Dutroux’s ex-wife free again: memories of the Belgian nightmare

In the 1990s, the case of the rapist Dutroux shook Belgium. Now his ex-wife – who was responsible for the deaths of two girls – gets her complete freedom back. That opens up old wounds.

Even the name of the woman still arouses hatred and contempt in many Belgians: Michelle Martin was not only informed about the crimes of her husband Marc Dutroux down to the last detail, she was also involved as an accomplice. At least two of the girls whom Dutroux kidnapped and abused, Martin knowingly left to starve to death in a basement dungeon.

Can such a woman even be released into complete freedom? Many Belgians are wondering – and when it became known that the final conditions against Dutroux’s ex-wife were to fall at the weekend, it sparked a heated debate. “Reintegration will be extraordinarily difficult for them,” says Marc Neve, head of the Belgian prison supervisory authority. This is difficult, if only because of the extreme attention of the media.

“This is a case outside of every norm”

The Dutroux case triggered one of the biggest crises in post-war Belgium in the 1990s. The images belong to the collective memory: two girls are freed from a basement dungeon in Charleroi in front of the cameras, police officers lead them, the girls are completely distraught. Then it turns out: the two are the only survivors. At least two girls starved to death in the basement dungeon. In the stirring process that follows, it becomes clear that it was Dutroux’s wife who knew about the crimes and who let the girls starve to death.

“It’s easy to forget,” explains the head of the Belgian prison supervisory authority, “that despite the seriousness of the crime, reintegration must be possible.” Martin has been released from prison since 2012, but there were still strict security requirements – this system has proven its worth. Therefore, it is now right to lift the conditions, says the authority. Nevertheless – that is also correct: “The Dutroux case is outside of any norm and that makes things extremely difficult.”

Police and judiciary failed

What makes things so difficult: The case plunged Belgium into a state crisis. A previously unimaginable failure of the police and the judiciary became public. Dutroux had kidnapped girls for years, raped them, four girls died, every Belgian knows their names. Julie and Melissa, both eight years old, when Dutroux killed them and buried them in his garden. And Ann and Eefje, friends, 17 years old, starved to death in the basement dungeon and then buried, also in the garden.

In retrospect, it turned out that some of the crimes were only possible because investigators and authorities did not take action despite clear indications. Because Dutroux had been known to the police as a brutal rapist since the 1980s, he was even sentenced to 13 years in prison, but was released after just three years – for good behavior.

A police officer did not suspect anything

While under surveillance by the authorities, he managed to kidnap a total of six girls and held them captive in basements for months. There he tortured and raped her with unimaginable cruelty. It was later revealed that a police officer was believed to have been very close to the two eight-year-olds, Melissa and Julie – when they were still alive in the Dutroux basement. The police officer found chains and torture tools and also knew that the homeowner was a convicted serial rapist. He later stated that he heard children screaming. But he didn’t get suspicious – he thought the screams were coming from the street.

Indifference or Complicity? The question moved the Belgian public at the time. The explosive question remains open as to whether Dutroux was a lone perpetrator, the suspicion of a pedophile network in the background could never be proven. “In my opinion, something like this can’t happen without an organization in the background,” explains liberal politician Marc Verwilghen in the specially set up parliamentary committee of inquiry. In August 2001, at the end of a difficult committee work, he gave a sobering assessment of the backers: “I don’t rule it out at all, but it can’t be proven.”

Not an isolated case

Dutroux himself is still in prison, sentenced to life imprisonment. Because of his actions, the entire Belgian political system fell into disrepute in the 1990s, far beyond the national borders. Sexual abuse of children was often associated with Belgian conditions. There was no internet, no plaques with thousands of faces of missing children around the world, and no international market for videos depicting child abuse scenes.

That is why the Dutroux case is also interesting from a media-historical point of view. Television had the monopoly of reporting, and the Dutroux case seemed like a nightmare unique in its horror. The fact that he was not an isolated case, but that sexual abuse of children with violence up to and including killing was much more widespread than was assumed at the time – that is clear at the latest with the discovery of countless child pornographic depictions of violence on the Internet.