On a Friday evening in Bertix, Luxembourg, Laetitia Delhex, 14, was walking home after spending the day at a public pool.
Marc Dutroux and Michel Lelievre, who were stalking her, pounced and threw her into the van, before driving off to a house in Marcinelle, Charleroi.
At the same house, the kidnappers had already held 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne for 80 days. Laetitia was unfortunately introduced to the same treatment. She was drugged, stripped, and chained to a bed where she was continuously raped. What Dutroux did not count on was, someone would notice the van they had used to do the abduction.
Benoit Tinant who was near the swimming pool on 9 August 1996, said he saw the van. According to his account, he noticed it was old and dirty, but the license plates seemed to be oddly spotless.
This particular detail appeared strange, and he decided to memorize as much of the plate as he could. Tinant also noted what he remembered, and submitted the partial plate to the police.
Investigators ran it against their vehicle registration records, and it returned a list of possible owners. Marc Dutroux was on that search result. His name was already known because of a previous conviction in 1989 where he was found guilty of abducting, and raping five girls.
He had been paroled early, but was flagged in subsequent missing children investigations. These led nowhere because of a lack of evidence.
Police immediately decided to search his properties. On August 13, Dutroux, his wife Michelle Martin and Lelievre were arrested.
Police did not find anything out of the ordinary. But unknown to them, the house had a soundproofed concrete dungeon, which was carefully constructed to hide the presence of the children. Dutroux had placed the dungeon’s entrance behind a false bookcase.
For two days, Dutroux and Lelievre said nothing. Then on the 15th, they both made confessions. Dutroux led the police back to his house and walked them into the basement. There, he also revealed the concealed entrance and concrete door.
On the other side was a tiny room. It was too small for an adult to stand inside it. The room also had a television, a mattress, and a bucket. Sabine Dardenne, and Laetitia Delhez were both alive inside the room.
The two girls had gone through psychological torture, raped, and starvation. Dutroux even went to the extent of convincing Sabine that her parents had refused to pay the ransom demanded for her life. He emphasized that a gang wanted her dead, but he was the only thing standing between her and death.
Two days after the rescue, Dutroux led the police to his other house in Sars-La-Buisiere. They found the bodies of Melissa Russo, and Julie Lejeune buried in the garden. Next to them was the body of Bernard Weinstein, a previous accomplice of Dutroux.
The Making of the Monster
Marc Paul Alain Dutroux was born on November 6, 1956, in Ixelles, Brussels, to Jeanine Lauwena and Victor Dutroux. His mother and father were teachers, and they immigrated to the Belgian Congo for work when Marc was still a young boy. They then moved to the neighboring country of Burundi.
When Burundi gained independence in 1962, the family sensed the tide was more favorable in the homeland and moved back to Belgium.
Dutroux’s father was reportedly abusive to his mother, and they separated in 1971. Dutroux himself later reported that he was a victim of abuse from both his parents.
During his teen years, he became antisocial, withdrawn, and increasingly rebellious. By his mid-teens he had already left home, and by Dutroux’s account, he briefly worked as a male prostitute.
In 1976, when Dutroux was 19, he married a woman called Francoise Dubois. The couple had two children, and their marriage lasted seven years.
Dutroux admitted during his confession, that he beat Francoise throughout the marriage, and was cheated on her. Dubois kept custody of their children after the divorce.
By the time their marriage ended in 1983, Dutroux was already in another relationship with Michelle. He was also facing legal problems.
Later that year, Marc Dutroux was taken into custody on charges of raping a 50-year-old woman. The victim testified that during the assault, he had actually inserted a razor blade in her vagina.
The courts determined there insufficient evidence to to support her claims, so the case was dismissed. No court documentation explaining the evidence gap was made public.
Martin’s relationship with Michelle Martin was warped, as he involved her in the abductions. He also expressed to her how tedious it was to pick women up.
According to her testimony to police later on, “He told me kidnapping and raping them took less time than hitting on them. He said that would be to my advantage too. That way he had more time to spend on me. And, because he did it all for me, I had to help him with the kidnappings.”
The pair was also joined by Jean Van Peteghem. A friend of the family’s who had been crashing at their house after experiencing relationship problems. Dutroux soon recruited Van Peteghem to help him carry out his agenda.
