Marc Dutroux: The pedophile & serial killer whose crimes changed Belgium (TW)

in 1996 this woman came forward to tell the belgian authorities she'd spent her childhood years as the victim of a pedophile network she described a world of organized sexual abuse torture and even murder just terrible you didn't believe your eyes and i didn't believe that humans could do that she talked to violent child sex orgies with politicians judges and influential businessmen a belgian underworld in which the establishment has refused to believe [Music] regina luff is a pathological liar she's a woman who's invented a series of scenarios which just don't stand up [Music] a campaign followed to discredit her evidence but now in an exclusive interview the policeman assigned to investigate her claims has broken his silence he says the inquiry was blocked because it threatened to reveal too much i'm convinced that she has been a victim that's for sure [Music] [Music] [Music] in june 1996 this belgian slum revealed a bitter secret that would come to haunt the nation [Music] the eyes of the world watched in horror into the light emerged two young girls leticia age 14 and sabine just 12 were the latest in a long line of girls who'd gone missing mark du true a convicted rapist and kidnapper had led the police to where he'd imprisoned them [Music] relief swept belgium as their tearful homecoming was caught on camera [Applause] but it soon turned to horror when police revealed the secret cage hidden in the cellar of detroit's house the girls had been kept here drugged and repeatedly raped [Music] but what of belgium's other missing children eight-year-old julian melissa who were missing for more than a year and 12 others who'd vanished mysteriously was this a new lead in the hunt for them [Music] the hopes of their parents were soon dashed within days marc de true led police to the site where the bodies of julie lejeune and melissa russo were buried the parents were informed but when the russos asked to see their daughter melissa for the last time they were refused we begged we were crying to see her really we insisted with our lawyer we really cried they said no it's not possible that's the law but we said what's the point of the law and they said it's for your own psychological good it's not up to them to know what's good for our psychological well-being what would have been good for us was to be certain [Music] it's six years since the police unearthed the bodies of julian melissa buried in the garden of this house [Music] what's extraordinary to me is that though detroit's in jail he's never been tried for these crimes it's as though the judicial system froze when faced with having to bring him to trial officially due true lived on benefits yet this house now derelict was one of five that he owned the bodies of two more missing girls were found at another effie lambrechs and ann marshall i didn't believe that it was possible that children were kept in in a cellar and were raped and and uh kept there until that youtubers get taken to prison and that he that we could see the seller at that moment i had to believe before the murders mark dutroux had already been convicted of five charges of rape and kidnapping yet somehow he'd served only six years in jail before he was released back into the shalawah underworld this was once belgium's industrial heartland but today its most famous industry is crime de true melted back into this realm of prostitution drug traffic and stolen cars and began to plan his next project the kidnap of children for the parents now burying their murdered daughters after more than a year of fruitless searching this was not the end of their nightmare they would soon find out that du true had been a prime suspect from the start yet nothing had been done to save their girls melissa's father is still asking why his daughter was allowed to die ten days after the kidnapping of julian melissa in 95 three witnesses said it was do true who's kidnapping children but they don't go looking for julian melissa at his house straight after the kidnapping it's inexplicable and he continues to kidnap other children they put a special surveillance unit towards do true and he continues to kidnap children it's inexplicable the whole thing is inexplicable from start to finish what is known is that de true was finally caught when his white van was identified it had been used to snatch a sixth girl miles away from his home patch the man who arrested de true was jean-marc conorad an investigating magistrate he became a national hero uniquely respected by the parents of the murdered children yes someone who wants to know the truth you can feel it when you talk to him you can feel that he wants to investigate that he want to have the truth he is a very good magistrate conrad arrested de true's associates among the first was jean-michel nihou had been seen at the site of the latest abduction the night before they'd been in constant phone contact the day it happened and the next day mihul gave ten thousand pounds worth of drugs to an accomplice of de true one witness claimed nehul had ordered a girl connorate knew nicole had influential friends he suspected he was the brains behind a network supplying clients with children to abuse it's a charge nicole denies conrad appealed to the public for information when i saw him walking down the stairs i thought that i knew everything about him it was a shock i thought finally this stopped him regina luff was one of the first to come forward she said that as a child she'd been abused for many years in a pedophile network involving nichol and du true i remember michelle new as a very cruel man he abused children in a very sadistic way she says that at the age of 12 she was taken with other children to sex parties and she told investigators du true was there working for nihol the true was a boy who brought drugs cocaine and something like that to these parties who