True Crime All The Time - Marc Dutroux Part 1

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Marc Dutroux was a Belgian serial killer and child rapist. In 1989 Dutroux was convicted of five sexual assaults and sentenced to thirteen years in prison. He only served three years. Over the next four years, he kidnapped and raped young girls, some of whom he murdered. He had several accomplices, including his own wife. The case led to speculation about inefficiency and corruption in Belgian law enforcement and politics. The public denounced the police for failing to pursue leads and ignoring witnesses. Join Mike and Gibby for part 1 of their discussion on Marc Dutroux. This remains one of Belgium’s most notorious criminal trials. Marc Dutroux’s crimes against children shocked the country. The public despised him so much that over a third of Belgians with the last name Dutroux legally changed their names. There was further outrage at the conduct of judges and prosecutors in the case. In part one of the Marc Dutroux episodes we’ll discuss his early life and crimes, his known victims, how he was finally arrested, and shocking witness testimony. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 278 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm doing good, man. How are you? I'm doing very, very well. Good.

I'm down 14 pounds. Oh, yeah? And I'm feeling good about that, man. I'm trying hard. I'm eating for the most part. Yeah. You know, right. You and I had pizza tonight.

It's kind of my treat for the week when you come. I enjoyed it. And you enjoy it because you get a free meal. I enjoy every time we record because I get a free mail. Yeah, I'm not paid for a meal in five years. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah, I do too.

I like that about you. So let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Monica Bartolini. Hey, Bartolini. Anna Warner jumped out of our highest level. Thank you, Anna. Elaine Frakes. Hey, Elaine.

Rebecca Waring. Well, thank you, Rebecca. Dan. Good old Dan. Ashley Marrow jumped out of our highest level. Hey, thanks, Ashley. Donna Pearson. Appreciate that, Donna.

Roberta Svetich. What's up, Svetich? Justin Helgerson. Hey, Helgerson. Melissa Seer. Hey, Melissa. Crystal Reese. Well, thank you, Crystal.

Jenna Rose. Well, what's going on, Jenna? Laura Bolvin. Bowvin. Lauren Adamowski. Oh, hey, Adamowski. And last but not least, Kat Friedman. Little cat.

Then if we go back into the Vault Gibbs, this week, we selected K. Well, thank you, Kay. Yeah. So we appreciate that. support and the long-term support. For PayPal, we had donations from Ellie N's piano school. Hey, appreciate that, Ellie. So we got that going for us.

Absolutely, yeah. Lynn Hammond. Hey, Lynn. And Adam Modder's Head. Well, it got to be a Modder's Head. Well, got to be. I feel like somebody from Boston would say instead of Mother's Head to be Mada's Head. Oh, I got that.

Yeah. I got that. Maybe that's where the name came from. Yeah. I thought that's where you were headed. Gibbs right now on unsolved. We have a great episode out. We're headed to Detroit to talk about the 2010 mysterious death of Joanne Romaine.

And it really is mysterious. So make sure you jump on over there and listen to that one. Yeah. It's so mysterious that it's really kind of hard to give too many of the details because we don't want to, you know, give anything away. Yeah. We want people to hear it unfold and all of that. Yeah, definitely check that out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. So we're going international to talk about Mark Dutro.

This was a suggestion that came up recently in a voicemail. When I looked into it, I thought, yep, very interesting. It's a case we should definitely do. But there was also so much information that it turned out to be a two-parter. There's just no way to tell. this story in one episode. Couldn't be done. So should I use my French accent? I mean, it's Belgium, but Belgium's right next door to France. So, you know, you've got what, Finnish, um, some German speaking. I'm sure some French, but yeah, I don't, I, you know, I don't know. We, we, we. Use whatever you want. We, I will. But, you know, this Mark Dutro case. remains one of Belgium's most notorious criminal trials.

Mark Dutro's crimes against children shocked the country. The public despised him give so much that over a third of Belgians with the last name Dutro legally changed their names. I can imagine so. This is like the episode where Elaine was dating the guy named Joel Rifkin. Yeah. And she wanted him to change his name. but, you know, when we get into it, people are going to see why.

There was also further outrage at the conduct of judges and prosecutors in the case. So in this first part, part one of the Mark Dutro episodes, we'll discuss his early life in crimes, his known victims, how he was finally arrested, and some of the shocking witness testimony. Now, I do want to say, you know, a lot of the cases that we do are graphic, they're disturbing. This one's up there. It really is. As far as the level of graphic details, there's just no way around it.

Mark Dutro was a Belgian serial killer and child rapist. In 1989, he was convicted of five sexual assaults and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He only served three years. Over the next four years, he kidnapped and raped young girls, some of whom he murdered. He had several accommodations. including his own wife. The case led to speculation about inefficiency and corruption in Belgian law enforcement and politics.

The public denounced the police for failing to pursue leads and ignoring witnesses. So like we said, we're headed to Belgium and we're going to give the facts of the case. But I think just from what I said there, you can draw parallels to cases in any country. Sure. People being let out maybe before they, they should have been let out, police being accused of not following up on things that they should have or, you know, ignoring certain aspects. And we also know it frustrates the general public and the victim's family. Sure. When they see that happening or when they assume that's happening. Yeah, no doubt about it. Whether it's real or, you know, police are giving off that optic. Right. Right. That they're not doing this or that. But I think that's the thing we found out in the