Their first victim was Sylvie D. An 11-year-old girl walking home after swimming at a public pool, on June 7, 1985.
The men snatched her into a van, put tape over her mouth, and drove Sylvie to a garage in Roux. There, they raped her and took a photograph of her using a Polaroid before letting her go.
The gang began a series of kidnappings using the same modus operandi. They would kidnap a woman, tell her they want ransom money, drive her to Dutroux’s house, before raping, and letting her go. Apparently, the men would sometimes give their victims little gifts like chocolates and apples.
Conviction and Sentencing for the Initial Rape Crimes
In 1986, the three, including Michelle Martin, were arrested, and charged with the rape of five women, and girls. Police also found videos of the victims in compromising positions. Their ages ranged from 11 to 19.
In 1989, Dutroux was sentenced to 13 years in prison for rape and kidnapping. Van Peterghem was given 6.5 years, while Martin was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
While he was in prison, his mother Jeanine wrote to the prison director saying, “I have known for a long time and with good cause my eldest’s temperament. What I do not know, and what all the people who know him fear, it’s what he has in mind for the future.”
They should have taken this warning much more seriously. As it turned out, Dutroux was able to convince the prison health officials he was disabled so he could access monthly financial benefits when he was released.
He also manipulated a psychiatrist to prescribe him sleeping pills. These, he would later use to sedate future victims.
Dutroux was released on parole in 1992 after only serving three years in prison. This time, he was more prepared. He moved back in with Michelle Martin, who had served two of her six years, and was also released early. They got married in 1992, and would go on to have three children together.
On paper, Dutroux was a disabled and unemployed electrician who was dependent on state benefits. However, he actually owned properties in the Charleroi region. He also ran a stolen vehicle operation, and dealt drugs. One working theory, was he was building an infrastructure of criminal activity and networks.
He also began renovating the basement of his house to create the soundproofed dungeon where he would hold his victims.
The Victims
In July 1994, Eva Mackova,19 and her Sister Yanka, 17 came to stay at Dutroux’s house in Sars la Buissiere as holiday guests. He drugged, filmed, and raped them.
In June 1995, Dutroux kidnapped Henrieta Palusova, while she was holidaying in Topolcany when he grabbed the 20-year-old tourist. He filmed the assault. None of them immediately report these crimes, probably out of fear. So there was no investigation.
Later in June 1995, eight-year-olds, Julie Lejeune and Melisa Russo, vanished while playing in their neighborhood in Grace-Hollogne.
They had been abducted, and taken to Marcinelle. Both of the girls were locked in the dungeon; imprisoned and repeatedly raped. The tapes of what was done to them was added to a collection, that eventually numbered in the hundreds.
When the two went missing, posters with their faces went up across Belgium. Their parents launched a public campaign.
Despite the fact that according to parliamentary findings and informants Dutroux was mentioned in connection to missing child cases, police did not move on him.
Two months later, with Julie and Melissa still alive in the basement, Dutroux and Lelievre drove to Ostend. They snatched An Marchal, 17 and Eefje Lambrecks, 19 on their way home from a night out at a club. Lelievre was paid in drugs for his participation in this kidnapping.
Since the basement already had the two girls, there was no space, Dutroux chained An, and Eefje to a bed in a room on the ground floor of the home. This was done with the knowledge of his wife, Michelle Martin.
The two teens were then held for several weeks. Dutroux drugged both of the girls, then he and another accomplice, named Bernard Weinstein took them to another property in Jumet.
The girls were wrapped in plastic, and buried alive. An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks died by suffocation, underground at the rural property. Their remains were not found until September 1996.
In late 1995, Dutroux was caught with a stolen Porsche, connected to a larger auto theft network. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned for three months and twenty days. His release date was 20th March 1996.
Julie and Melissa were still alive in the dungeon by the time Dutroux was arrested. It is unclear, however, whether they died during his incarceration, or soon after his release.
Dutroux had instructed Michelle Martin to go to the house, and feed the girls while he was in prison. Martin claimed in her statement, that she chose not go. She locked the door above the basement, and left.
Police apparently searched the house twice during the same period. The first was on on the 13th of December 1995, and the second time was on 19th.
