A millionaire tire executive’s affair with his personal secretary turned deadly when she allegedly stabbed his wife to death.
Chris Delaney, 63, who has been the president of Goodyear’s Middle East, Africa, and Europe division since 2017, returned to his Brussels apartment in an upscale neighborhood on March 17 to find his 61-year-old wife, Carmel Delaney, deceased on the floor, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
As he did not speak French, Delaney – who made $5 million a year – called his alleged lover Greet Vandeput, 54, who alerted the local police.
Initially, Brussels police believed Carmel’s death resulted from a burglary – surveillance footage showed the victim arriving at her apartment around 8 pm, where she encountered a masked intruder.
According to police, the suspect threatened Carmel to enter her home, subsequently stabbing her three times inside the apartment, and then fled with three valuable watches worth tens of thousands of Euros, as the Brussels Times reported later.
Due to the theft, authorities said it appeared the burglary was targeted.
But two days after Camel’s upstate funeral on April 2, Belgian police arrested Vandeput – and discovered that the American executive and his assistant were having an affair.
Goodyear executive Chris Delaney’s wife, 61-year-old Carmel Delaney, was stabbed to death on March 17
Brussels police have since arrested Chris’ alleged lover Greet Vandeput, 54, for her murder
The breakthrough apparently came after one of Vanderput’s friends came forward with their suspicions that the assistant killed Carmel.
It remains unclear, though, what exactly Vanderput and her friend discussed or why her friend came to suspect her.
But the tip wound up paying off when police searched both the home she shares with her husband outside of the city and a nearby horse stable where she kept two horses.
There, police found the missing watches hiding behind a corrugated metal shed in a paddock.
Her motivation for allegedly killing Carmel remains unclear – though the Wall Street Journal notes that it came shortly after the assistant was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery.
She is now charged with murder and ‘port d’arme par destination’ – a legal term in Belgium referring to the use of an improvised weapon.
Chris was also questioned by police in connection with his wife’s murder, but has not been charged, sources familiar with the investigation told the Journal.
However, both he and Vandeput have been fired from the Ohio-based tire manufacturer, with sources telling the Journal he received no severance pay.
Chris has served as Goodyear’s Middle East, Africa and Europe president since 2017
He returned to the apartment he and his wife shared in an upscale neighborhood of Brussels (pictured) on March 17 to find his wife dead on the floor
A spokesperson for Goodyear now says it would cooperate with authorities if asked
His departure from the company was first announced in a one-paragraph regulatory filing on April 4 – the same day as Vandeput’s arrest.
The company simply said at the time that Chris was taking a leave of absence and was being replaced in his role by the company’s chief financial officer.
It did not mention anything about the events that led to his departure.
But a spokesperson for Goodyear now says it would cooperate with authorities if asked.
Chris had joined Goodyear in 2015 in Shanghai, where he helped to expand the tire business’ reach.
He was promoted two years later, at which point he and his wife moved to Brussels.
Vandeput, meanwhile, worked at Goodyear for more than a decade following earlier roles at AstraZeneca and Siemens.
Carmel ran a consultancy agency helping international students apply to US schools
Friends of the couple have described them as being extremely close, charismatic and generous.
They had met while working at Procter & Gamble, and moved around the world together over the years – from Poland to Saudi Arabia and China – while Carmel ran a consultancy agency helping international students apply to US schools.
‘I’ve cried every day since she died,’ Beryl Barlow, an expat from England who was a member of the Brussels Women’s Club with Carmel told the Journal.
‘She was incredibly persuasive. She was a diplomat,’ Barlow added. ‘She was a little gold nugget and now she’s gone.’
Longtime friend and former colleague James Lafferty said he did not judge Chris for having an affair – noting how the couple supported him through his own marital difficulties.
‘What I know is that they loved each other dearly and he did not want anything to happen to Carmel,’ Lafferty insisted.
The couple were recently pictured smiling onboard a train, with the caption on Carmel’s memorial page reading: ‘Carmel & Chris, the dream team xx.’
Chris has since returned to the United States, while Carmel’s friends in Brussels plan a memorial ceremony for June.
She is survived by her father, Jim Gallagher; her husband and their four children.
