• 'Royals' Paola of Belgium, the revenge of the queen who had to swallow with her husband's mistress: "I was unfaithful and I do not regret it"
  • Birthday Matilda of Belgium: the 50 years of a queen who "commands more than she seems"

Days of scandal, consternation and commotion among the Belgian nobility. Baroness Myriam Ullens de Schooten, second wife of Baron Guy Ullens de Schooten Whettnall, fashion designer, philanthropist and close friend of Queen Matilda was murdered a few days ago outside her mansion in Ohain, in Lasne, in Walloon Brabant. The murderer, to make matters worse, is Nicolás Ullens, the result of the first marriage of her husband and former member of the State Security Services, who emptied the gun magazine, slightly wounding her nonagenarian father.

The couple were one of the best-known couples in Belgium, regulars of all salons, with the doors of the Royal Palace open, but also with magnificent relations with prime ministers, businessmen and celebrities. March has been a horrible month for Matilde, who has lost her uncle Raoul and her confidant and her friend Bernard de Launoit, a figure in the world of music and art. The royal couple, according to local media, were regulars staying at the couple's Swiss chalet on their ski getaways.

Myriam Ullens de Schooten, who was 70, came from a modest family and had started her own artisanal pastry business as a single mother of two before meeting the Baron. In 2011, he founded Maison Ullens, a luxury brand. Nicolas Ullens de Schooten Whettnall was born in 1965 from the union of Baron and Micheline Franckx, who left four children. His paternal grandparents were two great surnames of the local nobility.

View this post on Instagram

The motives for the crime are no secret: money. The children of the baron, who broke up with Franckx in 1999, have been charging their stepmother for decades, accusing her of clouding their father's mind and squandering the family fortune. The family's assets were estimated at more than 3,000 million euros at the beginning of the century, after the sale of their sugar emporium and the descendants bellowed for what they considered expenses of their inheritance in trips, properties, works of art and charity.

The Baroness's husband and father of the murderer made a great fortune by selling his sugar company

On March 29, Nicolás, 57, went to the family home, which was for sale, and had an argument, yet another. He came out angry, but instead of leaving he waited in the car. When his father and wife left the house, he rammed them and fired six bullets at point-blank range. The baron, in the passenger seat, was injured in the leg. The murderer, who for more than a decade was part of the Secret Services, but who had to leave them after several incidents and who had offered for a time as a private investigator, turned himself in and has gone to court. His sister Brigitte came to his defense a few hours later, explaining that her stepmother had "devastated her family." "In recent years, Dad's mental state has deteriorated and she has taken advantage of it," he said, referring to a stroke that left him very limited.

Ennobled in 1693 by Charles II, King of Spain, the Ullens family maintained status after the fall of Napoleon in 1816. And in 1928 he obtained the concession of the title of baron. Guy Ullens de Schooten was born in 1931 in San Francisco. His father was a diplomat and his mother, heiress of Felix-Guillaume Wittouck, who created the Tirdemont sugar mills.

Obviously, we have not requested any measure today other than to keep Mr Ullens in pre-trial detention. We believe that it would have been in very bad taste, at this point, to allege anything.

Nicolas Ullens Lawyers

When Guy and Myriam met, he had already sold the company to Germany's Südzucker and invested part of the fortune in holding company Artal Luxembourg. She, the daughter of a Belgian soldier in Germany, grew up in Cologne and did not return to the country until she was a teenager, to live in a boarding school. At 24, he launched his first food company, La Petite Salade, which he sold a few years later. Then he opened Sweetly, a bakery located in the area well, near the so-called Golden Mile. In 1999 they married.

From then on they devoted the next decades to travel, philanthropy and contemporary art. She created a foundation against breast cancer, after overcoming one. After a trip to Nepal, they founded the Ullens School, the Happy House Kathmandu program and an orphanage as a center of attention. On the art side, the Ullens bet on Chinese artists such as Zeng Fanzhi or Huang Yong Ping, then at the beginning of their career, and founded and sold the first Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. His collection exceeds 15,000 works. Luxury clothing brand Maison Ullens has stores all over the world, especially in Asia.

After surrendering, the defendant appeared in court on Monday. "Obviously, we have not requested today any measure other than to keep Mr. Ullens in pre-trial detention. We believe it would have been in very bad taste, at this point, to allege anything," his lawyers said.

According to The Trust Project criteria

Learn more