EPISODE i SCRIPT

I selected this case to be my first for two main reasons. First, it is one of the most vile stories of the abduction, rape, and murder of innocent children. These crimes that were committed against young girls are a true representation of human depravity and an absence of empathy on the part of the perpetrators. Secondly, the impact it had on the criminal justice system and on the people of Belgium was profound, which is still felt to this day. These crimes were revolutionary in how they reformed policing and transformed the judicial system in Belgium. They brought together a divided country of citizens and united them in their outrage against the disgusting and heartless individuals who were behind these crimes of violence against children. These events led society to wage a war against a corrupt system which had failed to protect their most innocent. Their voices of protest, especially those of the victims and their families, helped to perpetuate real change. This is the story of Belgium’s Dungeon Duo, Serial Killers, Marc Dutroux, and Michele Martin.
Belgium is a very tiny country, about the size of the state of Maryland having as of 2016 an estimated population of 11.6 million citizens. It borders France and the Netherlands at the North Sea, Luxembourg, and Germany to the East, and shares its maritime borders with the U.K. The country is divided into three main regions. The Flanders, who speak Dutch reside in the North. The French-based Wallonia lives in the South, and the third live in Brussels, which is bilingual and is also the largest city and capital of Belgium. There is also a small area in the East where German-speaking citizens live. The long-term tension between the Flanders and the Wallonia has led to their formal recognition and granted autonomy under the Belgian constitution in recent years. Belgium is a federal parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy which in layman's terms equates to their having a King who is the Head of State who appoints different ministers, including the Prime Minister, with the approval of the Parliament. It is a beautiful country world-renowned for its decadent Belgian chocolate, beer such as my personal favorite, Stella Artois, and its golden fluffy waffles. With over 3,000 castles, it also holds the record for the largest number of castles per km than any other country in the world. It is also considered the capital of Europe with NATO and the European Union both calling it home. However, amongst this picturesque setting of castles pulled straight out of fairy tales, homes reminiscent of colorful Gingerbread houses, surreal canals, and cobblestone streets, laid layers of darkness. 

Belgium in the 1980s and 1990s was amassed in an atmosphere of chaos and ideological division, riddled with racism and violence, and on the brink of anarchy. In 1980, there were several vicious attacks on the Jewish community in Belgium. There was one particular incident where a Syrian-born terrorist launched a grenade into a group of 40 Jewish school children who were waiting outside with their parents for their bus to summer camp to arrive. A 15-year-old boy was killed, and 20 others were injured in this assault. There was also rising violence amongst the irate IRA with ambushes made upon the British government and targeted assaults on its soldiers. Between 1982 and 1985, there were 18 assaults committed by three men who were later known as the “Giant”, the ‘Killer” and the “Old Man” which predominantly took place in grocery markets in the Belgian Brabant. These crimes would culminate in the deaths of 28 individuals, and physical harm brought to an additional 40. It was believed by many that these attacks were perpetrated by the extreme right with the goal of bringing further instability to an already broken Belgian society. On the flip side were the Communist Combatant Cells, which was a Terrorist Organization fueled by Marxist-Leninist ideology. This group committed 28 bombings and other assaults on anyone they deemed to be anti-Communist, including NATO, American businesses, and the Federation of Belgian Enterprises. Although none of these events may be directly related to the crimes of Marc Dutroux and Michele Martin, it is important to paint a picture of the splintered culture, and the dangerous social landscape of their time.

