“Who would do such a thing?” ask the parents of Natacha de Crombrugghe, who are filing a complaint in response to the theft of the memorial plaque from a bench in her hometown
Natacha de Crombrugghe of Linkebeek, just south of Brussels, disappeared in early 2022 during a solo hike in the Colca Canyon in southern Peru. A search carried out by both local and Belgian authorities turned up nothing, and her body was discovered only eight months later in the Colca River 45 kilometres downstream.
An autopsy revealed that De Crombrugghe, 28, had suffered a blow to the head, but to this day it is unclear what happened. Authorities have said that she most likely had fallen, ending up in the river, rather than that she was the victim of a crime.
De Crombrugghe’s parents had installed a memorial plaque on a bench between their home and the hockey club where she played. They also planted a cherry tree next to the bench. Someone recently pried the plaque off the bench and took it away.
“Who would do such a thing?” asks De Crombrugghe’s mother, Sabine Verhelst. “We are just shocked.” She says they plan to file a police report. “Then this can be investigated … maybe other things have been stolen in the neighbourhood.”
In any case, they plan to replace the plaque and are working with a specialist and the city to make sure it is mounted in a way that is less easy to remove. There is also a plaque outside Cabanaconde at the spot where De Crombrugghe started her hike, placed by the local people in 2023.
“Now she protects all the hikers and looks out over the canyon,” residents stated in a local newspaper at the time. “She will live forever in our valley, and her smile will brighten the lives of our visitors.”