Since the bloody attack on the Fabeltjesland crèche, detectives have become convinced that De Gelder is also responsible for the fatal stabbing of a 72-year-old woman in her farmhouse in Vrasene. Now reports say De Gelder has admitted the intention of killing a neighbour of the dead woman two days earlier. But he could not find a doorbell, and then heard the sound of the family’s two dogs, one of them a Bernese Mountain dog.

The family of Peter Van der Westerlaken was not home at the time of the first visit and, when De Gelder came back, instead of trying again, he went to the home of Elza Van Raemdonck, stabbing her multiple times.

Prosecutors have failed to discover any link between De Gelder, who lived alone in an apartment in Sinai, and the Galgstraat in Vrasene, where the Van der Westerlakens and Van Raemdoncks lived. However, one report last week pointed out that both the Galgstraat and the Fabeltjesland crèche are exactly 18 kilometres from De Gelder’s parents’ house in Eksaarde, where he lived until a few months before the killings. That could be a sign that the murders were planned longer in advance than was previously thought.