Annie de Poortere was 48 when she disappeared from her home in Sint-Martens-Latem (East Flanders) in 1994. According to her husband, she was depressed and had had a relapse that Saturday in November. The cause of the depression is said to have been her addiction to medicines and alcohol.
Psychiatric hospital
Her husband would have called a psychiatric hospital to have her admitted, but there was no room there. When he returned from a football game that evening, she was gone, he said.
“It was already dark. She was gone, just like the clothes on the couch. I didn’t see them anymore,” he stated, according to the Flemish VRT News. Her identity card was still at home, no money was missing and her bicycle was still in its usual place.
The woman was searched for, but according to her sister, never very intensively, and always without results. She was briefly thought to be in Spain after a tip following a TV broadcast five years after her death. But that was unbelievable, her sister said. “My sister was a bit shy, I had to go everywhere with her. She would never go to Spain alone.”
Declared absent
The woman was then ‘declared absent’ after legal proceedings, which has the same consequences as death. According to VRT News, this made it possible, for example, to divide the inheritance and dissolve the marriage.
But otherwise it remained quiet. Until Saturday, when human remains were found during excavation work in a garden next to her house. Although DNA research has yet to confirm that the remains are those of Annie de Poortere, the Belgian justice department says it has ‘strong indications’ that it is the missing woman.
Authorities believe the woman was murdered. Her husband was arrested and, according to Belgian media, has made a partial confession. He is now at home with an ankle monitor and must appear in court for the first time within five days.
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