When they were conducting the second search, a locksmith the police came with said he heard what sounded like screaming coming inside the house.
He told the officers at the scene, but they dismissed him saying, he was hearing children playing outside. Chief Guard Rene Michaux who oversaw the search filed a report claiming no significant findings.
Videotapes were recovered though. They consisted of footage depicting Dutroux plans and construction of the hidden dungeon. Officers claimed at the time, they had no machine to play the videotapes, so they were not viewed. They did seize the tapes and put them in evidence storage.
Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo starved to death. Expert testimony at the trial determined that they could not have survived, even if Michelle Martin did what she was told.
When Dutroux came home from prison, he claimed he found the girls dying. He buried them in the garden of his house.
On May 1996, Sabine Dardenne was cycling from school. Dutroux and Lelievre pulled her off her bicycle, and stuffed her into their van. She was 12. Sabine then was taken to the Marcinelle property, stripped, and locked in the dungeon.
Dutroux raped her, and fed her only bred, water and biscuits. He even let her write desperate letters to her family seeking help. Dutroux kept all of them.
After holding Sabine captive for 80 days, it would all come to a head after the two men kidnapped Laetitia Delhex on August 9.
What the Investigation Found and Did Not Pursue
The question of whether Dutroux operated with protection from a larger network is highly plausible. Lelievre testified that Dutroux told him the girls were being procured for other important people, who had placed orders.
He had Eefje, and An killed because the people that had ordered for them were no longer interested, once they had viewed the girls.
At trial, Dutroux would specifically name Brussels businessman, Michel Nihoul, a nightclub owner. He allegedly had connections to the political and criminal underworld in Belgium.
When confronted by the media, Nihoul told the BBC that he would be summoned to court. He went on to claim the information he had concerning important people in Belgium was enough to bring the entire government down if it was leaked.
Nihoul was later acquitted of all child abduction charges in 2004, and died a free man in 2019.
Testimony files were compiled though from several witnesses who came forward after Judge Connerotte made a public appeal for information concerning the case.
These files contained systematic accounts of abuse which seemed to have occurred at elite gatherings. The witnesses were assigned code names to conceal their identities.
One of them who was later publicly identified as Regina Louf gave investigators a detailed account of being handed over by her parents to a family friend, called Tony Van den Bogaert, when she was 11 years old.
She was trafficked to private parties where politicians, judges and other business men were present. Regina also went on to describe crimes that were perpetrated at these events, including the murder of children. Nihoul was allegedly present at these gatherings.
Her testimony was ultimately excluded from the Dutroux trial, and she was not called a witness. According to the Belgian prosecutor office, her account could not be substantiated.
The Trial and Aftermath
Marc Dutroux was tried on March 1, 2004, seven years after his arrest. According to Judge Connerotte, this delay was also caused by forces outside the courts.
Dutroux had previously confessed to torturing Weinstein by crushing his testicles. He had decided to kill him because Weinstein was wanted in connection with a stolen van that could be traced back to their operation. He drugged, and buried him alive next to Melissa, and Julie.
Dutroux also confessed that he was just a small cog in a Europe-wide network of child trafficking involving politicians, police, and other members of Belgian nobility.
He claimed that he withheld Sabine and Laetitia from this network because he knew what would happen. They would be killed. Sabine who was now 20, heard this in court and asked him, “So if I understand you, I should be thankful?”
On June 17, 2004, Dutroux was found guilty and convicted of the six charges of kidnapping. He was also convicted of the three murders of Eefje Lambrecks, An Marchal and Bernard Weinstein.
Dutroux was sentenced to life in prison. His wife, Michelle Martin was sentenced to 30 years, while Michel Lelievre got 25 years.
Dutroux currently remains in Nivelles Prison. His applications for conditional release in 2013 and 2019 were both rejected. He was also recently busted with envelopes containing photographs of nude women and young girls, but the investigation is still ongoing.
Michelle Martin was released on parole in August 2012. She was discharged to a convent of the Poor Clares in Malonne. Michel Lelievre was released in 2019 after having served 23 years. Shortly, after his release, Lelievre was attacked in Anderlecht and hospitalized. He is currently living under supervision, and possibly under an assumed identity.