Mother murders her 5 children

This is the true story of Geneviève Lhermitte, a Belgian woman who committed one of the most shocking acts of infanticide in modern history.

On February 28, 2007, she brutally ended the lives of all five of her children inside their family home located in Nivelles, Belgium.

She systematically carried out these horrific acts by slitting each child’s throat using a sharp kitchen knife she had purchased earlier that day.

To understand how a mother could commit such an unimaginable crime, one must examine the complex trajectory of her life leading up to that fatal afternoon.

Geneviève Lhermitte was born on November 16, 1966, in the historic city of Brussels, Belgium, to a middle-class family.

Her father, Michel Lhermitte, worked as a businessman, while her mother, Marina, dedicated her life to working as a professional nurse.

Geneviève grew up as the oldest of three daughters, alongside her two younger sisters, Catherine, born in 1969, and Mireille, born in 1972.

Throughout her early academic life, Geneviève frequently struggled with her coursework and battled severe, persistent issues regarding her self-confidence.

Despite these internal struggles, she persevered through her secondary education and continued her studies into higher educational institutions.

In 1991, she successfully earned a diploma in French and History from the Educational Institute of Social Promotion of the French Community.

During her student years between 1988 and 1989, Geneviève met Bouchaïb Moqadem, a young man of Moroccan descent studying mathematics and physics.

Moqadem eventually abandoned his university studies, but his romantic relationship with Geneviève continued to grow and deepen over time.

On September 22, 1990, the couple officially married, marking the beginning of a complex chapter in their lives.

Following their wedding, the newlyweds moved directly into a Brussels apartment owned by a prominent physician named Dr. Michel Schaar.

Dr. Schaar was a long-time friend of Moqadem’s family, having established a deep personal connection with them in Morocco during the 1980s.

When Moqadem moved to Belgium, Dr. Schaar welcomed him into his home, effectively acting as an adoptive father and mentor to the young man.

While Moqadem worked low-wage jobs at a local convenience store, Dr. Schaar served as the primary financial provider for the household.

Geneviève initially agreed to this living arrangement under the assumption that sharing a home with the older doctor was merely temporary.

She believed they were simply starting out as newlyweds and would soon secure their own private residence to raise a family together.

In 1991, Geneviève began working as a secondary school teacher, and shortly thereafter, she gave birth to her first child, Yasmine.

Three years later, in 1994, the couple welcomed their second daughter, Nora, into the expanding young family.

Between 1995 and 1996, Geneviève was forced to take an extended leave from her teaching position due to severe postpartum depression.

As the family grew, Dr. Schaar purchased a large house in Nivelles for everyone to live in, reserving his former apartment for his medical practice.

Even after moving into the new house, Dr. Schaar remained an omnipresent figure, living on the second floor and funding their entire lifestyle.

In 1996, Dr. Schaar hired Moqadem as a part-time filing assistant, expanding the role into a permanent, full-time position by 1998.

Dr. Schaar paid the mortgage, covered household expenses, provided monthly allowances, funded annual vacations, and paid for their life insurance policies.

Geneviève gave birth to two more daughters in rapid succession: Myriam, who was born in 1997, and Mina, born in 1999.

Despite the apparent financial stability, severe marital tensions began to simmer beneath the surface of the crowded household.

Moqadem spent increasingly long hours away from home, becoming a frequent regular at a local bar and a nearby spa.

Furthermore, he took frequent, lengthy trips to Marrakech to visit his birth family, staying away anywhere from a week to a full month.

On August 9, 2003, Geneviève gave birth to her fifth child and only son, a boy whom they named Maddy.

Feeling overwhelmed by isolation, depression, and domestic burdens, Geneviève began seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Diederik Veldekens, in 2005.

The psychological pressure on Geneviève was heavily compounded by Dr. Schaar’s total intrusion into every aspect of her marital life.

Dr. Schaar had even accompanied the couple on their honeymoon years earlier, paying for the trip and sharing a bedroom with them.

Geneviève later revealed that they had to wait until the doctor fell asleep each night before they could engage in any intimacy.

Over time, Geneviève felt completely suffocated, viewing Dr. Schaar as an overbearing presence who had effectively stolen her domestic privacy.

On the morning of February 28, 2007, Moqadem was away in Morocco, scheduled to return home later that same day.

Geneviève began the day routinely, taking her eldest daughter, Yasmine, to a local dermatology appointment before picking up the other children.

After preparing lunch for her children, Geneviève later claimed she experienced a sudden auditory hallucination, hearing a voice saying, “The machine is running.”

Driven by a sudden, catastrophic shift in her mental state, she sat down and wrote two separate, desperate letters.

She mailed one letter containing personal jewelry to her sisters and sent the second letter to her close friend, Valérie.

