Nawala ang Turista sa Belgian Ardennes — Pagkalipas ng 3 Taon, Nakita ang Katawan sa Plastic Box na Nakabalot sa Pelikula…

Isipin ang isang tahimik na lugar, isang kampo ng turista sa masukal na kagubatan ng Belgium. Mga pamilyang may mga anak, turista, tawanan sa paligid ng mga apoy sa kampo. Ngayon isipin na sa ilalim mismo ng iyong mga paa, ilang metro lang pababa, may isang katawan na nakahiga sa isang plastic box. 3 taon na yan. Ang bangkay ng isang batang babae na pinaniniwalaang nawala na lamang nang walang bakas.

Hinanap nila siya, ngunit hindi siya natagpuan. And all this time nandito siya. Ang kwentong ito ay hindi tungkol sa mga multo. Ito ay tungkol sa kung paano maaaring magtago ang pinaka-kahila-hilakbot na kasamaan kung saan hindi mo inaasahan. Sa isang ordinaryong, boring na plastic box na nakabaon sa ilalim ng tourist trail. At ang pinakanakakatakot sa kwentong ito ay hindi kung paano siya pinatay, kundi kung paano siya itinago.

At ang katotohanan na ang pumatay ay hindi natagpuan. Nangyari ito noong unang bahagi ng 2000s. Si Marine ay Pranses, 29 taong gulang. Hindi siya isang ligaw na bata o naghahanap ng pakikipagsapalaran. Sa kabaligtaran, ayon sa kanyang pamilya at mga kaibigan, siya ay isang meticulously organized na tao. Nagtrabaho siya sa isang archive sa Lion at mahal ang kaayusan sa lahat. Ang kanyang bakasyon ay binalak nang maaga 6 na buwan.

Mga ruta, campsite, listahan ng kagamitan, lahat ay nakasulat sa kanyang notebook. Hindi siya ang tipong sumakay sa isang kusang paglalakbay. Ang paglalakad sa Arden ay matagal na niyang pangarap. Ilang buwan na niyang pinaghandaan ito. Nagbasa siya ng mga forum, nag-aral ng mga mapa, at bumili ng bagong kagamitan. Para sa kanya, hindi lang ito bakasyon, kundi isang uri ng proyekto na gusto niyang makumpleto nang perpekto.

Nagpunta siya mag-isa, ngunit walang kakaiba tungkol doon. Mahilig si Marin sa mga solo trip. Tinulungan nila siyang tipunin ang kanyang mga iniisip. Hindi siya naghahanap ng kumpanya. Kumportable siyang mag-isa sa sarili at kalikasan. Noong taong iyon, ang tag-araw sa Belgium ay mainit at tuyo. Ang mga Arden ay puno ng mga turista. Dumating si Marine sa isang opisyal na kampo ng turista na tinatawag na Green Valley.

Ito ay isang sikat na lugar. Malinis na paglilinis para sa mga tolda, isang maliit na gusaling pang-administratibo, mga shower, mga landas ng graba. Ang lahat ay sibilisado at ligtas. Hindi bababa sa kung paano ito tila. Dumating siya sa kanyang lumang kotse, nagparehistro sa administrator, at nagbayad ng dalawang gabi. Kalaunan ay naalala ng administrator na siya ay magalang, nagsalita nang tahimik na may bahagyang impit.

Sinabi niya na bukas ng umaga ay aalis siya sa mga bundok para sa buong araw, na sinusundan ang isa sa mga sikat na ruta. Walang kakaiba. Libu-libong turista ang gumawa ng parehong bagay sa bawat panahon. Itinayo niya ang kanyang tolda sa dulong sulok ng kampo, sa gilid mismo ng kagubatan. Tahimik at liblib ang lugar, sa paraang nagustuhan niya.

