Grave monument d'Udekem d'Acoz

The grave monument of d'Udekem d'Acoz is located somewhat away from the popular paths in the Lippensgoed-Bulskampveld.

The memorial stone was erected by the d'Udekem d'Acoz family on the spot where the body of the murdered baron was found in 1915, during the German occupation.

On May 25, 1915, during the First World War, Baron d'Udekem d'Acoz disappeared from his castle in Ruddervoorde . Using a ruse, two men disguised as Germans came to get the Baron around half past seven in the morning and took him away in a car. The Ortskommandatur in Tielt needed 'intelligence', but the baron never got it.

On September 2 that same year, two men who were pruning at the Point saw a small height under low-hanging branches where no grass was growing. They discovered a hand sticking out of the loose sand . The dead man turned out to be the baron . He was shot in the back and buried alive . The client of the two men, Camiel 'Sassen' Dierickx, the hunting ranger of Mrs. Lippens van Bulskampveld, mysteriously disappeared on August 28.

A ring and a handkerchief with the initials H.D'U.d'A were said to have been found . Yet Mayor de Vrière of Beernem, who had succumbed to the charms of the baron's wife, recorded that 'an unknown person of the male gender' was found.

The murders of Beernem.

In the aftermath of this murder and disappearance, there are probably 4 more victims: René De Baene 'stumbled to death' in the night of 15 to 16 May 1921 . This event was classified and never properly investigated. Hector De Zutter disappeared on the night of November 7 to 8, 1926 . He was found on November 30 in the Brugse Vaart . Ernest Van Poucke said he knew more about this, but drowned in the canal on May 9, 1927 .

A journalist from Maldegem investigates and the rest of Belgium hears the story . Ultimately, two of the mayor's employees are convicted,

But the killings only stop in the aftermath of WWII. Municipal secretary Omer Van Haecke was taken from his home in 1944 and brutally murdered. This murder was also never cleared up.

The facts were romanticized in the TV series 'The forests of Flanders' . The film project 'Case: the Zutter' proves that the series of unsolved murders, for which the Bulskampveld was the backdrop, still appeals to the imagination.

Note Roger Troch's reaction to this sight: in the book "Etappenleven te Ghent" by Heinrich Wandt it is written that the 2 Germans were arrested and convicted...

Willem Vandenameele