Saeed Hanai case. You know, if you remember that in a country like Iran, the parallels were there. And so, you know, to me, yes, there are differences in different countries and, and things like that. But for the most part, true crime is true crime. And you're going to see a lot of parallels. no matter where you go. Let's start out with a little bit of early life on Dutro. Mark Dutro was born on November 6, 1956, in Eks, Belgium. His parents are Victor and Janine. They both worked as teachers. He was the oldest of five children. Now, he later reported that his parents beat him when he was a child. Victor and Janine divorced in 1971. And Mark left home. He became a drifter and he performed sex work to make money. You know, you and I talk about

sex workers quite a bit. We do. I mean, unfortunately, sex workers often end up being the victims of violent crimes. But for the most part, we are talking about women. But obviously men are involved in sex work as well. Of course, yeah. At the age of 20, Dutro, Marriott. a woman whose name is only listed as Francois D. They had two children together. His former wife reported that he beat her and that he regularly had affairs. Not something that a man really once known about him, right? You don't want to be known as that guy. You shouldn't be that guy. Obviously, Gibbs, she's not painting a very flattering picture, right, of Mark. And, You know, if you're an abuser and if you're a guy who steps out and has a lot of affairs,

well, people are not going to have great things to say about you. Why would they? No, because you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Exactly. Dutro, like mini-killer, started off by committing petty crimes. And then his crimes gradually escalated in seriousness over the years. He worked as part of a car theft ring and earned a, enough money to buy a few properties in Belgium. In 1979, he was convicted of theft,

violent mugging, drug dealing, and trading in stolen cars. A lot of serious crimes there. Yeah, those are serious for sure. Now, we know that his crimes are going to be much more serious as we go along. But again, another parallel. This is something you often see in serial killers, especially. And it doesn't seem to matter what country you're in. People's crimes escalate. And the seriousness of their crimes escalates over the years until eventually they get to the point where they become a serial killer. And then even when they do, their murders escalate. They do. Right? How many times have we talked about that? Many times. To get that high, to get whatever it is that, you know, is safe. Is safe? what they have the you know they're craving i don't know how else to say it gibbs yeah i mean they're

like any attic right they're chasing that next high that next buzz whatever right they need to have it and and not just the next one almost like a greater yeah you know taking them to a higher level dutro and his first wife separated in the early 1980s he married his mistress michelle martin at this point, Dutro was an electrician and Michelle Martin was an elementary school teacher, she and Mark had three children together. Dutro, Michelle Martin, and an accomplice named Jean von Pettaham worked together to kidnap several young girls in 1985. So this is his mistress. She happens to be an elementary school teacher, but yet becomes part of this plan. to kidnap young girls.

Something wrong with that. Something very wrong. Now, the main account of his crimes comes from a 2004 Belgian news article with the help of Google Translate, as well as his Wikipedia page. Dutro's first kidnapping victim was an 18-year-old girl named Axel D. She was studying medicine at college. On Saturday, December 14th, 1985, she took a train. from Brussels to Charleroi.

In her December 18th police report, she said that she had a test on Tuesday and wanted to study for that, she told her parents she was going to study all day on Saturday and wasn't going to come home until Sunday afternoon. But on Saturday afternoon, she didn't feel like studying anymore. So she left school to go home that evening. But she didn't call her parents to let them know that she was coming. at the Charleroi station, she took the bus to Nalines, where she lived. When she got off the bus, she still had a pretty long walk home.

She noticed a dirty white van following her. The van passed her. And she saw a man get out near an electricity cabin on the road. He went behind the van where she couldn't see him. And then as she walked past this van, all of a sudden, the back doors flung open. One man pulled her inside. the van and another pushed her to the back. The men told her they were going to demand 400,000 francs from her parents because their friend had a rare vascular disease and needed

surgery in the U.S. They put masking tape over her eyes and took her to a house. This house was a property owned by Mark Dutro on 128, Philepville, the same house that he would later use to kidnap victims in 1995 and 1996. So these folks locked Axel up for the next 24 hours. She was repeatedly raped by the two men. They fed her juice, candy, and chocolate. According to the Belgian news, during one of the rapes,

her attacker told her that he had taken courses on law and explained the Belgian detention system. another attacker claimed to be a former member of the military and an expert in martial arts. He said he was part of a gang with two gang leaders, one Italian, one crazy, and one stupid. Okay, that's a strange quote because you said there were two gang leaders. Exactly. But now you've subdivided it into three different things. Now, what you could be referring to is one of them is Italian.

and one is also either crazy or stupid, and the other one is the other. But I found it very strange that you're listing out three different things after you've basically said there's two people. Exactly. Yeah, it's definitely strange. Well, the fact that they got two gang leaders,

that's a problem already. Tough. Yeah, too many cooks in the kitchen. Tough to have two people leading at the same time. It rarely works. It's the reason why you don't have two head coaches. of a basketball team or a football team or any any type of team really there's one head coach you can have assistant coaches and things like that yeah there's one president there's one prime minister

there's one you know a leader is a leader it's kind of a singular type word on sunday august 15th they dropped her off near her parents home they had stolen 3,000 francs from her so terrible ordeal right that this young woman went through the next year, February 3rd, 1986, 20-year-old Jean Van Pettaham confessed that he was one of the three kidnappers. I think he confessed Gibbs because he found it pretty hard to deny his guilt because the police found Axel's pencil case in his home. Kind of hard to argue that. Well, the ages are close, right?

he was 20, she was 18. But if you can't show that you know this person, which I'm sure he couldn't, he didn't know this person at all, then what explanation can you come up with that would help explain in a valid way why this pencil case was found in your house? And obviously she would come forward and say, didn't know this guy. Exactly. Don't know who he is. He also said his two accomplices were Mark Dutro.

and an unknown man. But later that day, he changed his story. And he said that the third accomplice was actually Michelle Martin, who drove the van. And it was due to his confession that police were able to solve a series of rapes that occurred in 1985. Again, Gibbs, I want to go back to this Michelle Martin. You know, this type of thing has come up in a number of cases. You can think Bernardo Hamulka, where, okay. did these women really want to do this?

