The daughter-in-law of a Belgian baroness who was shot dead by her stepson on Wednesday accused her of stealing the family fortune and of ‘pursuing her fortune for herself’.
The body of Baroness Miriam Olins, 70, was found outside her luxury home in the south of Brussels earlier this week after being shot four times in the head.
Her stepson Nicholas Olins, a former Belgian spy, confessed to killing the Baroness and wounding his billionaire father in the leg when he fired a total of nine shots.
Baron Guy Ohlins de Schotten Whitnall, 88, was with his wife at the time, but he survived the attack in the village of Ohaine.
But Brigitte Ohlins, the sister of the confessed attacker, defended her brother, saying her stepmother had “ruined the family” and “wanted it all for herself”.
Baron Guy Ohlins de Schotten Whitnall (right) was with Baroness Miriam Ohlins (left) at the time of the attack on Wednesday
Nicholas Olins turned himself in to the police and confessed to the murder. He was charged with first degree murder and weapons offences
Talking to Nieuwsblad newspaperBrigitte said that although she confesses to killing her stepmother, her brother is “a very nice man”.
Her brother eventually snapped out, she said, when it emerged that the Baroness had plans to sell the family home.
It exploded on Wednesday. Our family has been destroyed for years. There was only one thing that mattered to Miriam: She wanted the family fortune for herself and we didn’t count it.
She even forbade my father to keep in touch with us. In recent years, my father’s mental state has deteriorated and I took advantage of this.
I just put the house up for sale. What would you do with the money? I don’t know, but I think she would have kept it to herself.
Nicholas Olins turned himself in to the police and confessed to the murder. He was charged with first degree murder and weapons offences.
He is expected to appear in court on Monday.
Prosecutors said Nicolas mishandled the shooting as part of his spy training for the Belgian secret service. They said he hit his stepmother’s Volkswagen Golf with his own car as she tried to pull out of the driveway at their home in Oahen.
Then he fired six bullets at the victim.
According to reports, the Baroness and her stepson have long been at odds over inheritance issues, and he has accused her of squandering his billionaire father’s money.
A representative of the Walloon Brabant judicial police said in a statement: ‘The suspect did not offer resistance and explained that he had killed his stepmother.
He was holding a captured pistol. He was deprived of his freedom.
The 57-year-old suspect was heard by an examining magistrate Thursday who placed him under arrest, charging him with murder and violating the Armed Weapons Act.
The couple opened the Ullens Center in 2007 – considered at the time China’s first contemporary art museum
Baroness Miriam Ohlins was shot dead by her stepson outside her home in the south of Brussels
Baron Guy Oulens de Schouten and Baroness Miriam Oulens de Schouten in Don Quixote
The Baron and Baroness — who opened the Ohlins Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing — married in 1999, and have been influential art collectors ever since.
They began their career by collecting scroll paintings of classical Chinese art, before turning their attention to contemporary art.
The couple opened the Ullens Center in 2007 – considered at the time China’s first contemporary art museum.
In 2004, Baroness Olins, moved by Mimi and a cancer survivor, founded the Mimi Foundation to create centers within hospitals to provide physical and mental therapy to patients undergoing cancer treatment.
In 2013 she co-curated an exhibition and benefit auction during Frieze Week in London in support of the Mimi Foundation.
If many of the artists in this project are Chinese, it is because of our long and close relationship with them. This is just the tip of the iceberg – that we continue to follow and gather intensely with the new generation,” said the Baroness Ocula on time.
“The group is like a living, breathing body. It develops in an organic way.
Baroness Ohlins was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1952.
Nicolas Oulens, a former Belgian state security officer, is one of the four children of the Baron by his first wife, Micheline Franck.
He spent his career in the Belgian Security Service in the Russian counterintelligence department.
‘He was very arrogant and would sometimes brag about his wealth,’ said one of his former colleagues. times.
“In state security, you have to be discreet and diplomatic, but he wasn’t. He was loud. He learned to shoot with us.”
