The Devil’s Pastor

In 1997, thanks to intensive investigations and unsolved missing persons cases involving Belgian murderer and sex offender Marc Dutroux, the police tracked down a heinous serial killer. He was, of all people, a respected Protestant pastor named András Pandý, who came from Hungary and had not only six family members but also 13 other people on his conscience. András had emigrated to Hungary with his wife Ilona Sőrés during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. The couple had a daughter, Ágnes, and two sons, Dániel and Zoltán. But after 11 years, the marriage was history and the couple separated in 1967. Allegedly, the unfaithful Ilona moved to France with her two sons and later to South America. It was an open secret that András liked to use dating services with the slogan “European Honeymoon” to meet women. When András traveled to his native Hungary once again, he met and fell in love with Edith Fintor, a married mother of three, who promptly eloped with András to Belgium. Edith became András’ second wife, bringing her daughters Tunde, Timea, and Andrea into the marriage. No one suspected that András was already having an incestuous relationship with his daughter Agnes at that time. Then, in 1986, András’s wife Edith disappeared, allegedly suffering from severe cancer and having moved to Germany. Edith’s sister from Hungary simply could not believe this and asked the Dutch guest pastor Andries Den Broer to look for Edith. He investigated and shared his findings with the Minister of Justice, Melchior Wathelet. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. Then, in 1990, Edith’s daughter Tunde disappeared, whom András had allegedly thrown out of the house because of arguments. In 1992, Agnes reported her father to the police for sexual abuse, as he had not only had an incestuous relationship with her, but also with her stepdaughter Timea. Ágnes also reported her mother and two brothers missing. András then showed the police letters that had allegedly been written by the missing persons from abroad. However, as it later transpired, András had actually written these letters himself and sent them to himself. Almost four years passed before the Belgian police, in the course of their investigation into Marc Dutroux, took up the missing persons cases involving András again and searched his home. After the police found human remains and bones in the basement that belonged not only to the missing family members but also to 13 other people, András was arrested, followed shortly afterwards by his daughter Ágnes. During questioning, she confessed not only to the incestuous relationship with her father, but also to having killed her mother, her two brothers, her own child, her stepmother Edith, and Edith’s daughter Andrea together with him. They had dissolved the bodies with an over-the-counter drain cleaner and flushed them down the drain. This was first tested on a pig carcass. However, the court insisted on a human body. Therefore, the experiment was carried out on the body of a man who had stipulated after his death that his body should be used for scientific purposes, and the drain cleaner did indeed decompose the man’s body. During the investigation, it emerged that András had founded the charity YDNAP, which reads backwards as PANDY, during the 1988 revolution in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu. The charity had brought orphans and homeless children to András’s house in Belgium, where they suddenly disappeared without a trace. András, who even had a son with his stepdaughter Timea, was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2002 by the Brussels Assize Court for six counts of murder and the rape of three of his daughters. His daughter Ágnes received a 21-year prison sentence for five counts of aiding and abetting murder. András, who had been dubbed “the devil’s pastor” and “Father Bluebeard” by the media, maintained his innocence until the end and saw himself as the victim of a witch hunt. On December 23, 2013, András Pandý died at the age of 86 in the medical center of the prison in Bruges. His daughter Ágnes was released from prison early in 2010 under certain conditions and subsequently entered a convent.