Last year, authorities in Belgium ordered a modest red brick house in the south-west city of Charleroi to be torn down.
For anyone not in-the-know, the destruction of the property - which sat on a street corner yards away from a railway track and a busy flyover - would have seemed wholly unremarkable. Just another old building making way for something new.
But the move had been in the making for more than a quarter of a century, and even to this day, the local community in Charleroi and those affected by the events that unfolded there in the mid-90s are continuing to process their grief.
As of Tuesday, as part of these efforts, anyone passing the site will find a newly-opened memorial: a tree-filled garden surrounded by white walls that are decorated with a mural of a child watching a kite soar into the sky.
Underneath the memorial lies something more sinister: a soundproofed dungeon that was once used to imprison young girls who were tortured and raped by the former owner of the house and Belgium's most notorious criminal, Marc Dutroux.
The memorial is a homage to Dutroux's victims, and at the request of their parents, the basement will remain preserved underneath for potential future investigations that some believe could uncover a wider criminal network.
Dutroux - who to this day still lives in infamy in the minds of the Belgian public - was part of a small group of people found responsible for a horrifying series of murders and kidnappings that shocked not just the country, but the whole of Europe.
His former house was in the Marcinelle suburb of Charleroi, an industrial city of 200,000 people that grew around its coal and steel mining industries, and that straddles both banks of the river Sambre.
The house - and Dutroux himself - first became infamous in August 1996 when he led police to two kidnapped girls who were found cowering in the secret basement after they had been subjected to horrific abuse.
Sabine Dardenne, 12, and Laetitia Delhez, 14, had been abducted separately earlier that year, chained to a bed and repeatedly raped. But as more was learned about Dutroux, it became clear they were fortunate to have been found alive.
It transpired that four more girls - Mélissa Russo and Julie Lejeune, both eight years old, An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19 - had also been kidnapped by Dutroux and his accomplices a year earlier. All four died.
School friends Russo and Lejeune were the first to be imprisoned in the house in June 1995. The investigation into Belgium's worst paedophile crimes established that they had been held in the soundproofed basement for months before they died.
Their bodies were found buried in the garden at another property (Dutroux had several), and a postmortem showed they had been starved to death.
Teenagers An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks were themselves kidnapped and imprisoned in August 1995. They were also raped before they were killed by being buried alive. They were wrapped in plastic, their bodies found a year later.
The details of the horrifying crimes soon came to light, with Dutroux even confessing to having Dardenne and Delhez in his basement, leading police to where they were being kept and ultimately to their rescue.
With the mystery of the missing girls solved, public shock and grief soon turned to fury as it emerged not only had police missed a string of clues, but that Dutroux had been released from jail in 1992 after serving just three years of a 13-year sentence for the abduction and rape of five other girls between 1985 and 1986.
And despite the evidence, it took almost eight years for Dutroux, today aged 66, to be eventually tried and found guilty on charges including the kidnap and rape of the six girls, as well as the murder of the two older teenagers.
The infamous Belgian in 2004 stood trial accused of having abducted, imprisoned, raped, tortured and murdered the girls, holding them in the house in Charleroi and a number of other properties with the help of four accomplices which included his wife Michelle Martin, Michel Lelièvre, Michel Nihoul and Bernard Weinstein.
Nihoul, described as 'a Brussels businessman, pub-owner and familiar face at sex parties' was accused by some - including Dutroux - of being the mastermind behind the kidnappings and abuse operation.
One Belgian senator suggested that Dutroux was a pawn in a much larger game, comments that echoed a number of conspiracy theories that were sparked by the case which suggested the involvement of a larger paedophile ring.
Dutroux, Martin and Lelièvre were found guilty on all charges, but the jury were unable to reach a verdict on Nihoul's role in their crimes, although he was sentenced to five years in prison on drug-related charges.
Weinstein was never tried on account of being murdered by Dutroux.
The case had far-reaching consequences that ultimately led to the complete reorganisation of Belgium's law enforcement agencies following public outcry that saw 300,000 people take to the streets over mishandling of the case.
And while the serial killer was eventually arrested, charged and convicted mystery still surrounds the subsequent deaths of more than 20 potential witnesses, many of whom died in questionable circumstances.
Source:
Mail Online, Chris Jewers, September 23, 2023
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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