Belgium - Ilse Stockmans, 19, Leuven, 17 Feb 1987

[TheArtfulDetective]

Ilse Stockmans



Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: February 17, 1987
Location Last Seen: Leuven, Belgium

Description:
Date of Birth: February 13, 1968
Age: 19 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 1.75m
Weight: 67 kg
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Nickname/Alias: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown
Identifiers: N/A
Clothing & Personal Items: Unknown
Other: Ilse suffers from epilepsy and requires medication.

Circumstances of Disappearance:
On February 17, 1987, Stockmans and a school friend took a bus from the Royal Athenaeum to the station of Leuven, at which they arrived at 3:52 p.m. She was last seen taking a side entrance to catch her train to Aarschot, where her mother was waiting for her. She never made it to her destination and was never heard from again.

Investigators:
Agency: Politie België
Phone Number: 0800/30 300
E-Mail: [email protected]
Case Number: Unknown

418DFBEL - Ilse Stockmans

 

[ChatteringBirds]

34 jaar geleden verdween studente Ilse Stockmans, onderzoekscollectief looft nu 5.000 euro uit voor gouden tip: “Er loopt daarbuiten minstens één persoon die meer weet, maar zwijgt”

Wie weet wat er gebeurde met Ilse Stockmans op dinsdag 17 februari 1987? De negentienjarige studente uit Aarschot verdween die middag spoorloos toen ze vanuit Leuven de trein naar huis wilde nemen. Nu woensdag is het intussen 34 jaar geleden dat Ilse verdween. Haar mama Josephina Nuyts hoopt...

www.hln.be

34 years ago, student Ilse Stockmans disappeared, research collective is now offering 5,000 euros for a golden tip.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Government website link:

Ilse STOCKMANS

Op 17 februari 1987 verdween Ilse STOCKMANS uit Leuven. Ze was toen 19 jaar oud. Samen met haar vriendin had Ilse de bus genomen vanaf het Koninklijk Atheneum naar het station van Leuven waar ze om 15u52 aankwam. Ilse nam een zijdelingse ingang van het station waar ze voor het laatst werd...

www.politie.be

 

[ChatteringBirds]

'Make people think twice': How AI images could help solve cold cases in Belgium

The use of unique AI images placing missing people in the exact attire they were wearing and at the site of disappearance is a first in the country.

www.brusselstimes.com

The bureau is now adopting a new approach to find leads, by using AI to reinvent missing person posters and including extra information on what the person was wearing or the weather conditions at the time of the disappearance...

Ilse Stockmans (19) who disappeared on a wintry February day in 1987 can be seen walking to a train platform wearing her black anorak with an attached hood and a white scarf...

 

[ZaZara]

De verdwijning van Ilse Stockmans

Ilse Stockmans is the youngest in a family of three children and lives with her mum, Josephine Nuyts, in Aarschot in 1987. Ilse attends school at the Koninklijk Atheneum Redingenhof in Leuven and after school usually takes the train to Aarschot station, where her mother invariably waits for her.

Due to the sudden death of a family member of the English teacher, that particular Tuesday -17 February 1987- the last lesson is cancelled. Ilse unexpectedly finds herself at Leuven station an hour early. A friend still sees her entering the railway tunnel. But when her mother waits at the train station in Aarschot at the previously agreed time, Ilse does not get off. The young student appears to have gone up in smoke.

In 2021, 34 years after Ilse Stockmans' disappearance, research collective “Bureau Van Meerbeeck” is offering 5,000 euros for the golden tip in this mystery. Five thousand euros for the person who puts us on the trail of Ilse Stockmans.

There are many hundreds of missing persons cases in our country. Many parents, relatives, stragglers are waiting for answers today. In very many cases, investigations are still possible, but that does not seem to be the case of Ilse Stockmans.

About the disappearance of Ilse Stockmans we know exactly as much today as we did on that Tuesday afternoon 17 February 1987: nothing!

