Plan to demolish Dutroux ‘horror house’

29 April 2004

BRUSSELS – The mayor of the Belgian town where Marc Dutroux lived wants to demolish the house where two of the suspected child murder’s alleged victims starved to death.

Speaking on Belgian radio on Wednesday night, Jacques Van Gompel, who is mayor of Charleroi, said he hoped the house could be destroyed as soon as Dutroux’s ongoing trial is completed.

“Once the trial is over and the house no longer needed for evidence, the city authorities will take the necessary measures to demolish it and possibly build something else on the site,” Gompel said.

“Nobody would want to live there,” he added. 

Two eight-year-old girls kidnapped by Dutroux – Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo – are believed to have starved to death in a secret dungeon in the house.

They were allegedly left to die by Dutroux’s wife while the suspected child murderer was in jail for car theft.

A year after the two young girls died, Dutroux kidnapped and held prisoner two other girls at the house – 12-year-old Sabine Dardenne and Laetitia Delhez (14).

They both survived their ordeal and were freed by police in August 1996.

On Tuesday the two girls, now aged 20 and 22 respectively, made an emotional return to the house as part of the ongoing proceedings in the Dutroux trial.

[Copyright Expatica 2004]

Subject: Belgian news