Nakita siya ng ilang iba pang mga turista na naglalabas ng kanyang mga gamit at nagluluto ng hapunan sa isang maliit na gas stove. Wala siyang kausap, tumango lang siya bilang tugon sa pagbati. Huli siyang nakita noong gabi na nakaupo sa tabi ng kanyang tolda na nagbabasa ng libro. Kinaumagahan, nanatiling sarado ang kanyang tolda. Noong una, walang pumapansin.

Marahil ay nagpasya siyang matulog. O marahil ay umalis siya bago mag-umaga, bagama’t malamang na hindi iyon ibinigay sa kanyang mga plano. Pagsapit ng tanghalian, nang ang araw ay mataas na sa langit at ang zipper sa tolda ay hindi pa rin nabubuksan, ang kanyang mga kapitbahay, isang mag-asawang mula sa Germany, ay nabahala. Lumapit sila at tinawag ang pangalan niya. Katahimikan. Hindi sila naglakas loob na tumingin sa loob.

Masyadong mapanghimasok iyon. Sa halip, pumunta sila sa administrator. Pinaalis din sila ng matandang Belgian noong una. Sinabi niya na ang mga tao ay may sariling mga plano at hindi ito nagkakahalaga ng pakikialam sa mga gawain ng ibang tao. Ngunit kinagabihan, nang matatapos na ang pagpaparehistro ni Marin, at walang bakas ng kanya, pumunta siya upang suriin.

Lumapit siya sa tent at tumawag ng malakas, “Madmoiselle Maran.” Walang sagot. Pagkatapos ay maingat niyang hinila ang zipper. Bumukas ang tent. Ito ay walang laman, ngunit ang kawalan ay kakaiba. Nakalatag sa sahig ang isang maayos na nakarolyong sleeping bag. Nakatayo sa malapit ang kanyang malaking hiking backpack. Paglabag sa lahat ng mga patakaran, tumingin ang administrator sa loob ng backpack.

Nandoon ang kanyang mga gamit, pagkain, mapa, wallet na may pera at mga dokumento, at ang mga susi ng kanyang sasakyan, na nasa parking lot pa rin. Nandoon ang lahat. Ang kulang na lang ay si Marin mismo. Ito ay ganap na hindi makatwiran. Walang turistang nasa tamang pag-iisip ang pupunta sa bundok nang walang backpack, walang tubig, walang mga dokumento. Ito ay katumbas ng pagpapakamatay.

Agad na tumawag ng pulis ang administrator. Kinordenan ng mga dumating na Jearmms ang campsite. Nagsimula ang karaniwang pagtatanong, ngunit wala itong resulta. Walang nakakita o nakarinig ng kahit ano. Tahimik ang gabi. Walang hiyawan o tunog ng pakikibaka. Walang nakakita na lumapit sa kanyang tolda.

Nasa dulong sulok iyon at halos hindi na naabot ng mga ilaw mula sa main alley. Nagsimula ang isang search operation. Dose-dosenang mga pulis at boluntaryo ang nagsuklay sa kagubatan sa paligid ng kampo. Isang helicopter na may thermal imager at mga dog handler na may mga aso ay tinawag. Ang mga aso ay nakakuha ng trail sa tent, ngunit nawala ito kaagad. Ang trail ay natapos lamang sa isang graba na landas na patungo sa parking lot at sa labasan mula sa kampo.

It was as if she had walked up to the path and vanished into thin air or gotten into a car. But who’s the police began to work through all the possibilities? The first and most obvious was an accident. Maybe she went for a walk without taking anything with her, twisted her ankle, and fell into a ravine. But a search within a 10 km radius yielded nothing.

The forest was combed very thoroughly. The second theory was voluntary disappearance. But it didn’t make any sense. Why leave all her money, documents, and car behind. Her bank accounts were untouched. Her family in France was in shock. They all insisted that Moran would never have done such a thing. She wasn’t depressed. She had no enemies.

There was no reason for her to just disappear like that. That left the third theory, the most terrifying one. Kidnapping and murder. But even that didn’t add up. Why would a kidnapper leave all her valuables behind? Usually in such cases, robbery is the main motive. Here, everything pointed to the fact that she was the target.

