She had three sons and a daughter, Michele Titeca (51) from Bruges. They had not been able to reach the woman for some time. Tuesday morning it became painfully clear why. Their mother had been dead for three days in her apartment in Verbrand Nieuwland, a small street in the center of Bruges. “According to the police, the law doctor has determined that she must have been dead for at least 72 hours,” says daughter Ellen Baeckelandt (28). “You can’t imagine how many questions something like this raises for us.”
Those questions were only reinforced when it turned out that CR (39), the new partner of the woman, may have known for a while that the woman had died. Finally, he called the emergency services himself around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday. “My girlfriend is not moving anymore,” he told emergency services. They sent the police and a medical team to the scene. But of course all help came too late. They could only determine Michele’s death.
The man in his thirties was arrested for questioning, but what he stated is not yet clear. An autopsy on Michele’s body has since revealed that she died of natural causes. So there was no intervention from third parties. The initial investigation into accidental killing falls away. CR was already allowed to dispose of it, but the investigation into possible culpable negligence is continuing, the public prosecutor of Bruges confirms. This mainly concerns the question of why CR, who had been together with Michele for a year and a half, did not inform the emergency services earlier.