Isabella Mueller (crime writer) 
On 25 July 2023, a passer-by on the Albert Canal, which links the Belgian cities of Liège and Antwerp, spotted a fridge floating in the water and pulled it out. When a pungent smell hit his nose, he immediately called the water police. When the police arrived at the scene in Hermalle-sous-Argenteau and opened the fridge, they were met with a horrific sight. Inside lay the decomposing arms and legs of a woman, along with a saw, which had presumably been used to dismember her. As the woman had clearly been killed violently, the homicide division of the Federal Criminal Police in Liège was put in charge of the murder investigation. The woman found in the fridge was identified as 74-year-old Maria Verdoolaege, and her 35-year-old son, Ismael, quickly became a prime suspect. This was because the police had received an anonymous call 10 days earlier. In it, a man claimed that an acquaintance of his had confided that his son had killed his mother in Jemeppe, dismembered her and disposed of her remains in a fridge in the Albert Canal. As the man was heavily intoxicated, little credence was given to his claim; nevertheless, a patrol car was dispatched to the home of the allegedly murdered woman on Rue Grand-Vinâve, which they literally turned upside down without finding the slightest indication of a crime. Questioning the neighbours revealed that the elderly lady was said to be on holiday in Italy with her friend. Following these statements, the police withdrew and shelved the case for the time being, until the body parts matching the description in the anonymous call were found in the fridge. Just a few days later, the woman’s torso and head were found in a rubbish container floating in the water a few kilometres from the initial discovery site. Macabrely, the head had been hidden in a deep-fat fryer. A chip had been found in the rubbish container, which belonged to the house next door to the murder victim, and it was clearly Ismael’s. Due to the overwhelming evidence, he was arrested at a hotel in Brussels, where he already had a flight ticket to Korea in order to flee. During questioning, Ismael – who had moved back in with his mother during the COVID-19 pandemic – confessed to her murder. He had been harassed and bullied by her for years, until he strangled her on 10 July 2023. He then dismembered her body with a saw and disposed of the body parts in the fridge and in a rubbish bin, which he threw into the Albert Canal. This solved the mystery of the dead woman in the fridge, who had been murdered by her son, who has been in pre-trial detention ever since.