Days turned into weeks. The search operation was gradually winding down. Volunteers dispersed and police officers returned to their usual duties. The only reminders of Marin were the flyers with her photo plastered on trees and information boards. The Green Valley camp continued to operate. New tourists pitched tents, lit fires, and went hiking.

Few of them knew that a few weeks earlier, a girl had disappeared without a trace from this very spot. Marin’s story slowly became one of those local legends told around the campfire to tickle the nerves. The investigator who led the case later admitted in an interview that it haunted him. The lack of evidence was simply total.

Not a single fingerprint, not a single hair, not a single witness. The case reached a dead end and was sent to the archives with a note saying missing under unclear circumstances. Marin’s car was kept at the police station for several more months and then handed over to her parents. They sold it, unable to bear seeing the last reminder of their daughter.

For 3 years, there was no news of Marin. For three long years, her family lived in limbo, not knowing whether she was alive or dead. Then, in the Green Valley camp, they decided to lay a new electrical cable. 3 years later, the Green Valley camp was going about its usual business. The story of the missing French girl had almost faded from memory, becoming just a line in police reports.

One weekday, when the camp wasn’t very crowded, a small crew of workers arrived on the premises. The local municipality needed to lay a new power cable to a remote part of the campsite. The work was routine, dirty, but simple. Two men armed with shovels and a small trench digger set to work. They dug along the old gravel path, the very one where Marine’s trail had ended 3 years earlier.

The ground was hard, compacted by thousands of feet. The work was slow. At one point, the trencher’s bucket hit something hard with a dull thud. It wasn’t a rock. The sound was different. Hollow plastic. The workers stopped the machine. One of them jumped into the shallow trench and began digging with a shovel.

Soon the edge of something large and dark gray appeared. It was a massive plastic container. It did not resemble a household storage box. This one was made of thick rough plastic with strong stiffening ribs and metal latches on the sides. These are used by the military or industrial enterprises to transport equipment.

The workers looked at each other. What was such a thing doing buried in the ground in a tourist camp? Maybe it was some old junk that someone had been too lazy to take away. Or maybe someone had hidden something valuable. Curiosity got the better of them. Together, they struggled to pull the heavy box out of the ground. It was sealed shut.

One of the latches gave way, but they had to knock the second one off with a hammer. When the lid finally came off, a strange smell hit them. It wasn’t the smell of decay they were expecting. It was a sharp acrid chemical stench similar to formalin or some kind of industrial solvent. Underneath it, they could detect another smell sickeningly sweet.

One of the workers holding his nose jerked the lid off. Inside, filling the entire space was a large bundle of shiny black plastic. The plastic was thick, like the kind used to wrap cargo in warehouses. It was tightly wrapped around something that was unmistakably a human body. It lay in a fetal position, knees pressed against its chest.

The workers recoiled from the box as if from a fire. One of them, pale and shaking, took out his phone and dialed the police. The Green Valley camp was turned into a crime scene that same day. The news of the discovery shook the local police department. The Moran case, which had been gathering dust in the archives for 3 years, was back on the desk of investigator Jean-Pierre Laurier.

He had aged over the years, becoming grayer and more tired, but he remembered the case in detail. The total lack of evidence haunted him. Now he had his main piece of evidence, horrible, but evidence nonetheless. He personally arrived at the scene. The camp was cordoned off and all tourists were asked to leave the campsite immediately under the pretext of unforeseen technical work.

The atmosphere of relaxation and carefree fun was replaced by icy horror. Forensic doctors in white overalls worked on the box. Their every move was recorded on camera. The box and its contents were taken to the forensic laboratory. And there truly gruesome details began to emerge. First, the identity.

Dental records quickly confirmed that it was Marine. The three-year search was over. All this time, she had been there under the feet of hundreds of vacationers just a few dozen meters from her tent. Second, the condition of the body. The pathologist was shocked. After 3 years in the ground, the body should have been reduced to a skeleton.

