Marc Dutroux
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Marc Dutroux From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Marc Dutroux Born (1956-11-06) 6 November 1956 (age 60) Ixelles, Belgium Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Spouse(s) Michelle Martin (1989–2003) Children 5 Killings Victims 5–13+ Span of killings 1995–1996 Country Belgium Date apprehended 13 August 1996 Menu 0:00 Marc Dutroux from Belgium pronunciation (Voice of America) Marc Dutroux (French: [dytʀu]; born 6 November 1956) is a Belgian serial killer and child molester, convicted of having kidnapped, tortured and sexually abused six girls from 1995 to 1996, ranging in age from 8 to 19, four of whom he murdered. His wife, Michelle Martin, was convicted as an accomplice. Dutroux was also convicted of having killed a suspected former accomplice, Bernard Weinstein. He was arrested in 1996 and has been in prison ever since, though he briefly escaped in April 1998. Earlier, in 1989, Dutroux and Martin had been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for the abduction and rape of five young girls, the youngest of whom was eleven years old. Dutroux was released after serving three years. Dutroux's widely publicised trial took place in 2004. A number of shortcomings in the Dutroux investigation caused widespread discontent in Belgium with the country's criminal justice system, and the ensuing scandal was one of the reasons for the reorganisation of Belgium's law enforcement agencies. Contents [hide] ● 1 Early life ● 2 Personal life ● 3 First arrest and release ● 4 Abductions after arrest ● 5 Second arrest ● 6 Third arrest and discovery of the crimes ● 7 Criticism of police investigations ● 8 Allegations of cover-up ● 9 Parliamentary investigation and escape from custody ● 10 Trial ○ 10.1 Sentencing ● 11 Legacy ● 12 Dutroux's houses ● 13 See also ● 14 References ● 15 External links Early life[edit] Born in Ixelles, Belgium, on 6 November 1956,[1] Dutroux was the oldest of five children. His parents, both teachers, emigrated to the Belgian Congo, but returned to Belgium at the start of the Congo Crisis when Dutroux was four. They separated in 1971 and Dutroux stayed with his mother. Personal life[edit] He married at the age of 19 and fathered two children; the marriage ended in divorce in 1983. By then he had already had an affair with Michelle Martin. They would eventually have three children together, and married in 1989 while both were in prison. They divorced in 2003, also while in prison. He has been described by psychiatrists who examined him for trial as a psychopath.[2] An often unemployed electrician, Dutroux had a long criminal history including convictions for car [3] theft, muggings and drug dealing. Dutroux's criminal career also involved the trade of stolen cars to Czechoslovakia and Hungary; all of these activities gained him enough money to live in relative comfort in Charleroi, a city in Hainaut province that had high unemployment at the [4] [5] time and has had for decades. He owned seven small houses, most of them vacant, and used three of them for the torture of the girls he kidnapped. In his residence in Marcinelle near Charleroi, he constructed a concealed dungeon in the basement. Hidden behind a massive concrete door disguised as a shelf, the cell was 2.15 m (7 ft) long, less than 1 m (3 ft) wide and 1.64 m (5 [citation needed] ft) high. First arrest and release[edit] In February 1986, Dutroux and Martin were arrested for abducting and raping five young girls. In April 1989, Dutroux was sentenced to thirteen and a half years in prison. Martin received a sentence of five years. Showing good behaviour in prison, Dutroux was released on parole in April 1992, having served only three years, by Justice Minister Melchior Wathelet. Upon his release the parole board received a letter from Dutroux's own mother to the prison director, in which she stressed concern that he was keeping young girls captive in his house – which was essentially ignored.[3] Following his release from prison, Dutroux convinced a psychiatrist that he was psychiatrically disabled, resulting in a government pension. He also received prescriptions of sleeping pills and sedatives, which he would later use on his victims.