Van Eyken grew up in a poor family in Bonheiden. His father was an alcoholic who one day abandoned his wife, Marie, and two children, Staf and Jenny. He joined the Foreign Legion, because he had a murder on his conscience, later committing suicide in Algeria. Staf's mother remarried and had another daughter, but her new husband was also an aggressive man with a drinking problem. She later received multiple sclerosis and ended up in a wheelchair. Because she could no longer care for her daughter, the child was placed with the neighbors, an elderly couple. But they all tragically died from inhaling fumes from their stove. Staf Van Eyken grew up as an unruly child who was often mistreated by his stepfather. In his own words, he was sexually abused by his aunt for four years. In August 1965, when Staf was 14 years old, he molested an 11-year-old girl and was sent to a rehabilitation center in Mol. He moved from one institution to another, performed his military service at 18, and then worked as a railroad worker in Muizen's marshalling yard.
"The Vampire of Muizen"
On October 13, 1971, Eyken murdered his first victim: 18-year-old Marie-Thérèse Rosseel, maid of a local textile baron. He raped and then strangled her, also biting her on several intimate places and stripping her naked, an act which later earned him the nickname "The Vampire of Muizen". The second woman who was raped and murdered by him was 47-year-old Ida Smeets, wife of lawyer and university professor Frans van Isacker. He had dragged her to an abandoned factory site and tried to rape her. This failed, so he strangled her, returned home to eat, and then went back to his victim to sexually abuse her. When it turned out that the woman was still alive, he strangled her again, this time killing her. This gruesome murder took place on the same day that his mother died. On March 19, 1972, Eyken murdered his third and final victim Lutgarde Van der Wilt, a 19-year-old student with whom he had danced in a youth club. She too was raped, strangled and, like the previous victims, bitten on the breasts. When her body was found, Eyken was cycling along the location and behaved rather strange. The investigators found this suspicious and stopped him on his way to his house. There they saw that he had a blood stain on his sleeve, and was immediately arrested. Eyken admitted to the murders and explicitly insisted that he be locked up. Fearing the dark side of himself, he would never ask for a conditional release later on. After Eyken's arrest, it was found that he had tried to assault and strangle a young woman, but she had survived without him realising. During the investigation it turned out that he had sexually abused a lot of other women and had tried to kill them. However, these sexual offenses had not ended up on his criminal record, because at the time they wanted to give minors a second chance.
Present
Eyken is currently serving his sentence in the prison of Leuven-Centraal. With more than 45 years behind bars, he is the longest-serving living detainee in Belgium. The current number two is Freddy Horion, who has been imprisoned for sixfold murder since 1979. In the beginning of 2016, Eyken unintentionally provoked a great deal of commotion when Federal Public Service JusticeKoen Geens, despite advice from prison management, gave him permission to leave the prison for one day to visit his sick friend, Jef Lannoo. This decision was controversial because, as a result of the tightening of the law in penitentiary leave days introduced by former Federal Public Service Justice Laurette Onkelinx in 2006, which did not allow parole. Eyken's lawyer Walter Damen, however, pointed out that in 2006 Eyken had already received more than 80 penitentiary leave days that always ran smoothly. Moreover, according to Damen, the new law still allows for the justice to grant an occasional nightlife permit.
Popular culture
In 2006 VRT journalist Louis Van Dievel, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Eyken, published "De Pruimelaarstraat", a fiction novel inspired by the life story of Eyken.
In 2009, the eponymous literary adaptation of the book in the Mechelen theater 't Arsenaal, directed by Michael De Cock, with Vic De Wachter, Gilda De Bal and Jaak Van Assche in the lead roles.