Were they pressured into doing it? Did they just go along with what their partner wanted them to do? They had recently married. This was an elementary school teacher who was somehow talked in or maybe she was gung ho. I don't know into kidnapping multiple women and allowing her husband to participate in in the rape of these young women. Yeah, you want to know what's going on in her head.

Why did she agree to allow that to happen? Unless she's just as evil as they are. Well, it's always a possibility because I never discount the fact that women can be just as evil as men. It doesn't happen as often. We know that. But that possibility does exist. Van Petaham said that he met Dutro in March of 1985.

He had just left the army and he was going to marry a woman, his childhood sweetheart, who was the mother of his child. This woman Patricia knew Mark Dutroupe and regularly babysat his oldest child. Van Pettingham and Patricia moved in together in March but separated a week later. And then he moved in with Dutroux. The Belgian news wrote, the penniless, not too intelligent Van Pettaham was the ideal assistant for Mark Dutroupe. So pretty much saying the poor and not too bright, not too bright made the best sidekick. Well, let's face it. I think oftentimes, not going to say all the time, but oftentimes,

the lower someone's IQ is or the less intelligent they are, the more easily manipulated they are by others, especially if you're dealing with a master manipulator. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know what, folks, stress shows up in all kinds of ways. And in a world that's telling you to do more, sleep less and grind all the time. Here's your reminder to take care of yourself, do less, and maybe try some therapy. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. I've personally used BetterHelp and found it to be an amazing service.

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for free, plus AARP, the magazine, and a free gift. That's AARP.org slash T-CAT. The two started out committing petty theft together, but it soon escalated into violent sexual crimes, and XLD was not the only victim. On January 31st, 1985, Dutro and an accomplice subducted 18-year-old Catherine B while she was walking alone. They dragged her into a car, held a knife to her throat, and put tape over her eyes. Catherine reported that one of her kidnappers raped her in the car and told her, don't get married because what you feel now is marriage. They fed her candy and an apple. Gives, that just, it makes my stomach turn to think that a rapist, someone who is sexually violating a woman would say to her,

don't get married because what you feel now is marriage. That is not marriage. It is definitely not marriage. It's the opposite of what marriage should be. They kidnapped her just after 5 p.m. They raped her. They took photographs of her. And then they kicked her out of the car at 9.30 p.m.

Now, this was before Van Pettaham. At this point, he was still in the army. He had no knowledge of this rape. So Dutro had another accomplice for this one. Van Pettaham did confess that he and Dutro raped two girls in May of 1985. The police have never figured out who these victims were. And then on June 7th, 1985, they kidnapped an 11-year-old girl named Sylvie D. Again, obviously people can figure out we're using the initial of the last name for these victims. Van Pettaham, Dutro, and Michelle Martin were eating together. Mark said he wanted to have fun that day. Apparently, Michelle wasn't happy because he wanted to use the car.

She should have been unhappy for more than just that reason. Oh, absolutely. Van Pettaham claimed that he didn't know Dutro wanted to kidnap a girl until they were actually in the car. Sylvie was out swimming with her father and brother at a local pool, and then she went to a different pool later that day. She walked home alone that evening. The two guys drove past her, and it was Petaham, who pulled her into the vehicle. They put tape over her eyes and mouth. Dutro raped Sylvie and threatened to kill her. He took a photograph of her and said he was going to send it to an American magazine. Van Petaham said they spoke to Sylvie and French. with an American accent to throw her off.

They later dropped her off near a hospital. Now, Michelle didn't participate in this kidnapping, but she definitely knew about it, at least after the fact, Gibbs, because at some point, Mark showed her the photograph that he had taken. I mean, how sick is that? That's your husband coming home and telling you what he did today. Look at this picture.

I was going to say, not just telling you, he's showing you a picture. and Gibbs, the picture contains an 11-year-old girl. There is no mistaking an 11-year-old girl for an adult. Nobody in the world would do that. Right. So, you know, that tells me Michelle Martin knew. And for whatever reason, whether she was forced to condone it or whether she

condoned it on her own, she went along. and I'm just picturing every spouse listening right now. You know, imagining themselves in that position, that's it. It's over. Absolutely. I'm going straight to the police. Yeah. You know, I don't care how in love I am.

There are certain things you just can't put up with. And that is one of them. Some people can get past affairs, right? They can work through stuff like that. but the rape of an 11-year-old girl is not something you're going to be able to work out unless you're just okay with it. And I think that's what turns my stomach as much as the actual crime. Crime itself, right or wrong, that really does turn my stomach. That this elementary school teacher was like, okay. Instead of doing what she should have done and protect those kids, protect this child by bringing

and getting it up to the authorities. Sylvie told the police that one of her kidnappers did not agree with raping her. And apparently it was Van Pettingham. He later explained that he thought Sylvie was too young. But he went along with the kidnapping because he said he felt as though he owed something to Mark Dutro. On October 17th, 1985,

19 year old Maria V was walking to a shop in her village. she passed a man who was pretending to urinate against a wall. This man grabbed her by the throat and pushed her into a van, then put tape over her eyes. She was taken to a house and raped. Dutro confessed this rape to Van Pettaham. Van Pettaham claimed he didn't participate because he was working as a trucker in another country. At the time this happened, Maria told the police that there was a second perpetrator. She described this man as a balding man in his 50s.

And from what I understand Gibbs, police have never figured out who this person is. But this is scary, right? This Mark Dutro was a sexual predator. There's no doubt about that. I think what is also scary, though, is that he was able to get quite a number of people to go along with what he wanted to do. do we talked about his wife we talked about you know this van pettingham guy now we've got some mystery man in his 50s who police have never figured out okay at some point he had to lay the plan out

and this man had to have said okay i'll go along with that that is frightening to me it's extremely frightening that that's the way people think if you said any of this shit to me first i'd kick you right in your cahones and then I'd spin you around and kick in your ass right out my front door. Absolutely. Now, I know you would never come up with any sick stuff like this, but you also know that I would never go along with it. Absolutely not. How do two people know that they're thinking the same way before the actual idea is said aloud?

