Marc Dutroux - Third Arrest and Discovery of The Crimes

Third Arrest and Discovery of The Crimes

On 9 August 1996, the two men kidnapped 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez when she was walking home, from a public swimming pool. But an eyewitness identified part of a license plate which matched a vehicle registered to Dutroux. He, his wife and Lelièvre were all 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 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 wasn't one of the gang members she should fear. He let her write letters to her family, which he read but never posted.

On 17 August 1996, Dutroux led police to another of his houses in Sars-la-Buissière (Hainaut). The bodies of Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo as well as another accomplice Bernard 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, he 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 (Hainaut), buried under a shack next to a house owned by Dutroux. Weinstein had lived in that house for three years.

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.