Never a trace was found. Not of her, not of her clothes. Not even of her schoolbag. The police do not know WHERE exactly she disappeared, where the so-called “crime scene” is. Maybe it was on the platform in Leuven, when she wanted to get on the train home? Or in Aarschot when she wanted to walk home on foot? Maybe it's somewhere in between? Or is it somewhere else altogether? No one who knows for sure. This actually makes tactical investigation impossible. It also makes a sum of money perhaps the only thing that can bring us closer to the truth.

What are we hoping for?

Together with mother Josephine Nuyts and other people left behind, we hope for the golden tip. We hope that the one person who knows something will come forward. Because we are sure of one thing: that person exists!

The family does not know what happened to Ilse Stockmans or what she suffered after her disappearance. But the family is convinced of one thing: Ilse did not choose to disappear. Someone made that choice for her.

BBM


Nowadays, Ilse would have swiped her card at the entrance and extit of the train station. Shew would also have messaged her mother. Options that did not exist forty years ago.

 

[ZaZara]

33 years later her mother is still waiting

(interview from 2020)

"Ilse would never go anywhere alone. She always came straight home from school," Josephina Nuyts (81) sighs. That day in mid-February is forever etched in her memory. Four days earlier, Ilse had turned 19 and they had just celebrated her birthday together. "Back then, there was no mobile phone, so we couldn't simply call her. I kept waiting, first at the railway station, then at home at Poortveldenplein. At 8pm, we went to report her to the police. What else could we do?"

According to Josephina Nuyts, the police did not do their job thoroughly or at all at the time. "When we went to the police station the next day, the officers present were not at all aware of Ilse's disappearance. It was very clear that police attached little or no importance to it. They assumed Ilse had run away and she would eventually turn up again on her own. But that was not at all in line with Ilse's character. Rather, she was shy, partly due to the epilepsy she suffered from. Moreover, she needed medication for that; she could not live without it. On the day of her disappearance, she was only carrying medication for the afternoon. Ilse would never enter a café or anything like that by herself. Nor did she seek out her abductor herself. He must have approached her or lured her along."

According to Josephina, the original investigation in the 1980s was flawed. For instance, there would never have been a round of enquiries among the passengers of the train Ilse allegedly took. Other commuters who were at Leuven station that day were also never heard. Josephina and her family went to Leuven station themselves the day after Ilse's disappearance. "We accosted travellers and showed them a photo of Ilse asking if they had noticed anything. Unfortunately without success."

Detectives then thought the girl had never taken the train towards Aarschot and focused on Leuven. That sleuthing yielded nothing to this day. "Ilse was still noticed at the station area by her friend. The police reasoned that Ilse had not taken the train at all. Why? No idea. But in the beginning there was never a search in the Aarschot region," Josephina says.

Every time a paedophile like Marc Dutroux, or serial killer like Michel Fourniret or Ronald Janssen is arrested, Josephina has hope that a breakthrough will follow in her daughter's case too. "It was only after the Dutroux affair that the functioning of the police was scrutinised and reforms followed. And thankfully so," says Josephina. "The spirit of the times was completely different in 1987, including in the police and the courts. So if Ilse had disappeared today, the investigation would be conducted very differently. Moreover, techniques have also improved. It would be much more likely that investigators would now find out what had happened to her. At the time, too much precious time was lost."

It was only 12 years after the disappearance, in 1999, that the judicial authorities raided the homes of 13 possible suspects, all men who lived in Aarschot, Mechelen, Waregem and Antwerp, but who hung out in cafes in Aarschot's station neighbourhood in 1987. Some of them had a history of sexual offences or violence. "I am glad that investigators then also started searching in Aarschot. Immediately after the disappearance, I was convinced Ilse had been kidnapped at Aarschot station."

Unfortunately, that track also yielded nothing. There were some searches, the suspects were interrogated for hours, but were allowed to leave afterwards. ‘What do you want,’ says Josephina. ‘That investigation just came twelve years too late.’ That Ilse - she would be 52 by now - is still alive, is something Josephina considers beyond hope.


BBM