brought some girls uh watched girls on these parties neil he he was a sort of party beast know the truth was more on the side nihil denies he's ever met regina loof but her stories never changed new who she said was one of those who organized the parties and invited the cream of belgian society judges politicians and influential businessmen in order to compromise them it was big business yeah and it was very well organized too there's a lot of money going on there and a lot of blackmail also they had a lot of parties they filmed it even so yes yes it exists i know it sounds crazy and i know that there is a big taboo on everything like that but it exists you know regina luff's story was horrific but her account of a violent pedophile underworld was by now reinforced by new witnesses some of whom also named influential people [Music] the investigation began the witnesses identities were protected each was given a code name beginning with x regina was x1 they went up to x9 their testimonies became known as belgium's x-files [Music] the task of trying to verify them fell to a young police investigator they were telling stories we haven't heard before in our lives things we couldn't believe at the first so we told ourselves is this true could this be true and when it is true it's very it's very it's it's frightening that things like that could happen we had a special room for the interviews it was specially equipped for people who have been victimized by such matters there was a camera in the room they were done mostly in the evening or the early hours when interviews were finished they were written down by a few people of my team all the way from the first word to the last literally but before the investigation could get underway there was a bombshell jean-marc conrad the man who'd arrested du true who'd saved the imprisoned girls was sacked from the case [Music] his removal caused a public outcry belgians lost faith in their judicial system they descended on the palace of justice and accused the courts of colluding with the killers [Music] the father of one of the murdered girls spoke for all investigating magistrate long dwa who's never done the job before it's his first appointment in the most important investigation in the biggest file of the century you're going to put in an investigating magistrate who's never done the job before can you understand 300 000 outraged belgians marched through brussels in a demonstration of grief and solidarity this white march was the largest protest the country had ever seen belgians felt that the dismissal of conrad was a betrayal of de true's victims that it signaled the end of any real search for a network the two rescued girls were overwhelmed the country's highest legal authorities had removed the only judge in which the public had any faith because he'd attended a fundraising dinner for the families of missing children a conflict of interest they called it a lack of judgment the government feared a revolution i think they were a kind of insurrection climate a kind of pre-revolutionary climate here you know the big powers in belgium so the magistrate and the political circles the government the parliament everything was totally discredited everything was totally discredited [Music] no one knew what to believe anymore rumor and speculation spawned a variety of wild theories he will instigate ultimate fear a feature film suggested the whole affair was part of an extreme right-wing plot to destabilize the country i'm very pleased victor 300 000 idiots marching in brussels an ocean of white balloons magnificent pathetic and impressive at the same time we really got them exactly where we want them to appease the public's concern parliament set up the true new hull commission mercy as the pressure grew more and more they decided in a kind of panic climate to create the commission because the political world had to try to find an answer but what the commission revealed was incompetence that beggared belief police had been told of dutrue's plans to make money by kidnapping children they had his house under surveillance throughout the abductions they even searched inside and heard the sound of children but failed to find the dungeon what it established beyond doubt was that the girls could have been saved [Music] they had everything they needed to arrest her that's the scandal of this affair the true was known he had previous forms they had valid intelligence that he built the hiding place in the cellar for the little girls but when the parliamentary commission began to ask why was it incompetence or had someone in authority protected due true cooperation with their investigation stopped it was completely sabotaged to the point that all the work they did has been locked away in archives for 30 years b if the commission's job had been to restore stability to clear the air of insurrection it worked the danger to belgium's establishment was over but there was still no answer to the most important question was the catalogue of failures pure incompetence or had de true and his friends enjoyed protection were they protected on the question of protection we didn't discover much unless you count the best protection that to true could have had and that's the incompetence of belgium's police and judicial system but xiaomi the man suspected of hiring de true to kidnap children was released from jail after just five months it's still unclear if he'll ever come to trial and some members of the commission remain convinced he is protected we succeeded in demonstrating that neil was really an artist in protection really a specialized man in manipulate manipulating inquiries policemen and judges we had proofs about that nihil's release just left more unanswered questions for the families the mother of melissa carren russo has access to the legal evidence the court will bring against you she's found no answers nothing to clarify who stole raped and killed her daughter