But Marin’s body was in a state that experts called partial mummification. The level of decomposition was minimal. Tests showed that the box had been filled with a powerful chemical compound, essentially an imbalming fluid, before it was sealed. This completely stopped the decomposition process. This was not a spontaneous murder.

The perpetrator acted in cold blood and had special knowledge. He didn’t just want to hide the body. He wanted to preserve it. Third, the cause of death. Here the investigation hit another dead end. There were no fatal wounds on the body. No fractures, no bullet or knife marks. The internal organs were saturated with chemicals, but it was impossible to determine whether death was caused by poisoning.

There were no signs of strangulation either. The pathologist threw up his hands in despair. In his report, he wrote, “Cause of death unknown.” But during a detailed examination, he discovered something that made even experienced criminologists shudder. Small metal staples were deeply embedded under each of Marin’s fingernails and toenails.

The kind used in construction staplers. This had nothing to do with the cause of death. It was torture. sophisticated, sadistic torture that left no visible marks on the body, but caused excruciating pain. And then there was the last most terrifying detail. The forensic experts began to examine the plastic box itself. On the inside of the lid, right above where the victim’s head should have been, they found scratches, lots of parallel scratches.

The examination confirmed that they had been made by human fingernails. This could only mean one thing. Marin had been placed in the box while she was still alive. She was conscious in complete darkness in a confined space and she was desperately trying to get out. She scratched the lid until her fingers began to bleed.

The crime scene was not just gruesome, it was monstrous. She wasn’t just killed. She was buried alive in a plastic coffin filled with chemicals after being tortured. The investigation resumed with renewed vigor. Now it was no longer a missing person case, but a serial murder case because a person capable of such a thing was unlikely to stop at just one victim.

The first thing the police did was examine the box itself. Experts determined that containers of this type were manufactured at only one factory in Belgium. Their main customers were the army and several large industrial companies involved in chemical production. The search narrowed but was still too broad.

Then investigators turned their attention back to the camp itself. The criminal must have known this place well. He knew about the old drainage well where the box was hidden. This well was not marked on any maps and was known only to old-timers or those who service the area. The police requested all the archives on the camp employees for the year when Marin disappeared.

And that’s when they stumbled upon the first oddity. The personal file of one of the employees was missing from the archives. A seasonal security guard who had worked at the camp that summer. His name was on the payroll, but his personal file, address, and photo were nowhere to be found. The folder had simply disappeared.

The camp administration couldn’t give a clear explanation. Maybe it got lost when the archives were moved. Or maybe someone deliberately destroyed it. It gets worse. The police retrieved the CCTV footage. At the time, the camp’s security system was primitive with only a few cameras at the entrance and the administration building. Studying the system logs, investigators discovered that on the night of Marin’s disappearance, the entire CCTV system had been turned off for 24 hours.

The log contained a note scheduled maintenance. The police identified the person responsible for this maintenance. It was the same night guard whose personal file had disappeared without a trace from the archives. The circle was closing. They had a ghost, a man who was in the right place at the right time, who had the opportunity to turn off the cameras and who then seemed to vanish into thin air, leaving no trace behind.

The search for the ghost guard became a fixation for the investigation. They had his name from the payroll records, Luke Verhovven. But when they ran the name through the databases, they came up empty. A man with that name existed, but his digital and paper life was virtually clean.

No loans, no parking tickets, no active social media accounts. He was almost invisible. Investigators began interviewing everyone who had worked at Green Valley that summer. A strange picture emerged. Everyone remembered Luke. He was older than most of the seasonal workers in his late 30s. quiet, unsociable. He had no friends. He did his job well, without complaint, but always kept to himself.

No one could remember him ever talking about his family, his past, or his plans for the future. He was just a function, a man in uniform who patrolled the grounds at night. Investigator Laurier felt they were on the right track. He gave the order to dig deeper. And after several weeks of painstaking work, an interesting fact came to light.

