The Mystery of the Devils Castle: Do You Solve the Murder?

Geert Vilain is a young teacher who works in Ghent, in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium). In his spare time, he is a singer-songwriter. His songs are a mix of old Flemish folk music, blues, and the French chanson. He sings his very poetic, melancholic and sometimes "dark" lyrics in Dutch, French and English, and is soon labeled as a "poète maudit", a doomed poet, who always writes about love and death. Geert is fascinated by old ballads about medieval serial killers, like the Flemish folk song The Ballad of Lord Halewyn or the English May Colven. He chooses Gerard the Devil as his stage name, because of an old gruesome folktale about the medieval Devil's Castle where once lived, loved and died... a Lord of Ghent by the name of Gerard the Devil.

Geert Vilain gets involved with one of his students, the seventeen year old Melinda Meursault. After a gig, she is found nearby the pub, decapitated. The police suspects the singer-songwriter for a while, but has to set him free because of a lack of evidence. Nevertheless, the career of Geert Vilain as a teacher is broken, and he ends up in the gutter. At the beginning of the nineties he roams homeless in Brussels.

In 1995, Gerard is literally "picked up from the gutter" by Isabel Pontarlier, who works as a talent scout for the record company of Gilbert Leduc, ‘Duck Music'. Isabel says she was "crushed by the scorching intensity of his music, his lyrics and his performance". Gerard moves in with Isabel and they start a relationship. He makes his first recordings with Isabel as his producer and a couple of street musicians or "buskers", as Gerard the Devil & The Diabolics. He has a lot of success with a song he wrote for Isabel: Isabelle dances... Isabel also organises a concert-tour through Belgium.

Halloween 1995... After a wonderful concert in the Devil's Castle where for the first time appeared some "horror soundscapes" on his playlist, Gerard runs away with the sixteen year old Lisa Vanmaele. After a fight with Yves Bonduelle, one of his musicians, both he and Lisa seem to have disappeared. The girl, later on, will be found in a condition of total insanity. Until today, there are no traces of Gerard the Devil. Yves Bonduelle was suspected of the (double?) murder for a while, but the police had to release him because of a lack of evidence. The recordings made for the first CD of Gerard the Devil & The Diabolics were lost and became the object of a lawsuit. The record was never officially released.

Here are some quotes of an interview (1995) that prove Gerard the Devil had the heart of a true poet:

Managers? A real artist only needs a manager to ruin his business-plans. A true artist should be the louse in the fur of the managers, the stick in the wheels of the commercial machine. The natural habitat of a true artist is the gutter, not some expensive penthouse. We should be living opposite of all things that tend to commerce and materialism.

The poet is body & soul & passion. His art may not become an "object", a "product" that is bought or sold.

Did Gerard the Devil commit suicide? If so, why? And why do you think that?

Is Gerard the Devil still alive? If so, why do you think this? And why is he hiding, then?

Was Gerard the Devil killed? If so, why and by whom? Isabel Pontarlier? Yves Bonduelle? Lisa Vanmaele? Or some other lunatic?

Check it all out on the HubPages... for free!

I am the general manager of the record label ‘Duck-Music'. We are the only true owners of the work that made a star of the notorious singer-songwriter who operated under the stage name of Gerard the Devil. More than ten years ago now, Gerard disappeared, leaving no trace at all. His disappearance was headline news and it remains an unsolved mystery until today. I decided to organise teambuilding sessions for private eyes and detective teams... Maybe you can solve the mystery of Gerard the Devil and the Devil's Castle?

The musicians that worked with Gerard on his only record that, unfortunately, never was released - thanks to Isabel Pontarlier again! - have for the past ten years gone back to their old jobs: making music on the streets, as so called 'buskers'.

Some say that Gerard the Devil was just an artistic serial killer, a musical Jack the Ripper. Some say that he was killed by his last victim, Lisa Van Maele. A case of self-defence, obviously. Others claim that Gerard and Lisa became victims of Isabel Pontarlier, who worked with him als his producer and became his lover. Isabel Pontarlier then killed Gerard out of jealousy... She argues that the disappearance of Gerard was organised by me, to boost the record sales. And that things along the way went terribly wrong... That poor Gerard got killed, because of the hype I created. Or that Gerard had enough of the hype and that he is hiding away now.

Ha-ha.

He may even have committed suicide. Why not?

He may have been killed by an envious musician of his band, the famous Diabolics.

Ladies and gentlemen... Ladies and gentlemen, maybe you think that I, more than anyone else, should know what happened more than ten years ago. Well... I don't know for sure, but I have a pretty good idea. As far as I'm concerned, Gerard and Lisa were the victims of Isabel Pontalier! I'm pretty sure that she poisoned them both. Yes sir... that's what I'm convinced of... and that is the reason why I had to fire Isabel; she no longer works with Duck records, you know.

How did she do it? I'm not sure, but I guess she used poison. A minor dose of curare, for instance, paralyses the body but leaves the victim fully conscious. In some doses, curare influences only the brain. The victim becomes, in other words, a lunatic. Apparently, that is what happened to Lisa. And Gerard the Devil? Well, he received a lethal dose, his heart stopped beating. And when your heart stops beating, you die.

So Isabel and no one else is guilty of the murder of Gerard the Devil. Her motive? It was truly a true crime of passion... She, the elder woman who had made him famous, who had give him her body and soul... She was jealous of Lisa, the Lolita that caught the attention of the artist...