all charges to true denies there's no material evidence no witness statements which state that it was due true who really kidnapped the children who really raped them and who really killed them it's a catastrophe because nothing is any more clear today nothing is clear the parents suspect true was not acting alone that others were involved in abducting and hiding the girls when he was briefly imprisoned for car theft in november 1995 to to claims to have left the girls in his cellar in this specially constructed cage with a little food and water on his release after nearly four months due to claims he found the children barely alive that he tried to save them but they died in his arms but for the russos this story can't be true [Music] four months incarceration of two little girls of eight years old in a cellar in the middle of winter but when i say seller it's a little hide built inside the cellar so it's tiny three meters by two even less [Music] then he says when he came out of prison four months later they're still alive well then they're super human it's unimaginable two children of eight holding out alone with nothing to sustain them no food no heat no human no psychological contact nothing in a little cage like that for such a long time and survive so how did they survive so long did someone else keep them alive the palace of justice in liege is the seat of one of belgium's most powerful figures prosecutor general anne tilly who's in charge of the case she says there's no evidence to contradict the true's version of how the children died so how did the children survive so long nearly four months until detroit was released from prison melissa was nearly dead and then she died i think it was the next day but melissa how could she have survived nearly four months survive in what condition in a lamentable state she was so weak she could not get up that's according to the true of course no one else was there [Music] the true was acting alone this is the mantra repeated again and again in belgium with a certitude that for the victims parents is inexplicable they believe that investigators have blocked every lead rejected every clue which would reveal that du true was kidnapping girls for someone else most painful perhaps is the autopsy report which shows melissa had been repeatedly raped about two weeks before her death while detrue was in jail so who raped this child do true denies he raped the girls [Music] but isn't it simple to find out if to true rape them or someone else scientifically normally yes in principle yes but in fact the most elementary scientific tests like dna tests the traces of the culprit on the body of the child were just not done back in the palace of justice they say the dna tests were done but the results were inconclusive can you explain why there was no dna analysis done dna analysis was done and the results nothing what does that mean that there was no trace of sperm they were in a very putrified state it did not allow us to make an analysis of that type of sperm or anything that's not what's written in the autopsy report again the story doesn't square the bodies weren't severely decomposed dna can be identified from samples taken long after death the question remains unanswered why is there no dna result might it have shown that someone else had raped melissa other forensic tests that should have been routine were just not done human hairs collected from detrue's dungeon weren't sent for analysis the logic was strange they claimed that as there was no evidence anyone else had entered the cage there was no need to analyze the hair in five years conor successor has shed no light on the abduction imprisonment or death of the girls jacques langlois refused to be interviewed don't believe in a sort of network for language the true is the only one who used the girls for do for following it's uh uh it's simple there's one raper the true enclosed case [Music] by the spring of 1997 evidence of a pedophile network linked to the detroit affair was emerging from the testimony of the ex-witnesses [Music] regina luff had provided investigators with details of her childhood abuse which they'd begun to check in one of her testimonies she explained how a certain person had been murdered in a certain place so uh we went to look for that case that old case she described where it happened more or less i remember it like it's a film in my head i can close my eyes and see every little detail of that house she went where she was murdered [Music] regina loof described a house where in 1984 she said she saw the torture and murder of a young girl the house was connected to an underground mushroom farm the building has since been demolished but rudy hoskins team identified it and matched regina's story to an unsolved murder that of fifteen-year-old christine van gaace he gave us some details that made us think that it's impossible to give without having been there at that place or without having yeah lived that in the way the body was found at that time and the way she described the person was was killed there were some things that were similar it was a sort of bondage so her legs and her hands and her throat were connected with the same rope and when she moved she strangled herself yeah the credibility of regina luke's testimony hinged partly on whether she really knew the house where christine van gaace was killed [Music] this man grew up there though his family sold it before the murder it was two houses knocked into one with a unique passage of stairs and corridors no one he says could describe it unless they'd been there there was the corridor here between the two houses and she drew a picture of the doors inside there were antique doors and she drew the moldings she described the wallpaper and the front step i don't know how she could have described it all so faithfully if she'd ever entered the house i don't know reginald i've never even met her all i know is from