The sequence of events of these criminal atrocities began on June 24th, 1995 when eight-year-old friends Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo from Grace-Hollogne disappeared while on a walk. The gendarmerie, which was a quasi-military force that operated under the federal home affairs minister, was initially given the case but very little headway was made. This was deemed unacceptable to the parents of these little girls who did everything within their power, including making personal and financial sacrifices, to find their children. Now within only two months' time, in late August of 1995, two girls in their late teens, An and Eefje, would disappear. On holiday in Flanders with their parents, the girls attended a hypnosis show by themselves one night and never returned. There was no evidence as to where they had gone. They had merely disappeared. Then on May 28th, 1996, in Tournai, in the early morning hours, 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne was on her bike traveling to school when she suddenly vanished without any sign of where the little girl had gone. Sadly, not unlike the others, the case for this little girl also went nowhere, becoming cold by August of that same year. A few weeks later on August 9th, 1996, Laetitia Delhez was walking back from a public pool in Bertrix in the province of Luxembourg when she went missing. This time an eyewitness saw Laetitia snatched up by a man in a run-down-looking white van. They promptly jotted down a partial registration number and contacted the police which led them to the owner of the van, Marc Dutroux. At last, the tides of this case would finally turn.

Marc Dutroux was a man who had recently been released from prison for good behavior after serving only three of his 13-year sentence for five counts of kidnapping and the rape of minor girls. Yes, that is accurate information. A man who was convicted on five counts of the abduction and sexual assault of a minor was freed by Melchior Wathelet, who was the appointed Justice Minister at the time. Wathelet neglected the concerns and protests of the prosecution, and the psychiatrists, and worse of all, he essentially ignored what this man had done to innocent young children of his own community. It is very telling how his actions had the opposite effect of harming his career, and that of his family's future prospects. Wathelet would later become an advocate-general at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. His son, Melchoir Jr., would later become a local politician in Verviers, and the secretary of state for budget, asylum, and migration.

Now Dutroux had already been a potential suspect when Julie and Melissa had initially gone missing, but the police did not search his house for five months after the fact. When they did finally enter the home, officers believed what they heard to be cries of someone inside, but elected to not investigate them further. They opted instead to believe that the sounds must be coming from outside the residence. The police officer at the site, René Michaux, discovered a speculum on the floor. For those of you who may not be familiar with this term, it is a medical tool that is designed to fit inside and closely investigate the body’s orifices, such as a medical device that would be used during a female exam. This tool was lying on the ground, and the officer simply picked it up and handed it back over to Dutroux’s wife, Michele Martin. The police officers also confiscated videos which were later discovered to have never been watched and if they had been, the investigators would have clearly seen Dutroux building the dungeon in which he would later enslave the girls. 

On August 13th, 1996, four days after law enforcement was contacted regarding the suspicious white van seen near the last known site of Laetitia’s whereabouts, officers raided the seven houses Dutroux owned. Shockingly, they failed to unearth any evidence even with the use of police sniffer canines. Mind you, Dutroux was an unemployed electrician who was known to have been involved in stealing cars, petty theft, violent muggings, and drug dealings. So how is it possible, you may be wondering, that a known convicted criminal purchased seven properties and that in itself was not something to be looked into a bit closer? I find this fact very troubling, suspicious, and bizarre in itself. The police on the same day of the raid arrested Dutroux, his wife Michelle Martin, and Michel Lelièvre, a junkie and small-time thief, who was known to be fully dependent upon Dutroux for his own personal lifestyle.

The initial interrogation of Dutroux was done by Michel Dumoulin, a gendarme officer who in his own words, took his time building up a relationship of trust with the suspect. Something worked in this approach because two days later Dutroux confessed to holding Laetitia captive. Much to the surprise of the investigating officer Dutroux said to him "I’m going to give you two girls." From there, he led police back to his home in Marcinelle, an old mining town, where inside lay a dungeon he crafted together on his own. Dutroux would later proudly describe how he utilized his electrician skills to make a practically invisible cellar. Within an old water cistern hidden behind a shelving unit, which was only one meter wide, 1.6 meters tall, and just over 2 meters long, were Sabine and Laetitia, terrified and filthy, but alive. Little did the police, and the people of Belgium realize, that this was the beginning of a real-life horror story for six young girls.

