Missing Belgian couple lays dead in Italian mortuary 18/07/2008 00:00

A TV appeal puts an end to the mystery surround the Antwerp couple who went missing four years ago.

18 June 2008

BELGIUM – A Dutch TV’s appeal to identify a dead couple who have been lying in an Italian mortuary since four years ago paid off as a student identifies them as Elke Meyvis and her friend.

The 26-year-old Meyvis and her friend, Victor, went missing four years ago and were believed to be living in a sect in India or France. Victor had absconded from a psychiatric institution.

In December 2004, the extremely thin remains of a man and a woman were discovered in a wood in Italy.

The couple had died after eating a poisonous plant. Nobody knew who they were. For four years, the bodies remained in an Italian mortuary.

Belgium's Missing Persons Unit was not alerted.

“This is perfectly possible” says Alain Remue. “In Belgium we still have twelve bodies, men, women or of a gender that cannot be determined, found in 2007 but we still have not been able to establish their identity.”

“They are still in a mortuary somewhere or have been buried after a DNA sample was taken.”

General information about the Belgian couple had been handed to Interpol and was available for the police worldwide.

Reconstructions of the faces of the two bodies appeared in Italian newspapers. A student made the connection when she saw the pictures on Dutch TV.

Had there been a DNA data bank containing information on all missing persons, identification of the dead bodies could have happened more quickly.

[flandersnews.be / Expatica]