How do you know that you're going to be received well for something that, 99.999% of the people in the world would never, would never even contemplate. Maybe he just figured out this guy was really weak. I don't know, but that part always fascinates me how sick individuals can get other people to go along with their sick ideas. On December 18th, 1985, 15 year old Elizabeth G was cycling to school at 7.30 a.m. By this point, Gibbs, Dutroo had started stalking and selecting victims beforehand. It wasn't random like it was before. Right.

Now he's really gotten into selecting victims, stalking them. He had picked out Elizabeth a few days before. Michelle Martin drove the van while Dutro and Van Pettaham grabbed Elizabeth and pulled her inside. They put tape over her eyes. Martin drove to one of Dutro's properties in Marconnell. Dutro rented video equipment. He filmed and photographed Elizabeth. She was told that the rape was an act of revenge against her father.

Eventually, they dropped her off near her house that night. And they gave her 500 francs to see a doctor so that she could get a note for school. It's like they're trying to be sort of good at the end by dropping these girls off at hospitals. By their house, giving them money, telling, giving them advice. Yeah. I know what you're saying. It's like, you know, we know you're a 15 year old girl. We know we've just violated you in the worst possible way. But here, let us give you some money. Go see a doctor. We know you're going to need a note for school so that you don't get in trouble. Are you kidding me? You can't do what you've just done and then think, well, this will make it better. Sure, yeah. Nothing's going to make it better.

I mean, one point they were, like you said, feeding them fruit and chocolates. Sure. I mean, crazy. In 1986, Dutro and his wife were arrested for abducting and raping five young girls. And on April 26th of that year, all three of them. Mark Dutroo, Michelle Martin, and John Van Pettaham were convicted by the Bergen Court of Appeal. Dutro was sentenced to 13 and a half years. Van Pettaham sentenced to six and a half years.

And Michelle Martin got five years. Dutro got extra time for robbing a 58-year-old woman named Jeaning G on June 10th, 1983. Dutro and two accomplices tortured her for three hours until, she told them where all her money was, one of his accomplices has never been identified. So again, just another person that he was able to get to go along with, you know, whatever he wanted to do. Jean Van Pettaham died on August 27th, 1991 in a motor vehicle accident.

According to Michelle Martin, Dutro was happy that he died because he considered him to be a snitch. Dutro said that if he had known Van Pettingham was going to confess, he would have killed him. And I don't doubt that for a second. I don't either. Mark Dutro was released on parole in April 1992 for good behavior. Prosecutors and psychiatrists, though, Gibbs, they advised against his release. But apparently he made a good impression on social services and the prison chaplain because he helped clean his grandmother.

mother's house during a day of prison leave. Well, there's a reason to let somebody out. Sure. Sure. His mother wrote to the prison that he was using his supervised visits to his grandmother's house basically to write up an inventory of her possessions. According to the BBC, her letter said, I have known for a long time and with good cause, my eldest temperament.

What I do not know and what all the people who know him fear is what he has. in mind for the future. But apparently she never received a response to her letter. So this is your own mother writing a letter to the people in charge of your parole basically saying, hmm, my son's a bad egg. You might want to know this, this and this. You might want to calculate that into your determination for his parole. You know, normally a mother is got the pom-poms. Sure. Yeah. And they're writing in letters and they're cheering and saying, let him out. My son deserves a second chance. No, not this guy's mom. She was like, none of us know what he's capable of or what he's going to do if he gets let out. They should have. After Dutro was released from prison, he was unemployed.

He lived on government benefits, but he did have significant income from illegal activities. He began Gibbs to manipulate the system, to make money from health insurance fraud, theft, insurance fraud, and stock investments. He was still able to maintain his seven properties in town as well as rent garages and rooms. He had a number of different bank accounts. He also had enough money to begin constructing a prison cell in an underground cellar in Marconnell, a suburb of Charleroy. Okay.

That's never good when you hear that someone, a private citizen is constructing a prison cell in their underground cellar. You know, this is real silence of the lambs type stuff here. Things are going to go bad very, very quickly. Freaky. But you know what doesn't surprise me was that he was able to manipulate the system to make money. I think this guy was a manipulator and a good one. A manipulator of people, you know, that kind of bleeds into, okay, are you able to talk people into things?

Are you able to work the system, work people to your benefit? Yeah, I think he was. I think he was a good influencer. still doesn't excuse the people that helped them out. You know, that no, I don't think there's any excuse for them because there was nothing in the reporting, at least that I saw that his wife was forced or, you know, that he threatened to kill her. He may have.

I just didn't see it. But obviously he has to get some new accomplices, right? So he found two new people that would work with him to kidnap. and rape more victims. Bernard Weinstein and Michelle Lelyeva, both known criminals. Michelle Martin no longer participated, but even then Gibbs, it was said she had knowledge of all of her husband's crimes. Just as bad, man. Well, just the fact that she stayed with him after the prison sentences and what they were put away for. On June 24th, 199, 95, eight-year-old friends, Julie Lejeune, and Melissa Russo were out walking together in Grace Helene, near Lege.

They disappeared without a trace. The gendarme picked up the case, but they didn't make a whole lot of progress. The girls' parents became outspoken activists for their daughters. A witness saw a red Ford Fiesta. It's a scene of the kidnapping. He wrote down a partial plate number. And he gave that to police. But they said that they couldn't verify it.

The plate was later revealed to be in the name of the wife of one of Mark Dutro's friends. And I think we said up front Gibbs, right? Police are going to be criticized. And the parole system is going to be criticized. And it's things like this that I think people point to after the facts. Okay, we can't verify it. Well, then it later comes out that. it was verified and it came back to the wife of one of this guy's friends this guy having a criminal

record a very, very shady past. Not to mention it was a Ford Fiesta. Well, I think that gives it away right there. If you are driving a Ford Fiesta, you're out to cause trouble. We know that. We've heard from so many Fiesta owners. I'm going to get so many emails from Fiesta. Oh, you will.

But, you know, it's been a running joke for those of you that don't know about the Ford Fiesta. Ford Fiesta drivers are great people. I was just kidding. Don't send me a string of hateful emails. In November 1995, the police searched Dutro's house because, you know, he was on their radar. He was a suspect. They did not find the girls, despite it being said that they could hear children screams coming from the area. He tried to, Mark did, tried to explain it a way that these

screams were coming from children playing in the neighborhood. So I find it strange that they could hear screaming and didn't dive deeper into it. Don't go the extra step to really try to figure out where the screams are coming from. I get you. And I think that's also how later on, when these things come out, people look at the police and say, what were you doing? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? You know, that's how police really get scrutinized in some of these cases because, okay, the guy says what you're hearing is children playing in the neighborhood. Can you not then try to verify that and say, yep, okay. I see them, I hear them. That's what we must have been hearing. they didn't do that. On December 6, 1995, Dutro was arrested again for car theft and other charges. He received a four-month sentence. And that's something that I have an issue with.

Car theft and whatever other charges that he got, obviously they don't compare to the things that he had been doing as far as, you know, committing rapes and the sexual assaults and those types of things. But if you already have that record, you're telling me all you get is a four-month sentence. Pretty late. It is. It seems like. Especially with his known past. With his known past and the fact that he was let out so early before, you would think it would mean more. On May 28, 1996, 12-year-old Sabina Darden went missing while on her way to school in Tournay.

By August, her case went cold. Then on August 8th, 1996, 14-year-old Latisha Delais vanished after leaving the public swimming pool in Bertricks, Luxembourg. According to the Brussels Times, a witness recalled seeing what they described as a scruffy white van making a terrible engine noise, and they took down a partial license plate. Let me guess. The van belonged to him. It belonged to Mark Dutro. And a background check revealed his previous rape convictions. And I think to me, Gibbs, the minute that police put all of that together. Okay.

Mark Dutro. Previous rape convictions. Nasty, nasty stuff done in the past. You are driving around in an unmarked white van. Yeah. Not to say that people don't have these types of. of vans. But we also know what a lot of people think about these types of vans. As a kid, sometimes you're taught run away from those vans. Yeah, absolutely. My daughter at 17 years old,

if she sees kind of an unmarked van lurking around the neighborhood, she will call me up from the basement. She wants me to take a look at it and give her my opinion of what I think about it. That's how much I've drilled it in maybe, I guess, into her mind to be on the lookout for these types of van. So so far we've insulted our Ford Fiesta group. Now people who drive vans are probably not happy as well. Carpet installers everywhere like, man, it's just our van so we can get the carpet in the back so we can, you know, install the carpet.

I get it. And some of those contractors don't have any type of signage. I understand that. but they're on to him, right, based on this partial license plate number. On August 13th, 1996, the police raided Dutro's properties and they made three arrests, Mark, Michelle Martin, and accomplice Michel Lelyeva. Dutro was arrested by Judge Jean-Marc, Conorata, who quickly became a hero in Belgium. Just two days later on the 15th, Dutroo, told,

told the police. I'm going to give you two girls. All right. If you're the police, what do you thinking? Well, number one, we got the right guy. Number two, how bad is this guy? Well, pretty bad. On top of what we already know he's been convicted of, according to the Brussels Times, Michel de Moulin, who interrogated Dutro, said it made no sense to immediately confront him with the question of whether he had kidnapped Latisha Del A. I had to start the conversation first and build a relationship of trust with him.

Okay, I get that. I understand that completely. They don't know how many girls. This guy either has kidnapped, raped, or still has. They need to build that rapport. Yeah, that's what this guy is saying. Dutro ultimately led the police back to his home. and Marconnell, where the police had searched back in November 1995, he showed them a secret

entrance to a cellar where he was hiding two missing girls. That day, Latisha Delet and Sabina Darden were rescued from the hidden underground cellar. Sabina had been missing for 80 days and Latisha for six. The police also found over 300 videos of child. sexual abuse in Dutro's home. Wow. 300 video. This was a very, very nasty, sick individual. He really was, man.

But he wasn't done talking. He revealed that there were four more victims. The next day on the 16th, Dutro confessed to kidnapping two more girls, 19-year-old, Fia, Lambrex, and 17-year-old Anne Marshall. On the night of August 20,

second into the 23rd, 1995, Dutro abducted Afia and Anne from a resort in Austin. They had attended a hypnosis show while they were on vacation with their parents. Mark admitted to kidnapping and sexually abusing the victims, but he insisted that he didn't murder any of them. He said Gibbs, he was only the procurer who provided girls to his next. network of Belgian elites. So really what he's talking about here is child sex trafficking. That's exactly what they're talking about. That's just as sick and alarming. Well, I think that sort of thing alarms everyone, right? The fact that it exists, trying to figure out

how prevalent it is and being afraid that it may be more prevalent than we really want to admit. So he's okay with admitting to kidnapping and sexually abusing girls. He's okay with that. What he won't do is admit to murder. So he goes with the line that he handed girls off to this network. Michelle Martin admitted that back in 1995, she knew Julie and Melissa were being held in the cellar without food and water. she visited the house to feed their dogs while Dutroux was in jail. But she said she was too frightened to feed the girls.