Tragically, two days later, Julie and Melissa’s bodies would be discovered buried at one of Dutroux and Martin’s houses in Sars-la Buissière. It was revealed later that the two young girls had died of starvation within the grimy dark and damp underground cell. Dutroux at the time had been locked up on unrelated charges, and he had believed that his wife Michele was taking care of the girls in his absence, but she did not. Michele visited the home daily where they were imprisoned. She tended to their dog while she was there, but claimed that she was too afraid to face the girls. Instead, she allowed Julie and Melissa to suffer and die of hunger and thirst. When Dutroux was released, he found them starved to death inside the cell. He froze their small bodies inside bin bags before burying them out in the yard. Forensic pathology would later reveal that both girls had been raped multiple times, but the DNA was never tested to match to prove whether it was Dutroux, or if there were other suspects. It would be seventeen days later on their property in Jumet near Charleroi where the bodies of teenagers An and Eefje were located. Allegedly after sharing a bedroom with Julie and Melissa for a month, Dutroux decided to get rid of them. With the help of his accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, they buried the two teenagers alive. The police found buried within this same area his accomplice, Bernard Weinstein, who had been a suspect in a vehicle theft. It was believed that the police could have connected Dutroux to the crime so he allegedly murdered him to avoid police interest. Ironically, this is the same crime for which they would incapacitate Dutroux for four months for leaving Julie and Melissa to face their fate at the neglectful hands of his wife Michele Martin.


Dutroux claimed he was a component of a child sex trafficking ring that involved high-ranking officials of the government. Dutroux specifically alleged that an individual named Jean Michel Nihoul was his inside link to the child sex trafficking ring. Nihoul, a Brussels businessman, and owner of a local pub was a well-known presence at these sex parties. He self-described himself in an interview as “The Monster of Belgium”, and claimed to have information on such important and powerful individuals who were involved that if revealed, he could bring down the government.  

However, there was little investigation conducted into the allegations of a child sex trafficking network. Potential leads of such an operation were largely ignored, and very likely concealed. Michel Lelièvre, Dutroux’s accomplice, also corroborated his story about this child sex trafficking ring. Lelievre claimed that he and Dutroux had abducted Julie and Melissa at the specific request of someone else. While in prison, Lelièvre had taken notice of how Dutroux and Jean Michel Nihoul would often collaborate in the yard, which he informed the police about. Judge Connorette, who was investigating these allegations believed that Nihoul was the brain so to speak behind the illegal child sex trafficking operation. Unfortunately, as some pieces began to unfold, Lelièvre became frightened alleging that he had been threatened to stop. Judge Connorette, who had been hailed as a hero by the community for finding the girls and arresting Dutroux, reached out in an appeal to the victims of this exploitation to please come forward with what they had experienced. Regina Louf was the first of ten victims to bravely share their story. 

In 1996, Regina Louf revealed to investigators that when she was 12 years old, her parents began to hand her off to a family friend, Tony Van den Bogaert. Bogaert was given a key to their home. He would pick her up after school on Fridays, and take her to sex parties over the weekend where men raped, abused, and filmed having sex with her. Louf explained to the police that it was a highly organized business with powerful, wealthy clients, such as a particular judge, one of the most prominent politicians, and a wealthy known banker in Belgium at the time. She offered the police names, specific details of the homes, apartments, and districts where she and other children were taken for illegal and illicit entertainment for the country’s elite. Louf alleged that she and other underaged kids were forced to be involved in acts of sadism, torture, and even murder to which she offered names and details regarding the victims and the ways in which they were killed. She also spoke of one particularly sadistic individual who was a frequent organizer of these gatherings…one Jean Michel Nihoul, and a young drug dealer named Dutroux. Regina told of how Dutroux would bring girls and drugs to these parties, but who for the most part, she explained, sat to the side keeping to himself. 

Once police began to investigate her story, Judge Connerotte, the only person in the justice system who had proactively made any real progress in the case, was consequently fired for attending a fundraiser for one of the victims’ families. He was thus accused of a conflict of interest and released from his position. The citizens of Belgium were enraged over Connerotte having been let go. In response, Belgians revolted towards the system which had failed to protect their children from these monsters. Over three days, sit-ins, strikes, and riots would ensue all over the country. These protests would culminate in more than a quarter of a million people uniting together in protest at the Palace of Justice in Brussels. The parents of the murdered girls, those of missing children, and victims of predators came together to fight and unite a once-divided Belgian community in what would later be known as The White March. In an invitation to all of Belgium, the parents of Dutroux’s victims wrote "White will be our colour, the symbol of our damaged t Sunday in silent protest. It was a massive sea of people holding white flowers and white balloons dressed in white clothing to remember the innocent lives lost. The voices of the parents of the missing and murdered children were the only speeches heard that day. The sheer magnitude and visually emotive power of this event can only be understood and felt through the images captured that day. I encourage you to look at the links I have provided.

Soon after it was discovered that one of the murders, its method, and the location of the incident, which had been described in painstakingly accurate detail by Regina Louf, was found to be linked to a cold case. The police had found evidence of the legitimacy of Louf’s accusations. This could have the potential to open up Pandora’s box on the reality of a child sex trafficking ring in Belgium existing. A 15-year-old girl, Christine Van Hee, had been forced into a position of tortuous bondage with her legs, hands, and throat all connected to the same rope, which had led to her strangulation. Christine Van Hees's body was found on a mushroom farm on the outskirts of Brussels where the specifics of Louf’s account matched detail to detail the method of her death and the environment in which it happened. Then out of nowhere, the special investigation team on this case were released with the unproven allegations that they had somehow manipulated the evidence that was given to them by Regina Louf to fit the crime. Twelve years had gone by after this young girl’s death with this case remaining unsolved per the orders of Judge Van Espen. Van Espen had replaced the endeared Connorette that is until a journalist unearthed the close connection between Judge Van Espen, Jean Michael Nihoul, and his wife at the time. In fact, the Judge’s sister was the actual godmother of Nihoul's child. He eventually would resign as the Judge in charge of this particular investigation once this truth had been exposed. 

Then there was the campaign brought about by the conveniently government-owned TV station RTBF who had the sole goal of discrediting Louf, and programming the citizens of Belgium into believing that Dutroux was a lone monster who had orchestrated and executed these crimes by himself. They asserted that Nihoul was innocent and that the conspiracy of a child sex trafficking ring which Regina Louf had alleged she had been forced to be a part of was nothing but lies. What was never exposed by the media however is that Louf’s parents had confessed to giving a key to their home, and loaning their underaged daughter out to their old family friend, Tony Van den Bogaert, whenever he pleased. Bogaert himself also admitted this to be true. Yet the press nor the police ever pursued this twisted pedophile nor her parents to face any form of justice. 

There were also blatant attacks on Regina Louf’s character, which portrayed her in an incredibly unsympathetic light cast as this dreadful gothic character who told tall tales for attention. Due to this character assassination, Judges would declare her to be an unreliable witness. Therefore, she will never be eligible to be called upon for her testimony in any Dutroux case, or any case related to his accomplices, or his associates. In fact, her allegations, and the other nine victims who had bravely come forward to the police with their own similar traumatic experiences, have all been deemed meritless in a court of law.


Dutroux himself has never denied keeping Melissa and Julie at his home, but he did fervently and consistently deny that he kidnapped, raped, or murdered either one of them. His story is that he attempted in vain to save Melissa and Julie from a greater evil than himself which he referred to as the “The Evil Chief”. The Russos, the parents of Melissa, do not believe the story that the prosecution and the police have offered them. They have communicated to the press how they have strong doubts that their daughter was even held in the dungeon during the four months Dutroux was incarcerated. Apparently, there had been numerous reports over that period of time that eight-year-old Melissa had been seen in town and was even spotted at a nightclub in Charleroi, but none of these sightings were ever looked into by the police.

The Russos were even denied seeing their daughter’s body after it was unburied and were told that Dutroux himself had already identified her. Since when does a perpetrator, the suspected murderer in a case, have the rights to identify their victim’s body? This does not only violate what I expect to be a forensic chain of command and legal protocol but is an absolute slap in the face to a victim and their loved ones. 

In addition, there were also several unidentified hairs found in the cellar which the new Judge Langlois refused to have tested. The Prosecutor General of Liege, Anne Thily, justified this by declaring that since there was no one else present in the dungeon, and that the child sex trafficking network conspiracy was all lies there was no reason to test the hair for DNA. Then the Prosecutor General backtracked on her statement and claimed that all of the hairs and DNA on the bodies of the girls pertaining to their rapes had been analyzed, but their remains were far too decomposed and thus were found to be inconclusive. However, the autopsy reports stated the opposite, and yet the results of the analysis have never been found. 

Two years would pass while all three suspects remained in jail. Dutroux would somehow grab a police officer’s weapon, escape from the courthouse, and hijack a citizen’s car. Within three hours, he would be caught in a muddy field and dragged back to his cell to be faced with further charges of attempted escape. However, in light of the incident, the police chief, justice minister, and the Interior Minister at the time all handed in their resignations. Eight years more would pass before a trial would even begin. Investigators would attempt to explain away the extended delays of the trial by blaming it on their time and resources having been tied up with the pursuance of the child sex trafficking ring. The ring which Dutroux had insisted he was but a small cog in a large powerful wheel.

On March 1st, 2004, Marc Dutroux, Michelle Martin, Michel Lelièvre, and Michel Nihoul would finally go to trial although Nihoul would only be faced with charges of drug conspiracy. Sabine, one of the two girls rescued from a certain demise in the dungeon, testified against Marc Dutroux in court. She painfully recalled her 80 days in hell. She told how on her way to school she was abducted off of her bike, drugged, stripped, and fitted with a chain collar at twelve years old. When Sabine inquired as to why Dutroux had never killed her, he declared that he never had any intention of harming her, and that he had done what he did to save her from an “Evil Chief”. A little more than three months later, the jury found Dutroux guilty on six charges of kidnapping, four counts of murder, and three additional counts of rape for the girls he admittedly had abducted, assaulted, and filmed having sex with during trips in Slovakia. Although there are citizens of Belgium who had stressed how the country should bring back the death penalty for offenders like Marc Dutroux, he was given life in prison. In Belgium, this is equivalent to a mandatory sentence of 30 years with the option at the discretion of the government to detain a prisoner for an additional ten. This sentence was retrofitted to apply to the date of his first arrest back in 1996, which means he could be released by 2036. 

His wife Michele Martin was given a sentence of thirty years, but in August 2012, only 16 years into her sentence, she was granted parole. Martin was allowed to move to a nunnery of the Poor Clare sisters of Malone, in Namur. This decision infuriated the people of Belgium, and again they took to the streets in protest in the thousands demanding justice and judicial reform. Some even held coffins with Michele Martins’ name written on them which were thrown to the ground and set ablaze. Martin lived and worked at the monastery with no communication between her and the outside world for three years. When the convent decided to relocate, she was offered the option of living on the property of a former Judge who wanted to support her reintegration into society. As of August 26th, 2022, the woman who admitted to allowing two little girls to starve to death in the same property she visited every day to take care of her dog, was officially free to live her life. Michel Lelièvre was given a sentence of 25 years for kidnapping but was found not guilty on charges of rape or murder. He has since also been released from prison after having served 23 years. Nihoul only faced five years in prison for drug conspiracy which he served and then later died in 2019. 

This case catapulted massive change in the judicial system and policing in Belgium. During the time of the investigation of Dutroux and Martin, the police were separated into two main segments of law enforcement. There was the judicial police that operated under the federal justice minister, and the other was the gendarmerie, a quasi-military force under the control of the federal home affairs minister. Now these two main forces were like water and vinegar working with one another. Similar to how the more elite law enforcement in this country can have a tendency to function at times, the gendarmerie was essentially doing its own thing, gathering its own intel and evidence. They were not sharing it with the judicial police in what could only be perceived as an ego-driven approach to solve the case on their own.

