Freddy: Years of abuse haunt Lille murder suspect

RIJEN/CHAAM - With the discovery of the suspected murder weapon, the justice system seems to have achieved a breakthrough in the Chaam corn murder.A knife found in the bedroom of the ex of the main suspect contains DNA of Marita Schoenmakers, the Belgian woman who was found dead in a corn field in the outskirts of Chaam last summer.

Justice believes 25-year-old Fredy T. of Rijen cut her throat with this knife. Police arrested his ex last week. The suspect is 32-year-old José van E. from Rijen. Because both suspects are in confinement, the Public Prosecutor's Office in Breda does not want to comment on the case. Freddy T. appears to have been sexually abused as a child for many years. This abuse probably played a role in the quarrel that preceded Schoenmaekers' murder.

Freddy's mother was convicted in 2000 of stabbing the man who abused her son in the back with a knife. Freddy himself, his father and sisters were also convicted of contributing to the pedophile's abuse. Freddy, who has been detained since September, maintains his innocence of the maize murder, his lawyer Serge Weening announced. However, he does say he dumped the body in the cornfield.

Freddy T. has a bowel disease and has already lost 30 pounds in prison, according to his counselor. "She kept going on and on about that sexual abuse. I wanted her to stop." With these words, Freddy T. reveals to Belgian investigators how the stupendously drunk Marita Schoenmaekers is tormenting him on that fatal Sunday night in August. It is near closing time and in the rowdy motorcycle bar the Pitstop in the center of Turnhout, the last customers have now left. Only bartender Freddy and regular customer Marita are left.

That the 51-year-old alcoholic has her pockets well full is not surprising. She has been on a pub crawl since four o'clock that afternoon. With her hippie clothes and white dog, the former prostitute is a familiar sight in the center of her hometown of Turnhout. "A very sweet woman with whom you could talk well when she was sober," an old friend describes Marita. "But when she was drunk, she seemed like a completely different person. Then she kept challenging people."

That is exactly what she also did that Sunday, says a Belgian pub-goer who bumped into her that night. "She spoke with double tongue and uttered mean language."

Bartender Freddy is the target of her bullying, an experience not new to him. Freddy is five years old when the T. family moves to RIjen from Hilversum. There the quiet, withdrawn and not very intelligent boy proves to be the ideal victim for the village teasers, who constantly harass him. Freddy is also an easy victim for businessman Jos W., in whose assembly plant the boy does cleaning work on Saturdays. W. will sexually abuse him in his company from the age of eight to sixteen.

When Freddy finally confessed to the abuse at home in 1999, his father, mother and his two sisters freaked out. The five of them rushed to Jos W., who was not only beaten up but also stabbed in the back with a knife by his mother. All family members would later get off with community service. But where Freddy doesn't get off, not even with therapy, trauma left over from the abuse.

The defendant(s) in this case are assisted by: