Initially, they denied involvement, but eventually Lelièvre confessed and also accused Dutroux. Dutroux promised investigators that he would “give them two girls”. On 15 August, he directed the investigators to his home in Marcinelle (Hainaut), where not only fourteen-year-old Laetitia Delhez, who had disappeared on 9 August in Bertrix in the province of Luxembourg, was found, but also Sabine Dardenne, then twelve years old, who had gone missing on 28 May in Kain in the province of Hainaut.
Lelièvre later also confessed to the abductions of the Flemish girls An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks, aged seventeen and nineteen respectively, who disappeared on 22 August 1995 along the Belgian coast. Dutroux then admitted to kidnapping the eight-year-old girls Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo, who had disappeared on 24 June 1995 in Grâce-Hollogne in the province of Liège. He explained that they had been held in his house in Marcinelle for over eight months before dying of hunger, while he was in prison from December 1995 to March 1996. Meanwhile, Michel Nihoul, a Brussels businessman known for fraud and drug trafficking, was also arrested.
On 17 August, the bodies of Julie and Mélissa were discovered in the garden of Dutroux’s house in Sars-la-Buissière, also in Hainaut, along with the body of Bernard Weinstein, who was involved with Dutroux in a car scam. On 3 September, the bodies of An and Eefje were found on Weinstein’s property in Jumet, Hainaut.
The case attracted national and international attention and exposed serious deficiencies in the functioning of the judiciary and police services. Dutroux had previously been convicted of sexual violence and was on probation at the time of the crimes. Additionally, various warnings and indications had been overlooked or insufficiently investigated by the investigators.
The initial translation of this content was generated by AI. All facts, context, and language have subsequently been verified and validated by a human editorial team.
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