They even had their own set of informants, one who had described in great detail the dungeon Dutroux had built. Yet they did not share this pertinent information with the judicial police. Members of this force then blindly walked into Dutroux’s cellar not being privy to this suspicious information, and as a direct result, did not pursue any further what they thought they heard had been cries. As a result of this case,  and their fractured policing forces, the federal parliament of Belgium created a special investigative committee. Composed of members from all parties, they investigated the actions of the gendarmerie and the judicial police. Everyone involved concurred that real reform was necessary and that there would now be only one police service. This was divided into local and federal branches, where the police officers could work from one branch to the other with shared access to information. Given how Justice Minister Wathelet had single-handedly opted to grant early release to the convicted child kidnapper and rapist Dutroux, such discretion was ripped away from this position. A special tribunal, The Court for the Enforcement of Sentences, was established for this purpose. As a result of this case, Child Focus was also founded, which was Belgium’s first foundation for missing and sexually exploited children.

On a cultural and social scale, this case profoundly affected the people of Belgium. In a sign of true unity, the community set aside the differences in their cultures, and tension amongst their political ideologies to stand up against a system that had given a monstrous individual early release which directly led to the events that culminated in four girls’ deaths. As many as 300,000 Belgians took to the streets in the White March to remember the innocent lives taken, and to call out the wrongs committed by the institutions and the individuals in power who allowed it to happen. The horrors revealed and injustices uncovered throughout this case mortified the nation, and there are Belgian citizens that place these events below WWII as the most catastrophic incident in Belgium's history. Between 1996 and 1998 to create separation from the now tainted name, more than a third of individuals in Belgium with the surname Dutroux had them legally changed. 

In 2013, Dutroux was eligible for parole with the conditions of an electronic bracelet, but he was ultimately deemed by psychologists to be a psychopath who was not capable of reintegration into society. In 2018, Dutroux further repulsed and angered the victims’ parents by having his lawyer reach out to the six families of his victims in a written letter with an offer to provide them with answers to their questions. Many of the victims’ loved ones perceived it as a crude attempt to manipulate and increase his chances at parole, which he was up again for in 2019. This was met with outrage and protest by the Belgian people who once again gathered and came together to reject this prospect in what was known as the Black March. Only a fraction of the number of people were present this time with about 400 Belgians marching vs more than a quarter million back in 1996 during The White March. Much to the relief of Belgian society as a whole, and especially for the victims’ families and friends, Dutroux was again deemed too much of a threat to society. It was noted that he had a very high likelihood of recidivism, or reoffending if given parole. The psychiatric evaluation specifically said that Dutroux is a psychopath who exhibits anti-social traits rooted in sadistic and perverted character, and who is void of empathy. Both psychiatrists claimed that he was far too antisocial, dangerous to be around, and he lacked any desire to meet social norms. This was used to posit that he was not capable of being part of a network of others where he was given orders and taking direction. Of course, this analysis was utilized to further create doubt around his allegations of being part of a child sex trafficking ring. 

For this reason alone, it is difficult to digest and blindly accept their evaluation as a legitimate guide of psychopathy. Not to mention how it gives rise to questions on who, and what forces were driving their prognosis. 

Written In her own memoir, one of the two survivors, Sabine recalls her days and nights inside the dungeon in which she described her heinous living conditions. She detailed how she was abducted off of her bicycle while riding to school, was roofied by force, and then smuggled into Dutroux’s house inside an iron box. When she awoke, Dutroux had tied her to a bed with a chain around her neck. When night fell, he would chain her foot to his own and repeatedly raped her. Sabine alleges that she never saw anyone else while she was at his home. Later, she would be imprisoned within the dungeon, a tiny space hidden behind a false wall within the cellar, with only a mattress inside. Every day, she was given a jug of h20 from which she could either bathe with, or drink from, to which she chose the latter for survival. She was provided with a bucket to use whenever she needed to use the restroom. Sabine shared how Dutroux declared her as his new wife, and he told her to stop her whining when he sexually assaulted her. 