So she was too afraid to feed the girls so she didn't feed them all that time? Yeah. So again, bad enough that she knows they're there, right? She knows her husband, abducted them, had them in this jail cell in the celler of the home. But to your point, Gibbs, she's got to take care of her dogs. but it didn't seem as though she cared at all what happened to these two young girls. And we're going to find out that what happens to them is not good.

According to the Belgian news, Michelle later confessed in a May 1997 interview. She said, I remember Mark Dutro accusing me before the first series of kidnappings in 1985 that I was responsible for him not being able to hit on as many women as he wanted. He thought that other women were less interested in him because he lived with me. I remember we even slept separately for a while at that time. It was at this time that Mark Dutro told me that he intended to kidnap girls. He told me that kidnapping and raping took less time than seducing them. He said that would also be to my advantage. That way, he had more time to spend with me. And after all, because he had, he was, you know, he was a little bit of

did it all for me, I had to help him with the kidnappings. I mean, that's about as twisted logic as you can get. Now, she may have believed what he was telling her. From my point of view, Gibbs, it's absolutely twisted. It's very twisted. I could see how he would want to manipulate her into believing this stuff. I just don't understand how a person could think, okay, that makes sense. and I'm willing to do anything for this man. I don't get that. It's hard for me to understand. Yeah.

And she got more time to be with him. Well, it sounds like to me that this relationship was everything to her. It was so important that she was willing to do basically anything or allow him to do anything. That's exactly what she did. To save their marriage, to save their relationship. according to the guardian accomplice Michel Lelyeva, a drug addict and thief, told the police after his arrest that the girls were kidnapped based on someone else's orders.

The suspect, he said, was a man named Jean-Michel Newell, a businessman from Brussels, and what he called a familiar face at sex parties. Lelyeva said Dutro and Nihul met in prison in 1989. They created the plot to steal children for Niule's connections. Neul was the middleman who photographed activities and blackmailed child abusers. So just another disgusting level. Well, I was going to say, if there's a nasty possibility of something, it seemed like Mark Dutro found himself in the middle of it.

Sure did. Now, was that because he sought this stuff out? Yeah, probably. I mean, if you're running around at sex parties with, you know, your eyes wide shut, then you're bound to run into some interesting characters. And I'm using the word interesting in quotes here. The people that he was running into were low down, dirty, nasty child abusers. Yeah. And somehow it's like they all gravitation. towards each other. But again, I go back to my point and that's how do you start these conversations and how do you even know that this person is going to be remotely interested in the sick stuff that you are? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

How do you feel somebody out for that? You know, how do you lead into that type of conversation? Yeah. You just can't come out and ask people, are you into sexually abusing young girls? or young children. Who asked people that? What are the odds that somebody's going to be into that? I just don't get it. But he was able to do it. On August 17th, 1996, Dutro led the police to the bodies of Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo. Their emaciated remains were buried in the garden of a home in Sar LeBouy Cher. The girls had been locked up in an underground cellar for four

months. While Dutro served that prison sentence, we talked about for auto theft, he asked his wife to feed them. But like we said, she was afraid. The girls ended up dying of starvation. Dutro later said he put their bodies in a freezer before he buried them. And I keep going back to Michelle, because to me, she is a baffling character in this entire story.

you could look at her as having a hand in the death of these two girls. Absolutely. You know, look, she's just as bad as he is, in my opinion. Yeah, I get where you're coming from. Now, she didn't abduct them. She didn't sexually abuse them from what I understand. She knew they were locked up in the cellar. She knew Mark was in prison or in jail or whatever for at least four months, what did she think was going to happen to these girls if she didn't step up and give them food? You know, she can't say she was afraid of Mark because if she was, that would be the best opportunity because he's in prison.

She could call the authorities. They could come out, find the girls, and that would go against him. Yeah, now she could have made the argument that she was afraid of him while he had access to her. Yes. But you're right. That would have been the perfect opportunity to drop the hammer on him. If she wanted to, I get the feeling that she didn't want to. She loved him in a way where she was willing to look past anything and everything. Yeah, well, she certainly did, didn't she? And she did. Melissa's mother, Corrine Russo begged to see her daughter. But the police told her it was against the law.

She said she needed to identify the remains, but she was told that Mark Dutro had already made the identification. Wow, that's rough. Not only is your little girl dead, you can't even see her one last time. Right. That's a shame.

On September 3rd, 1996, Dutro led the police to the bodies of Effia Lambrex and Anne Marshall. They were buried on one of his properties in Jume. near Charleroy buried near the girls was the body of Bernard Weinstein, one of Dutro's former accomplices, an autopsy detected drugs in his system, and determined he inhaled dirt before his death. Essentially, meaning gives that he was buried alive. And Dutro eventually admitted that he killed Weinstein because he had betrayed him.

And to me, buried alive is a bad way to go. I know a lot of people have nightmares about that happening to them. It's nightmare inducing stuff. It really is. Judge Jean-Marc Conorata believed Michel Newell was the leader of the entire operation. However, just as they were making progress in the investigation, Laleava suddenly stopped talking. A woman named Regina Luf came forward after Judge Conirata appealed to victims to come to the police,

she was actually one of ten people who spoke to the police. In 1996, she spoke with police in a filmed interview. Regina said that when she was 12 years old, her parents gave her to a family friend, a guy named Tony Vanden Bogart. He had a key to their house. Vanden Bogart picked her up from school and took her away for weekend sex parties where she was often filmed having sex with men. Regina told The Guardian in 2002 it was highly organized.

Big business, blackmail. There was a lot of money involved. Regina described regular clients at these parties, including judges, one powerful politician and a banker. She gave their aliases and described all the houses, apartments, in cities where she'd been taken. It's some of these parties Regina witnessed sadism, torture, and even murder. She describes specific victims and how they were killed.

