door their were pools of blood,
fragments of skulls, and portions of brains. From
these places to the laundry two parallel tracks of blood
were clearly visible. Mdlle. Evenepoel's body was
als,) covered with blood. According to the report of
the medical men, the two servants had their skulls
beaten in by strokes of a hammer, and those strokes
were so violent and numerous that the brains of Anne
Sweets were reduced to a species of clammy sub-
stance. They had also received several wounds by
means of a sharp pointed instrument, and principally
in the jugular veins and vertebral canal. Mdlle.
Evenepoel perished in the same manner. She had
her skull broken and a very large wound which
divided the jugular vein and carotid artery, and
which appeared to have been made by a long poniard
with a broad sharp blade.
The marks of footsteps in the house indicated the
presence of two persons who had forced open various
pieces of furniture in several rooms, and who by
means of a carpenter's chisel had endeavoured to open
the lower part of M. Evenepoel's secretary. the
authors of the crime carried eff nume;ous gold and
silver articles ; amongst others, six watches, 945
Dutch florins, in gold pieces of the respective value
of five and ten florins; and seventeen Dutch pieces
of three silver florins each. The latter were taken
from M. Evenepoel's secretary. Neither in the front
court-yard, nor in the garden behind the house,
were any traces discernible of scaling the walls,
housebreaking, or false keys; that it was clear so the
murderers had introduced themselves by the gate of
the court-yard. The crime must have taken place
between half-past seven and nine P.M., as the widow
Drabbe, who had been sent to Mdlle. E.'s with an
errand from the sister of the latter, Madame Key-
tnolen, had executed it at half-past seven, and
conversed with the cook, who opened the door for
her.

A quarter of an hour later, the postman came to
the house and rang three times,:without receiving any
answer, and about half-past eight the sweetheart of
the cook, a young man, named Dauckaerts, knocked
four times on the wall corresponding with the little
laundry. To this summons, which, it was under-
stood should always announce his arrival, no reply
was made ; and he then went away, after observing
that there was a light in M. E.'s room. Finally,
about 9 .as., or a little later, the servant of Madame
Renard who lives at No. 14, next door, observed, in
passing before M. E.'s house, a person open the
exterior entrance, put his head outside and immedi-
ately withdraw it ; but owing to the darkness which
prevailed, she could give no description of the person
and the authors of the crime had not left behind any
marks which might serve to identify them. The
examination of the wells, the cisterns, the water-
closets, and the river Senne, which surrounds the
Place of St. Gery, produced no result ; and the arrest
of all persons who had been convicted of crimes during
the foregoing two months and a half was equally in
vain. At last, an observation which escaped the lips
of a person named Silvestre, an inmate of a prison in
Brussels, set the authorities on the track of the guilty
parties.
During the month of August, Sylvestre encoun-
tered Vandenplas, with whom he had become ac-
quainted in prison. The latter complained of his
miserable condition, observing that " he did not know
from what wood h. could make an arrow," (in other
words, that he was totally without any pecuniary re-
sources). He and Vandenplas took a turn about the
town, and met Rosseel, to whom Vandenplas made a
statement similar to the one above given. Rosseel
replied that he knew a good piece of business; that
there was a barrow full of money in the house, but
that there would be a risk'of losing one's life. He
added that he had already procured a passport. Ros-
seel and Vandenplas then agreed to meet at a certain
place on the next day. It was afterwards ascertained
that Rosseel had, in fact, obtained a passport for a
foreign country, on the 20th of August, 1847, and
that he had formerly inhabited a house belonging to
Evenepoel.
The information thus elicited led to the arrest of
Rosseel and Vandenplas, on the 16th of November
last. At the house of the former at 13ruges, the police
found five watch glasses, corresponding in form and
dimensions with the glasses of the watches stolen on
the evening of the 2d of September Other circum-
stances soon arose to increase the suspicions enter-
tained with respect to Rosseel, who confessed his
crime a few days after his arrest, and designated
Vandenplas as his associate. Rosseel was conveyed to
Bruges on the 22d of November, and pointed out the
place in his house where the works of the five gold
watches were secreted. Before that time the police
had discovered three silver coffee spoons, a pair of
diamond earrings, a diamond ring, a gold bracelet
clasp, two gold watch chains, five gold pins, and
other valuable articles, all of which were carefully
concealed in his house, and were recognised by M.
Evenepoel, and by Madame Kermoylen, as well as a
little brooch which Rosseel had given to his servant,
a girl named Berckmans. The other stolen articles
were sold by Rosseel at l'Ecluse (a Dutch hamlet
near the Belgian frontier, three or four leagues from
Bruges), to a woman named Leenhouts, and to a Jew
named Abraham Levy. The produce of the first sale
was 89f. 24e., fifty of which he sent on the following
day to Vandenplas. In the letter which the former
sent to the latter, he stated that he had only received
50f. on account, but that he would lend him those
501., and promised to send 501. more on the following
week. He added, that he could not force people
(ik kan de menschen niet forcereen). Although Ros-
seel declared that the money came from the woman
Leenhouts, on the 27th of September, and that on
the following day he had forwarded the 501. to Van-
denplas, the latter continued to assert that Rosseel
owed him that sum for bread, which he had furnished
to him whilst residing in the Rue des Cailles, in
the beginning of the year 1847. It was proved, how-
ever, that Rosseel's baker, at that time, was a man
named Wettering, who supplied him with three or
four loaves every day. The boy who carried out
bread for Vandenplas, had never served Rosseel,
although he had another customer in the same street,
and Rosseel's name was not found in the book in
which Vandenplas inserted the names of those who
took bread on credit.
On the Bth of October, the articles sold to the Jew
Levy realised 740 francs. Vandenplas had arrived in
Bruges on the sth and 6th of that month, and had
left on the 7th for Landeghem and Somerghem (be-
tween Ghent and Bruges), in company with a cuiras-
sier and a young girl. On the morning of the 9th
he returned to Bruges, accompanied by the female,
after expending all the money he possessed, and after
having pawned his umbrella for 3f.
He had previously told a woman who kept a public
house that he was going to Bruges to receive the sum
of 6501. It was 'on the Monday that Rosseel had
gone to l'Ecluse, and it was on the following day
that Vandenplas pawned the umbrella. Yet on the
very same evening he had about him between 400 f.
and 500 f. Before going to bed he drank. two bottles
of wine, and, on the next (lay, he had five more at
Landeghem, where he redeemed his umbrella, and
then returned by railway to Brussels. He had pre-
viously accounted for the possession of the money in
different ways to different persons to whom he had
spoken on the subject. It is clear, however, that Van-
denplas had shared with Ro,seel the produce of the
sale of the stolen articles, as well as the money taken
from M. Evenepoel's house. His extreme poverty
before the commission of the crime, and his subse-
quent extravagant expenditure, leave no doubt on
that subject.
On the sth of September he went to the kermesse
ore of Vie faubour,:,-s of Brii,sek, with
j,,atu.; and in tiitir eu,npu.-,y drank threethreebottles of wine. On the 12th he proceeded in a vigi-
lante, to the kermesse of Vilvorde, invited the garde- t