Mother of Luna, toddler who was murdered by Hans Van Themsche: “I have learned to let go of a lot – not just Luna” | Domestic

She did not participate in the documentary on her own initiative, Laurence Van Brée said tonight. But by sharing her side of the story, she had some control over the narrative. “The documentary probably would have been made anyway. If I participated, I would have some control over it,” says Luna’s mother. And that did her good. “I’m one step further. We’ll see what happens in the future, but I’m not going to keep dealing with it all the time.”

She first spoke to Hans Van Themsche in 2015. The week of the trial, Laurence decided that she wanted to talk to Van Themsche’s mother, Lieve. “I am a mother. My child is dead, her child is a monster at that moment. But she is a mother, and those motherly feelings are enormous at that moment. Knowing that your child has done something like that destroys you.” The conversation she had with Lieve was “very cathartic,” according to Van Brée. “We have benefited from each other a lot.”

After the meeting between the two mothers, Van Themsche himself asked to talk to Laurence. She doesn’t know why exactly she said ‘yes’ to that. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to say no.’ I want to do it and see it with my eyes. Then it would occasionally appear in the newspapers that he was an exemplary prisoner.” With a view to an early release one day, she wanted to experience for herself “what kind of person he has become after so many years”.

In the summer of 2023, Laurence returned to Oudenaarde prison for another meeting with the man who murdered her daughter. She had no expectations prior to the meeting, the mother testified tonight. “If you have expectations, you can only be disappointed. I have learned to let go of a lot, not only Luna, but also a marriage, a business, a house. I no longer have expectations.”

According to Laurence, Hans Van Themsche is “very intelligent”. “If he really wants something, he goes for it. He has done a lot of research on what empathy is. He started reading things.” But he cannot feel what she felt then. “But I don’t think anyone here at the table can feel what I felt,” she emphasized.

“When I hear him talk, I think he is genuinely sorry. I think there are prisoners who would laugh that off.” In addition, for her he is also a victim of society. “What he did cannot be justified. But his mother knew from an early age that he was different and had a hard time, that he had no place in society.”

She also wanted to correct something during the broadcast. It was recently said that Van Brée is pleading for his freedom. “I never said that, but I’m not going to stand in the way of that,” she clarified. “I’m not going to argue for his freedom.”

“Hate and short-sightedness do not help you move forward. Just look at how wars happen: there it is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I am convinced that there are perpetrators in prison who absolutely should not be released. In this case, he really does know that what he did is wrong. He did that in a moment of madness, I think. And that at a very young age.”