In the letter to Valérie, she bitterly denounced Dr. Schaar as a “rotten bastard” who had stolen all intimacy from her family.

She also expressed deep resentment toward her husband, accusing him of being completely deaf and blind to her growing psychological distress.

After posting the letters, Geneviève went to a local grocery store, quietly slipped two kitchen knives into her bag, and returned home.

Upon arriving at the house, she hid the weapons in a drawer while her children were gathered together watching a movie.

She quietly called her youngest daughter, Mina, into a separate room while the other children remained distracted by the television screen.

Geneviève initially attempted to strangle Mina, but when the young child fought back, she retrieved a knife and slit her throat.

Throughout this horrifying act, Geneviève spoke soothing, comforting words to her daughter, continuously whispering apologies as the child died.

She then targeted her only son, three-year-old Maddy, calling him away from his sisters under the guise of an ordinary task.

When her attempt to strangle Maddy failed, she used the knife to cut his throat before washing the blade in the sink.

Next, Geneviève approached her daughter Myriam, telling the young girl that she had a special surprise waiting for her in the office.

She instructed Myriam to sit in a chair and gently tied a blue handkerchief over the child’s eyes as a blindfold.

Once Myriam was seated, Geneviève struck her over the head with a heavy marble plaque before slitting her throat with the knife.

She then called Nora, who was widely considered to be Dr. Schaar’s favorite child among the siblings, into the room.

Geneviève asked Nora to sit in a chair, stepped up behind her, and cold-bloodedly slit her throat from behind.

Using Nora’s blood, Geneviève painted the letters “J-U-D” on the bathroom mirror, later intending to spell “Judas.”

Finally, Geneviève targeted her eldest daughter, fourteen-year-old Yasmine, who fought back fiercely for her life during the attack.

Despite Yasmine’s desperate struggles to defend herself, Geneviève ultimately overpowered her daughter and inflicted the same lethal wounds.

After killing all five of her children, Geneviève attempted to end her own life by stabbing herself in the chest.

Realizing her self-inflicted wound was not fatal, she called the emergency services and collapsed on the floor of the residence.

When medical personnel and law enforcement officers arrived at the scene, they discovered the catastrophic tragedy that had unfolded inside.

The legal proceedings that followed gripped the nation of Belgium, sparking intense public debate, horror, and psychological scrutiny.

Geneviève was represented by prominent defense attorneys Daniel Spreutels and Xavier Magnée during her high-profile criminal trial.

Because Geneviève had fully confessed to the killings, the trial focused primarily on her mental state and underlying motivation.

Defense attorney Xavier Magnée urged the jury to examine how a previously devoted mother could suddenly experience such a horrific breakdown.

During testimony, details emerged regarding the extreme codependency and financial reliance that defined the household’s unique living situation.

Geneviève described how Dr. Schaar dominated their routine, watching television with them nightly and joining every single family vacation.

Following a intense trial, the jury found Geneviève guilty of premeditated murder, rejecting the defense’s argument of complete mental insanity.

On December 19, 2008, the court sentenced Geneviève Lhermitte to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of her five children.

Under Belgian law, the substantial legal and court fees arising from the trial ultimately fell upon her ex-husband, Moqadem.

Because Geneviève possessed no assets, state authorities sought reimbursement from Moqadem’s share of the sale of their former home.

The total court costs and legal fines amounted to approximately 72,000 euros, causing immense anger and outrage from Moqadem.

His legal defense team attempted to have the bill written off on humanitarian grounds, citing the extraordinary tragedy of the situation.

In February 2010, Moqadem attempted to rebuild his life by marrying Asmae Beldi, a respected professor of Islamic law.

The couple welcomed a daughter roughly a year later, seeking a fresh start away from the shadow of the tragedy.

However, financial troubles continued to pursue Moqadem in the years that followed his tragic family loss.

By 2013, reports surfaced indicating he had lost 30,000 euros in an investment scheme while facing continued legal fee demands.

Meanwhile, Geneviève remained incarcerated in a Belgian prison facility, serving out her life sentence under ongoing psychiatric evaluation.

Psychologists and true crime analysts have long debated the precise psychological factors that drove Geneviève to commit infanticide.

While acute psychiatric distress and post-partum psychological trauma played central roles, underlying feelings of profound isolation were evident.

Geneviève felt trapped in a life where she lacked agency, privacy, and meaningful emotional connection from her distant husband.

The omnipresence of Dr. Schaar created an environment where Geneviève felt completely displaced within her own maternal household.

While no psychological theory can ever excuse or justify such atrocious acts, context offers a window into her mental collapse.

The tragic reality remains that five innocent young lives—Yasmine, Nora, Myriam, Mina, and Maddy—were needlessly cut short.

Their tragic story remains a harrowing reminder of the devastating consequences of severe, unaddressed mental illness and toxic domestic isolation.