DEN BOSCH - Leon Marcé was murdered in the same cafe where he previously shot Puk Verspeek to death. One seems to be the inevitable consequence of the other. Afraid of no one. Fearless in the boxing ring and outside. But also reckless and unpredictable, especially if he had used "substances.

That was how Bosschenaar Leon Marcé was already known when he murdered his fellow townsman Hans Verspeek in January '99. Marcé, now 31, was shot to death Saturday night in café 't Huukske in his hometown Den Bosch. Cynically enough, the same café in which he himself shot Verspeek dead.

Riddles

Marcé's violent death comes as no surprise. It is the almost inevitable capstone to that earlier murder in 't Huukske. The murder of Verspreek, always called Puk because of his short stature and recently in the news as the suspected perpetrator of the quadruple murder in Hilvarenbeek of which the Taminau brothers were also the victims, has always been surrounded by riddles. This applies to both the circumstances and the background.

Silence

What exactly happened and why? Like last Saturday night, the cafe was "nicely packed" at the time. Afterwards, no one had seen anything of the struggle in which Verspeek was killed by three bullets in his back. The police encountered a wall of silence. The investigation eventually turned up three suspects, apart from Marcé two other Bosschenaren of then 26 and 27. And all three were also initially sentenced, Marcé to seven years and the other two suspects to six.

A big question remained, however, whether Verspeek, who allegedly entered the café in search of his girlfriend, became involved in a brawl more or less by accident, or whether he was framed.

Co-defendant

Marcé did not initially contradict that, at the time he had stripped Verspreek of his weapon, "someone" had shouted "shoot him. He later denied that contention. But the basis for the feud with the then 27-year-old co-defendant was thus laid.

While the latter, like the second co-defendant, was acquitted on appeal of involvement in the murder, he would never forgive Marcé's "false accusation.

The men lived at war with each other ever since, but miraculously did not avoid each other. After Marcé's release, several serious incidents followed, culminating in a shootout in which Marcé received several bullets in his legs.
The former co-defendant in the Verspeek case received four years for that and had to pay Marcé 2,700 euros in damages.

Even then it was certain that the feud did not end with that.