What happened with the body of Gerard the Devil? I don't know. I'm not a psychic, you know. I am not a fortune teller. And to be honest with you... I don't really care either, because it does not matter anymore.

That evening, I saw Gerard with a cute little girl, Lisa. And I followed them, okay. The cops said I did so because I was jealous... Maybe I wanted to fuck her too, they said. But that's not true! My intentions were pure and honest! Gerard the Devil, on the other hand...

He was just a perverted son of a gun...

I followed them, he saw me and he attacked me. Before I knew what was happening, he hit me in the face. I was lying on the ground and I'm going to blame myself for the rest of my life, but... I could not save Lisa from that monster!

Leduc and Isabel are innocent; they weren't even around when Gerard disappeared with the Lisa. No, no, Gerard wanted to rape her, she would not let him... They started a fight and... Afterwards, the poor thing got insane.

And what happened to Gerard? I don't know. They haven't found his body. If he's dead, then... Justice has been done.

He was just a perverted son of a gun, you know...

Gerard wrote this song especially for me, you know... He wrote the song for us, for the two of us... who would be dancing... forever... and ever... and ever...

This is our song, you know. I can't stop playing it, I can't stop dancing when I hear his voice and listen to the words he wrote for me and only for me...

He is singing... Do you hear him singing?

For me? Only for me?

And when he is singing, I have to dance, you see...

I have to dance to his music, I have to hold him in my arms when I am dancing and he is singing and he is still with me, you see...? I get the idea Gerard is still with me, when I am dancing and he is singing and...

I can't forget... I still have this photograph... And I have the recordings. I still have the studio-tapes of the songs he wrote and performed and recorded in Dutch, in French, in English... I still have the Halloween Soundscapes he made just before he... went away.

To have or to have not! The studio-tapes! That is the question!

And I have the studio-tapes, oh yes! And the filthy pig... Leduc... he has not!... Oh no!... He doesn't have got them... Not from me, no-no... Not with me...

Of course, he tries and he tries to get the tapes... He calls them ‘The True Legacy of the Late Gerard the Devil!'... But I won't give them, no way!

Gerard is mine...

The pig wanted to make a legend out of my beloved, the legend of the ‘singing serial killer'. But I can't let that happen with my loved-one, can I...?

Fuck, no!

That filthy pig, and no one else, planned the disappearance of Gerard with this little slut, this Lisa! He wanted to create a fuckin' hype, you know, and sell even more records. Maybe he even paid Lisa to seduce my love...

But then, things started to go wrong, you see... Things started to go wrong in a terrible way... What exactly went wrong? I don't know... But one thing I'm sure of, the pig is bad news... Due to him my love isn't here anymore... He passed away... And the slut disappeared... And now he's dead... And the slut, the little whore... I'm going to kill her, you know... So she'll fuckin' have what she asked for! Fooling around with my... I'm gonna kill her when she...

Lisa is guilty, that is as sure as hell. Why she has done it? Because I saw her do it. Yes, you heard it well: I saw her kill Gerard the Devil. I saw it with my own eyes.

It happened after the Halloween Show in the Devil's Castle... I went to a pub, called ‘De Witte Leeuw' (The White Lion) to drink a beer or two... and suddenly, I saw Lisa and Gerard come in. They did not see me, they went directly upstairs. I followed them, and through the keyhole I could see that they were having sex... The heavy stuff, you know. The kinky kind of sex.

When they were done, Lisa asked for some money. Cash. Gerard would not pay her and she went completely nuts, grabbed a bottle and smashed it on Gerard's head. He fell down, bleeding... And I ran away... I'm a musician, you know. I played the streets for years, so I mind my own business. I don't like the police. They never believe a busker like me. So, I ran away... I'm not proud of it, but that is what I did. I left the building and I left Belgium as soon as possible. And I kept my mouth shut. For the past ten years I've been buskin' around in Paris, Rome, London, Amsterdam... And now, I'm in Belgium again, ‘cause Donald Duck is paying me well, and tomorrow I'll be gone...

Madam,

Sir,

They are telling a lot of lies about me. I have not gone insane and I have not been treated in a psychiatric hospital either. It's only a story Leduc made up in order to make the disappearance of Gerard even bigger news than it already was. The more hype he could get, the more records he would sell!

Now, this is what really happened. Me and Gerard the Devil went in hiding after his concert in the Devil's Castle. We lived for a while here in Ghent, in a pub called "De Witte Leeuw" (The White Lion). We made love, and we made love, and again we made love, and again and... With his money, we could buy some stuff. But Gerard was a dreamer... He would not be a part of the hype Leduc created. One day, Gerard had no money anymore... so I dumped him.

And yes, I had some problems: I was an addict, I had to look for professional help and I worked in bars. Okay. But now, I'm back in Ghent and I want to start a new life, here, in De Witte Leeuw, with a weekly musical performance about the life and work of Gerard the Devil.

What happened to Gerard? I don't know... But if you're in search for a lunatic, you may ask yourself this question: Who is the lunatic, me or Isabel? If you‘re thinking about someone who could have killed Gerard, well... there she is! Maybe Gerard was looking for some consolation after I dumped him. Maybe they were dating again and she killed him ‘cause of me? Huh?

Kisses,

Lisa Vanmaele

Now, according to you or to your team, what has exactly happened with Gerard the Devil, and why it happened this way?

Beware! Think twice before you follow a link to a possible solution:

I really thinkGerard the Devil committed suicide!

I really thinkGerard the Devil is still alive & kicking.

I really think Gerard the Devil was murdered.