January 13, 1946 - Michel Bellen
Regarded as the first serial killer in Flanders, his crimes in 1964 and 1965 marked a grim threshold in Belgian criminal history. Operating in the Linkeroever district of Antwerp, he targeted women in the span of a few months, leaving two dead before his capture. A death sentence was handed down in 1966 — a rare judicial outcome in postwar Belgium — though he ultimately died in prison decades later.
From Wikipedia
Michel Bellen (13 January 1946 – 10 June 2020), also called the Linkeroever Strangler (Dutch: Wurger van Linkeroever), was a Belgian murderer regarded as the first serial killer in Flanders.
In August 1964, he raped a woman after chasing her from the supermarket in Linkeroever. The woman was able to escape. After this first rape, Bellen would eventually commit three murders. The first murder happened in December 1964. After the rape of a 21-year-old nurse, he strangled her in an alley with a piece of barbed wire. A month later, in 1965, he raped and murdered a 37-year-old nurse. In 1966, he was sentenced to death by the Assize Court, albeit his sentence was later converted to life in prison.
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