Gibbs, she was 12 years old. Yeah, this is another level. Stomach turning. It really is. The organizer of these parties was Jean-Michel Neul. Neul was a businessman, political lobbyist, and conman. He had Conneman. to many people in Belgium. Regina described him as a very cruel man. She said she had known him since

the late 70s after Dutro's arrest when pictures of Newell were published in the news. She said she recognized him right away. Mark Dutro also organized parties. Regina said Dutro was a boy who brought drugs, cocaine to these parties. He brought some girls, watched girls. Watch girls. at these events, Newell was sort of a party beast, while Dutro was more on the side. Newell took part in group sex and had sex with underage girls. Experts examined Regina Luth. They confirmed that she had been molested during childhood. The lead professor noted that it was worth it to investigate her testimony.

Okay. Yeah, I think it would definitely be worth it. She seems to have very specific, very incriminating type of knowledge. Now, you still have to investigate it. Sure. You have to prove that what she's saying is true. What are you going to do? Just discount it all together and not check into it?

But she seems to recall a lot of details. Yeah. It should be worth diving into. She also described the murder of a 15-year-old girl named Chrissy. Loof told The Guardian in 2001. It was a sort of bondage. So her legs and her hands and her throat were connected with the same rope. And so when she moved, she strangled herself.

She also said that Neul and Dutro were there that night. Neul took part in the murder while Dutro watched. Rudy Hoskins, an officer assigned to reexamine that case, believed that Luf did witness the murder. According to the Guardian, it was said, she gave us some details that made us think it's impossible to give without having been there at that place the way the body was found at that time and the way she described the person who was killed. Okay, that's good. You're checking into it. You're vetting it. You're trying to figure it out.

In 1984, Christine Van He was found dumped in the grounds of an abandoned mushroom farm on the outskirts of Brussels. The farmhouse has since been demolished. But in 1996, Louvre described the details of the farmhouse down to the wallpaper, the sink fixtures, hooks on the ceiling, even the floor plan. Guardian writer Olinka Frankl spoke to the son of the former owner in 2002. He showed her pictures of the house and the mushroom factory. He said, I have never met Regina Lleckle, Lou. All I know is that she could not have described the house as well as she did unless she'd been there. It was two houses joined together in a strange way. It would be impossible to invent it.

So her story's being backed up. It sure sounds like that. Yeah. And that's scary because we know she's not lying. Well, I think you can make the inference that if she's not lying about that, she's most likely not lying about the other stuff as well. Frankl wrote, when I put this evidence to Anne Tilly, prosecutor general of liege in overall charge of the Dutro affair, she gave me a shrug and repeated the official line in Belgium that Luf is a fantasist and has invented everything. So I think you can see based on that that authorities did not believe Regina Loo. again maybe one of those things where okay the public is going to criticize after the fact sure why did you

not believe her why did you dismiss her so summarily was it because somebody with a lot of power attended those parties well i think it's a great point if you go back to what she said there were people in power there right political figures people that she read recognized. Okay. What do powerful people not want to come out? Obviously, anything that would damage their reputation, this type of sex party, which involved underage girls would would obviously do that. And we know powerful people have a way of getting what they want, especially if their power comes from position. Exactly. In politics or, you know, within the justice system itself. In October 1996, Judge Conorate was taken off the case because he attended a fundraising dinner

for the victims and their families. He was accused of a conflict of interest. Gino Russo, Melissa's father told the guardian, it was like spitting on the grave. of Julie and Melissa. The victim's parents and citizens of Belgium were outraged. Conorati had multiple additional suspects arrested before he was fired. It really seemed Gibbs as though he was making progress at exposing this network of criminals at the time that he was taken off the case. They got people fired up to the point where on October 20th, 1996,

over 300,000 people marched on the Palace of Justice in Brussels to protest. That's a major protest. That's a lot of people. But I think you can see why they were so fired up. This is a guy who actually seems like he's on the right track and you're going to fire him over what? attending a fundraising dinner for the victims. Okay. Judge Van Espin oversaw Christine Van He's case for 12.

years. A Belgian journalist revealed a relationship between the judge, Michelle Newell and his wife. Van Espin represented Neal's wife when he was an attorney. Van Espin's sister was the godmother of Newell's child. Van Espin was not forced to resign due to some conflict of interest. Unlike Judge Conradi, he chose to resign in early 1998. I mean, if we're talking about it, a conflict of interest. I think that that one qualifies much more so than the other one. Judge Conorati was replaced by Jacques Languagou, who spent several years in conflict with public prosecutor Michel Borlae. In spring 1997, the special team of police officers who interviewed the witnesses was dismissed. At this point, the police had verified many elements of

Louf's story, a new team was assigned to reread Loof's testimony. The press was told that the old team was fired because they manipulated evidence, something that they have always denied. Up until this point, Loof was only known as X1, but the media leaked her name. Before Dutro's trial, almost 440,000 pages of evidence were leaked to the media, exposing important and private information.

I'm guessing that's not going to be good for anybody. No, and especially not good if you're one of these powerful people doing something that you shouldn't be doing. That could be real bad for you. Oh, yeah. The government TV station, RTBF, began a campaign to prove that Dutro was what they called an isolated pervert who kidnapped girls alone. They said there was no network of co-conspirators.

Newell was innocent and Luf was a liar. They produced one news program that portrayed her parents as victims of defamation. This news program failed to report that her parents had already confessed that they had allowed Tony Vanden Bogart to have a key to their home and access to their daughter. Vanden Bogart also admitted that he had a relationship with Luke. A 12 year old. A 12 year old girl. Well, pretty hard to claim defamation when you've already admitted to the things that Louf said about you.