Before becoming a security guard at the campsite, Luke Verhovven had worked for several years as an instructor at a private survival school. This school conducted training courses for civilians, including in the Ardan forests. He knew these places like the back of his hand. He knew how to survive in the wild, how to cover his tracks, how to remain undetected.

This explained his skills. But there was another detail. Before working as an instructor, he had a short period, just a few months, when he was employed at a warehouse for a large chemical company. The same company that was a customer of the factory that manufactured those plastic containers. The puzzle was coming together.

This man had knowledge, access to resources, and opportunity. He was the perfect suspect. The police spent another month looking for him. He wasn’t hiding, but he lived in such a way that he was difficult to spot. In a small rented house on the outskirts of an industrial town in another part of the country, he worked as a warehouse clerk in a large warehouse.

He lived alone. He was arrested early in the morning without fuss or commotion. He wasn’t surprised to see the police at his doorstep. He was completely calm. The interrogation lasted several hours. Investigator Laurier sat across from him and tried to break through the wall of icy calm.

But Luke Verhovven was like a rock. He answered all questions evenly, monotonously without emotion. Yes, he worked at that camp. Yes, he remembers how the girl disappeared. It was sad. Why did his personal file disappear? I have no idea, asked the administration. Why were the cameras turned off? scheduled maintenance. The system often malfunctioned.

It’s all recorded in the log. His answers were flawless. He used bureaucracy and other people’s negligence as a shield. He never faltered, never showed any signs of nervousness. He looked the investigator straight in the eye, and there was absolute emptiness in his gaze. The police got a warrant to search his house.

They turned the place upside down. They were looking for anything. remnants of that black film, a construction stapler, a chemical container, some souvenir he might have taken from me. But they found nothing. The house was spotless. No clues, no leads, nothing that could connect this man to that terrible box in the woods. Investigator Lorie was 100% certain that he was looking at Marin’s killer.

All his intuition, all his years of experience screamed it. But you can’t pin a case on intuition. The prosecutor studied the case file. Yes, the circumstantial evidence was impressive. The motive, the opportunity, the specialized knowledge, everything pointed to Verhovven. But there was no direct evidence, not a single fingerprint, not a single DNA match, not a single witness who had seen him with Meereen. Nothing.

A case built on such shaky grounds would fall apart in court on the first day. The charges would be dropped. A guilty verdict was impossible. With a heavy heart, the prosecutor gave the order. Luke Verhovven was released. He walked out of the police station, silently passed several reporters, got on a bus, and drove away.

Wala nang nakakita sa kanya. Muli siyang nawala, naglahong parang multo. Ang imbestigador na si Lorie ay nagretiro makalipas ang isang taon. Sa kanyang huling panayam, sinabi niya na ang kaso ng Marine ang pinakamalaking kabiguan sa kanyang karera. Kilala niya ang pumatay. Kinausap niya ito, ngunit hindi niya mapatunayan ang kanyang kasalanan. Ang kampo ng Green Valley ay hindi na nakabawi mula sa kuwentong ito.

Ang katanyagan ng kakila-kilabot na pagtuklas ay kumalat sa buong bansa. Tumigil ang mga turista sa pagdating. Walang gustong magbakasyon sa isang lugar kung saan nakahiga sa ilalim ng lupa ang isang pinahirapang katawan sa loob ng 3 taon. 2 taon matapos matagpuan ang kahon, nabangkarote ang kampo at isinara. Ngayon ay isang abandonadong lugar. Kinakalawang ang mga tarangkahan at nakasabit sa isang bisagra.

Naka-board up ang gusali ng administrasyon. Ang mga landas ng aspalto ay tinutubuan ng damo. At sa isang lugar doon, sa ilalim ng isang layer ng lupa at mga ugat, mayroon pa ring walang laman na balon ng paagusan. isang tahimik na saksi sa isang malagim na trahedya. Hindi pa rin nareresolba ang kaso ni Marin at ang lalaking malamang na pumatay sa kanya ay umalis na lamang at wala nang nakarinig pa tungkol sa kanya.