Belgian Nursery Suspect Linked To Previous Murder

Du Four said families of the victims had been informed of the suspected link.

The man charged with murdering two infants and a woman in a frenzied knife attack at a Belgian child care centre is suspected of killing a 73-year-old woman a week before, prosecutors said on Monday.

"There are very clear indications that there are links between the events of Dendermonde and the murder of an older woman ... on January 16," Prosecutor Christian Du Four told a news conference.

Prosecutors have charged Kim De Gelder, a 20-year-old unemployed Belgian, with murdering six- and nine-month old babies and a 54-year-old woman, and wounding 12 others, 10 of them children, in last Friday's apparently motiveless attack.

A prosecution official said evidence implicating him in the older woman's killing had been passed to the investigating judge who would decide whether to to charge him with another murder.

Du Four said families of the victims had been informed of the suspected link.

"They were horrified by the news ... But for the relatives of the victim (the woman) there was an element of relief as they finally knew there was a suspect for this gruesome act," he said.

Belgian public broadcaster VRT said the pensioner had also been stabbed to death in her home in Vrasene, 27 km (17 miles) from the day care centre, and that DNA evidence found there linked the two crimes.

The attack at the Fabeltjesland -- Fairytale Land -- creche in the town of Dendermonde, 30 km (19 miles) west of Brussels, has shocked the country.

The assailant arrived at the creche mid-morning on Friday saying he wanted to ask a question, but then ran inside and started slashing at victims with a knife, first in a room of babies, then one with toddlers.

He cycled away and was arrested at a shop later that morning with a rucksack containing a knife, an axe and a fake pistol and was wearing a bullet-proof vest.

He also had a piece of paper with addresses for two other nearby day care centres.

Belgian media reported that De Gelder had finally started speaking to investigators after two days of silence. He is set to appear in court on Tuesday.

Some 8,000 mourners marched silently through the town on Sunday afternoon. A silent gathering outside the creche was planned for Monday evening.