Marc Dutroux became known as “The Beast of Belgium” — and he certainly earned the infamous nickname.
In 2004, Dutroux, then 47, faced trial for a shocking series of child abductions, rapes and murders that terrorized a nation.
He didn’t act on his own. Dutroux had help from at least four people, including his wife, Michelle Martin. Michel Lelièvre, Michel Nihoul and Bernard Weinstein were also accomplices.
World’s Most Notorious Killers, a gripping five-part Peacock docuseries that’s now streaming, takes a deep dive into Dutroux’s unthinkable crimes.
“Little girls were just disappearing into thin air,” Matt Graves, host of the podcast Le Monstre, said in the new series’ third episode, titled “The Monster of Belgium.”
Here’s what to know about Dutroux, along with the roles of his accomplices and their fates.
Who is Marc Dutroux?
Born in 1956 in Belgium, Dutroux’s parents, who were both teachers, took out their mean streaks on him, according to the Peacock series.
After working as an electrician, Dutroux fell into a life of crime. “He got involved with buying and selling drugs and… human trafficking,” Graves said.
In 1989, Dutroux was convicted of abducting and raping five young girls. Sentenced to 13 years, he was paroled after serving just three.
Four years later, in August of 1996, Dutroux was arrested on suspicion of abducting, torturing and sexually abusing six other girls and teens. Four victims were killed.
Marc Dutroux’s victims
Dutroux built a secret dungeon in his home where he held victims as sex slaves. His known victims include friends Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, who were just 8 years old when they were taken captive in June of 1995.
The girls were later found buried in Dutroux’s garden. Expert examiners concluded that they had starved to death and had been “raped in the most horrific way,” said investigative journalist Douglas de Coninck.
In August of 1995, An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, were abducted while on holiday with other friends. The teens were tortured, murdered and buried on Dutroux’s property. The girls suffocated, said Graves, “after being buried alive.”
Sabine Dardenne was 12 when she was abducted in May of 1996. Laetitia Delhez was 14 when she was taken three months later. Both girls were imprisoned in Dutroux’s basement dungeon in one of his homes. They were rescued in August of 1996 when authorities raided the property.
What happened to Marc Dutroux?
Dutroux was apprehended in August 1996 after police got a tip about a suspicious van, which was old and dirty but had spotless license plates. Alarm bells went off when Dutroux came up as one of the van’s potential owners since he was already a suspect in the disappearances of some of the girls. The arrest followed a series of errors by investigators to connect the dots between evidence and Dutroux.
Among those errors, was that while Dutroux was jailed for a stolen car case, authorities had actually searched his home where Lejeune and Russo were being held captive. A detective went down to the basement with a locksmith and both of them thought they’d heard voices, sounds later believed to have been the girls. But under the detective’s orders, they never entered the dungeon at the time.
In 2004, Dutroux was convicted of multiple charges, including kidnapping, rape and murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The bungled police investigation into the missing girls raised red flags. People wondered if Dutroux was working for a powerful international child-trafficking ring. Graves said “the official door” was closed on that investigation, but questions remain.
Marc Dutroux’s accomplices
“We started to see that there was a network around Marc Dutroux,” investigative journalist Marie-Jeanne Vanheeswyk said on World’s Most Notorious Killers. When Dutroux was arrested in 1996, other individuals were as well.
Dutroux’s wife, Michelle Martin, assisted in the abduction and imprisonment of some of the victims. She was convicted for her role in the murders of Lejeune and Russo, who starved to death while Dutroux was in prison for more than three months for car theft. He had asked his wife to feed the girls while he was in prison, but she did not. Martin was sentenced to 30 years and was paroled in 2012 after serving 16 years.
Martin had claimed that she was “too scared of her husband” to help or give the girls food, according to Ronny Baudewyn, Dutroux’s lawyer in the 2004 trial. “Some people believe that, others do not,” Baudewyn added.
Michel Lelievre, “a lackey who would hang out with Dutroux,” according to Graves, helped in some of the abductions (including that of Marchal, Lambrecks, Dardenne, and Delhez) and took part in the sexual abuse of some of the victims. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for kidnapping, rape and murder. He was released in 2019 after serving 23 years.
Bernard Weinstein, a criminal from France living in Belgium, was an intermediary and facilitator in Dutroux’s network. He never was charged or tried. Dutroux had already tortured and killed Weinstein by burying him alive.
Michel Nihoul was a shady businessman who “represented the potential bridge to a wider network,” said Graves. “He barely scraped by without a conviction for involvement with the disappearance of Laetitia Delhez.”
Nihoul was acquitted of kidnapping and other charges, but sentenced to five years as an associate of Dutroux and for drug dealing. He served just one year of his sentence, and then died years later in 2019.
The shadow of Dutroux still haunts Belgium. It prompted significant reforms in Belgian law enforcement and child-protection systems.