Ex-wife of notorious Belgian child killer Dutroux to be released

[News_Editor]

Ex-wife of notorious Belgian child killer Dutroux to be released

2011-05-11 21:52:28 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRUSSELS (BNO NEWS) -- The ex-wife of notorious child killer Marc Dutroux, Michele Martin, could soon be released after Belgian prosecutors said they will not appeal her conditional release.

The four brutal child murders by Dutroux between 1995 and 1996 shocked Europe and the world as a whole amid serious accusations of police incompetence during their investigations. His youngest victims were only 8 years old.

Martin was sentenced in 2004 to 30 years in prison but has been in custody since her initial arrest in 1996. She participated in Dutroux's crimes which included multiple kidnappings and sexual assaults on young girls long before the events that began in 1995.

Prosecutor Claude Michaux told the Le Soir newspaper on Tuesday that he disagreed with Monday's court ruling that Martin should be provisionally released, but Michaux said he would not appeal the decision. He added that she could be released within weeks, leading to renewed outrage in Belgium.

The crimes of Dutroux began in 1979 with a series of convictions for theft, violent muggings, drug-dealing, and trading in stolen cars. But his crimes did not become of a sexual nature until he met Martin.

Dutroux married his first wife at the age of 19 and had two sons with her. They separated in 1983 because of multiple affairs, including with Martin, but also because he allegedly beat her.

In 1986, Dutroux and Martin were arrested for the kidnappings and rape of five young girls. Three years later, Dutroux was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison while Martin received a 5 year sentence. However, citing good behavior, Dutroux was released on parole in 1992.

By the time of their release, Dutroux and Martin had married while in prison. But Dutroux's family feared the crimes would not stop and his mother wrote letters to the then-prison director to warn him. The letters went unanswered.

"What I do not know, and what all the people who know him fear, is what he has in mind for the future," Dutroux's mother Jeanine wrote to the prison director upon his release. Her worst fears would later become reality.

The trial of horror began on June 24, 1995, when 8-year-old Melissa Russo and 8-year-old Julie Lejeune were kidnapped in the municipality of Grâce-Hollogne. They were imprisoned in Dutroux's cellar where they were repeatedly raped and where Dutroux produced child pornography with them.

Months later, in late August, Dutroux went on to kidnap 19-year-old An Marchal and 17-year-old Eefje Lambrecks in Ostend where the girls were on a camping trip. As his previous two victims were still in his cellar, Dutroux decided to chain them to a bed in his house.

Several weeks later, Dutroux killed both Marchal and Lambrecks by drugging them and burying them alive at one of his properties in Jumet, which today is known as Charleroi.

But things took a different turn when Dutroux was arrested in November and jailed for three months for involvement in a stolen luxury car racket. With no help from Martin, both Russo and Lejeune were left to starve to death.

Several months after Dutroux's release, in June 1996, accomplice Michel Lelièvre and Dutroux kidnapped 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne while she was on her way to school. Dutroux convinced her that she was kidnapped by a gang and, as her parents supposedly failed to pay a ransom, he would keep her safe from the fictitious gang who wanted to kill her.

Dardenne previously said she feels guilty because, weeks after her kidnapping, she told Dutroux she wanted a girlfriend. Dutroux and Lelièvre then kidnapped 14-year-old Laetitia Delheze, telling Dardenne: "Look what I've done for you."

However, Delheze's abduction led police to Dutroux after an eyewitness told police a partial license plate number which matched a vehicle registered to Dutroux. He, along with his accomplices, were arrested several days later. Both Dardenne and Delheze were rescued alive.

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