Exactly. It's not defamatory. Number one, if it's true. Sure. And it's true if you've already admitted it. Yeah. But judges announced that Loof would not be called as a witness in any future trials. She and the other witnesses who spoke to Judge Conorati.

would not testify. And their testimony had been deemed worthless. Worthless. Wow. So, you know, if you're a conspiracy theorist, your mind is an overdrive at this point. Because there's a lot going on here. It screams of cover up.

It screams of powerful people influencing what ultimately goes on in the trial of Mark. Dutro and others because if you're looking at it that way, they don't want to be implicated. But I think this is where we need to stop part one. And part two will cover a parliamentary inquiry into the case. There are some mysterious witness deaths. And we will get into Mark Dutro's infamous trial. And it is infamous.

It's fascinating. Very fascinating. So don't miss part two of Mark Dutro. you know, it's not a full wrap-up, Gibbs, because we have a second episode, but you'd have to call this guy a monster. No doubt. He's a predator. He prayed on young girls.

Yeah. If you put in the effort to build a prison cell in yourself, you've already been convicted of rape and other, you know, sexual assault type charges of young girls, there's very little doubt about what your plans for that prison cell are. Yeah, I think your intentions are well known. Your wife seems to know about it. Yeah. And we obviously know what happened. He got caught up in this car theft ring. He wasn't able to take care of these girls, give them food. Obviously, his wife said she was too afraid to do it. These girls ended up dying. Yeah. But then you have kind of a bigger mystery. that surrounds this case, right? Who all was involved? Who all else was involved? What levels of

society did this thing reach? And did those people use their influence to manipulate things as time went along, right? This judge is getting too close. All right, we got to figure out a way to get him out of here. There's just a lot going on. And there's more to come in part two. But that's it for part one of Mark Dutro. We've got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Hi, Mike.

Hi, Gibby. My name's Helen. I'm from Nottingia, in England, the home of Robin Hood. I'm a really big fan of the show. I particularly like your guy's banter. I mean, you really, really bounce well off each other. And you can tell you really good friends. Yeah, I do get a few funny looks as I'm walking my dog with my AirPods in

and laughing to some of the old guys jokes. Anyway, I've not really got any recommendations, but just keep doing what you're doing. Keep your head on a swivel and all that. Stay safe. Keep your own time ticking. Love it. Voice mail from the land of Robin Hood. Robin Hood.

I talked on Patreon this week, Gibbs, about how I'm really into British television, British movies. I've really got a kind of a British fetish thing going on. You really do. You're kind of into that British. British. I don't think fetish is the right word. I wouldn't use that word either. I know, I might have used that incorrectly.

But, you know, there are shows and movies that, you know, in my younger days, I would not have watched. Yeah. But, you know, as I've gotten older, really gotten into some of these movies, you know, from other countries. And there's a lot of British stars these days. A lot of them use their American accent to fool us. They do. and come over here and we think they're American. Turns out they're English,

but they're great actors. Yeah. We should watch Monty Python, man. I've seen Monty Python. Oh, have you? Oh, yeah, I love Monty Python. Some old good stuff.

Yeah, I love that. But lately I've watched, like, The imitation game, really into World War II stuff. Churchill movie with Gary Oldman. Yeah. That was good. Oh, I watched the Kingsman the other day,

the new one. Oh, did you? Yeah, that was actually really good. Oh. I want to check it out out. That's kind of my thing right now. Yeah. Hi, this is Gino from Ohio again.

I'm just trying to figure out what kind of a POS would actually kill a child and leave it in a box somewhere. It's just, I can't fathom that at all. I just wanted to, I don't understand it. Anyway, guys, keep your head on a swivel. Keep your own time ticking and have a good day. All right. Well, we always appreciate. Gino calling in.

That was probably meant for unsolved. I'm assuming he's talking about the boy in the box episode. What a POS. Yeah. Whoever would do something like that is a POS. I mean, that's a great description. But to answer the question,

how could someone do that? I can't do it. It's what we're always trying to do. Right, trying to figure out what's in their mind. And how can they do things that we can't even, imagine being able to make the conscious decision. Yes, this seems like a good idea. This seems like something I should do when for most of us, everything in our body screams the exact opposite. I would never do that. Yeah. I don't want to hurt someone. I don't want to see someone get hurt.

Just like this episode we did today. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You can't make sense of things that don't make sense. If that makes sense. It makes sense. Hi, Mike and give you, this is Caitlin Smith. I have contacted you a couple times on email, and I am from Colorado. Originally, I live in Iowa right now. As my husband's going to medical school, I just wanted to say that I really, really enjoy the podcast. I started listening on criminology and immediately was hooked, and then I followed. Fergie over to T-Cat and immediately fell in love with Gibby and I've always been in love with Fergie. I am team both of you, but maybe I'm a little bit more team Fergie. I don't know.

It's kind of hard to tell because you're both great. Anyways, I just wanted to say that you guys are both awesome and I'm also really nervous right now because it's kind of awkward just leaving a voicemail right away. Instead of like, I don't know, hitting it ring more than once, I guess. I don't know what it is. But keep up the great work. And I also want to let you know I will be sending a piece of art to you guys that I have been working on for several months. So I'm really excited to send that to you.

And yeah, so thank you and keep you on time ticking. Bye. Wow, another piece of art in the studio. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to see what it is. We'll hang it up in the studio. I didn't think she sounded nervous at all. I thought she did great. Yeah. So kudos to you. And more team me than you. Yeah. Wait, she said you than me, didn't she? Yeah, don't, why do you always have to

put a tick on your scoreboard? Why do you keep a scoreboard? You have the bigger scoreboard. No, I don't have any scoreboard. It's right behind you. Everybody can see it on video. I've got the, if you're on Patreon. No desk, no smaller scoreboard, smaller chair, smaller microphone. A man keeps a scoreboard on how many people say their team gibby. That is wrong. We had no mailbag this week, Gibbs. So that's it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.