[6] Abductions after arrest[edit] Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo (both aged eight) were kidnapped together from Grâce-Hollogne on 24 June 1995, probably by [citation needed ] Dutroux, and imprisoned in Dutroux's cellar. Dutroux repeatedly sexually abused the girls and produced pornographic videos of the abuse. On 22 August 1995, Dutroux kidnapped 17-year-old An Marchal and 19-year-old Eefje Lambrecks who were on a camping trip in Ostend. He was probably assisted by his accomplice Michel Lelièvre, who was paid with drugs. Since the dungeon already contained Lejeune and Russo, Dutroux chained the girls to a bed in a room of his house. His wife was aware of all these activities. Second arrest[edit] In late 1995, Dutroux was arrested by police for involvement in a stolen luxury car racket. He was held in custody for three months between 6 December 1995 and 20 March 1996. Police searched Dutroux's house on 13 December 1995 and again six days later in relation to the car theft charge. During this time, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo were still alive in the basement dungeon, but in spite of their cries being heard, police failed to discover them. Michelle Martin allegedly fed her husband's German shepherd dogs but did not follow his orders to feed the girls, later claiming she was too afraid to go into [7] the dungeon. Lejeune and Russo starved to death, and were later buried in bin bags in the back garden.[8] Two months after his release, Dutroux, with help from Lelièvre, kidnapped 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne who was on her way to school on 28 May 1996. She was imprisoned by him, once again, in the dungeon where he had kept his previous victims. Third arrest and discovery of the crimes[edit] On 9 August 1996, Dutroux and Lelièvre kidnapped 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez as she was walking home from a public swimming pool. An eyewitness had earlier observed Dutroux's van, described it and identified part of the license [9] plate. Dutroux, his wife, and Lelièvre were all [10][11] arrested on 13 August 1996. An initial search of his houses proved inconclusive, but two days later, Dutroux and Lelièvre both made confessions. Dutroux led the police to the basement dungeon where Dardenne and Delhez [12] were found alive on 15 August 1996. In an interview conducted several years later, Dardenne revealed that Dutroux had told her that she had been kidnapped by a gang but her parents did not want to pay the ransom and the gang was planning to kill her. Dutroux said he saved her, and that he was not one of the gang members she should fear. He let her write letters to her family, which he read but never sent.[9] On 17 August 1996, Dutroux led police to another of his houses in Sars-la-Buissière in Hainaut province. The bodies of Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo as well as an accomplice, Bernard [10] Weinstein, were found in the garden. An autopsy found that the two girls had died from starvation. Dutroux said he had crushed Weinstein's testicles until he gave him money, then drugged him and buried him alive. Later Dutroux told the police where to find the bodies of An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks. They were located on 3 September 1996 in Jumet in Hainaut, buried under a shack next to a house owned by Dutroux. Weinstein had lived in that house for three years.[10] Hundreds of commercial adult pornographic videos, along with a large number of home-made sex films that Dutroux had made with his wife Michelle Martin, were recovered from his properties.[13] Criticism of police investigations[edit] Authorities were criticised for various aspects of the case. Several incidents suggest that despite several warnings, the authorities did not properly follow up on Dutroux's intentions. Dutroux had offered money to a police informant to provide him with girls and told him that he was constructing a cell in his basement. His mother also wrote a second letter to the police, claiming that he held girls captive in his houses. Dutroux was actually under police camera surveillance the night he kidnapped Marchal and Lambrecks; however, the police had only programmed the camera to operate during the daylight hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.[7] Perhaps most notably, the police search of Dutroux's house on 13 December 1995 and again six days later in relation to his car theft charge [10] came under harshest scrutiny. During this time, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo were still alive in the basement dungeon, but the police failed to discover them. Since the search was unrelated to kidnapping charges, police searching the house had no dogs or specialised equipment that might have discovered the girls' presence, and in an otherwise decrepit and dirty basement, they failed to recognize the significance of the freshly plastered and painted wall that concealed the dungeon. While in the basement, a locksmith who was accompanying the police said he heard children's cries coming from inside the house, but was overruled by the police, who concluded the cries must have come from the street outside.[10] This was especially remarkable since the country was at that time in the midst of a nationwide search for missing children. Several videotapes were also seized from the house that showed Dutroux constructing the secret entrance and the dungeon where the girls were then held.