Sabine also expressed some genuine guilt about Laetitia having been abducted. She had conveyed to Dutroux that she was lonely and wanted a girlfriend and a few days later, he brought Laetitia to her. Sabine conveyed that she was ashamed of herself that she believed him when he told her that her parents did not want her to return home, or that they did not have enough money to pay the “Evil Chief” who wanted to harm her. Dutroux also told her that he had proactively gone to the police so that she and Laetitia could be rescued. On the day she was found and released from the dungeon, she said goodbye to Dutroux and kissed him on the cheek telling him “Merci”.

It cannot be argued that Dutroux and his wife are both disturbed, twisted, and cruel individuals who deserve life imprisonment if not worse. To what extent does Dutroux fit within the criteria of psychopathy, I don’t think that is as clear as the psychiatrists attest to since their analysis could potentially be tainted by the conspiring forces surrounding this case. Dutroux himself has also expressed how he didn’t want to cause harm to the girls, and that he believed he was protecting them from a greater evil than himself, which is delusional at best, and quite narcissistic given the grotesque and abusive conditions he kept the girls captive. 

I would like to note that I am not a licensed therapist nor a psychiatrist, but my studies in Criminology and Criminal Justice, in addition to extensive research and in-depth analysis of these related issues, have provided me with a unique set of knowledge. From a criminological point of view, perpetrators of sex crimes often behold Cognitive Schemas to support their behavior. Cognitive schemas are when an individual creates set patterns of thought processes which are rooted in previous life experience which are then applied to interpret new information. For example, Dutroux’s behavior appears to fit within cognitive distortions. This is when someone has an automatic thought process that assists in minimizing the severity of their actions. Child molesters may apply this way of thinking to justify their crimes committed against children by deluding themselves into believing they are educators to their victims. Rapists, on the other hand, distort their thought processes to believe that their victims secretly wish to be assaulted. What is distinct about Marc Dutroux’s crimes against women is that he falls into both of these categories of sex offenders which is pretty rare, but there have been evidence of such perpetrators who rape both children and adults. 

Now if one is to believe in the presence of the child sex trafficking network which was ultimately dictating and driving the actions behind Dutroux and Martin’s crimes, then there is a high likelihood that they were both motivated by economic gain and potentially political power over other driving factors such as sexual motivation or control. Given that they owned seven properties, which is very unlikely to have been purchased off of the earnings of an unemployed electrician, who was a known convicted criminal and petty thief, and his primary school-teacher wife, this theory of motivation holds more ground. 

Granted, I am merely speculating based on what the research and investigative journalism has shown. Nevertheless, no matter what degree of power and influence laid behind the criminal network that may have funded and perpetrated these hideous atrocities committed against these girls, they do not negate or minimize the roles Marc Dutroux and Michele Martin played. However, it is critical to point out, and impossible to ignore that since 1995, there have been twenty individuals, who were potential witnesses in connection to Dutroux who have faced unexplainable and unsolved deaths.

I will leave this question for you to ponder upon as only you, the listener, should decide for yourself based on what you have heard today, who are the real Monsters of Belgium? Were Dutroux and Martin just a depraved and sick couple who committed these evil deeds of their own accord, or was there a much larger criminal organization behind their behavior aka Belgium’s Evil Elite? 

I would like to extend a special thank you for the in-depth investigative journalism done by Olenka Frenkiel which provided me with a lot of the important details of the case. Also thank you to the brusseltimes.com, euronews.com, The Guardian online, and Spiegel international.

 I appreciate each and everyone of you for being here with me, and I am beyond thrilled to be your host. 

Until next time, be safe, and watch out for shades of murder that could be happening in the streets, next door, and especially inside your own home. 

AlitaDogma’s Shades of Murder was created, written, researched, and edited by AlitaDogma. 

Music composed by Danielyan Ashot courtesy of Pixabay.