her description of the house of the mushroom farm my brother and i agreed i'm sure it's certain she entered the mushroom farm the police were now convinced they were on to something that reginaluff's testimony was credible [Music] what's more it gave them a new link between mark de true and the man accused of being his boss jean-michel nihou [Music] in the year before her death christine van gaace was a regular visitor to the brussels ice rink where mark dutroux also went he'd already been banned from the rink in charwa where he was notorious for molesting girls the manager remembers it well [Music] and then i saw him with the young girl who was up against the lockers like this was in front of her with his hands all over her like this is [Music] and when he found out what was happening he wanted to hit him so i grabbed his arm otherwise he would have punched him when she wasn't skating christine van gaace used to spend time in the building of a pirate radio station it belonged to jean-michel nihou both men to true and who were at christine van gaace's murder according to regina luff and de trus involved in the murder he watched it and it didn't do something anything and so he abused her that night so yes he was involved how many people were there i still don't know for sure but rounds eight new who the true and another others so but everybody except the true is free nihil denied it but her testimony was dynamite if true it meant detrue and nicole were linked with another murder but then out of the blue the investigation was stopped we received a message that we couldn't investigate anyone just like that we were sent home just like that without an explanation because our work hasn't been done all right very strange why were you taking off this case i wish i knew perhaps you were touching something we couldn't touch some people say this we didn't have to prove at that moment to say things like that but perhaps we were coming closer to some things yeah perhaps like what things i know something belgium or the world shouldn't know about patrick de batz the head of hoskins team had been one of belgium's most respected police investigators it was he who'd taken regina's testimony now he too was sent home accused of manipulating her evidence patrick debates who questioned her was accused of planting some of the information so that she would reproduce it you watched that investigation was that true no no way no way but we even had some magistrates judges and superior john ambry officers watching how we interviewed and they watched it from the first to the last moment and if we did haven't done it right at that time they should have set us don't work that way but they didn't tell us anything for dabats and his colleagues charged with manipulating an inquiry a kafkaesque battle now began to clear their names they were suspended and regina luff got a call from a member of the new team assigned in their place his motive was clear he said well we have to search for mistakes you made now and it's you have to prove now that you are right and i said no i don't have to prove that i am right you have to investigate if i'm right or not i'm not a police officer i can do house search and and i can't interrogate my abuses you have to do that i just can't tell my story and and make testimony that's all i can do and said wrong you have to prove it news about regina's story began to leak out when the media took it up it was to destroy her [Music] french language channel was unequivocal the bats was guilty they declared and regina luff a sinister and deranged liar i think regina luff is a pathological liar she's a woman who's invented scenarios that don't stand up to scrutiny it's all been shown to be fiction well no not according to the investigators who were sacked they don't agree with you they say they weren't even allowed to investigate no that's not accurate i continue to believe these men did not do their jobs properly and that they let the public think that what regina lou from the other anonymous witnesses said was partly true that's all a tissue of lies stories verging on the pornographic they make no sense won't you manipulate it i mean people have said she was completely mad she invented the whole thing some people uh yeah some people say this but they weren't there we lived all the testimonies we've seen them we did the investigations so uh for ourselves we know what should have been right or what could have been wrong but when you don't you haven't lived it but you haven't seen everything you can give an opinion on this it's impossible but we found some things that should have been investigated more [Applause] i'm married for 13 years i have four children i live a normal life i have a business of my own so i'm not crazy we are labeled as crazy we have a stigma we are stigmatized as crazy persons because we had the courage to talk about things that happened in our past with persons who played a role in the belgian economy or politics or something like that it was easier to to made us crazy than to believe us despite its earlier investigating zeal belgium's parliament now stood by as regina luff's testimony was declared worthless the judiciary announced it would not be used in any trial and that might have been the end of it had the files of the entire de true investigation not been leaked marijuan van gaswick and two other investigative journalists had access to every witness statement every police report in the detroit affair their book on belgium's x-files shook the country how did you get the information for the book we had the opportunity to see the whole police file on the affair and the problem is that we wanted to be sure that there was no manipulation between behind that um because it's it's always possible so we decided to meet a lot of people who were named in the files who were witnesses in the file and we met those people without saying that what we knew already and we listened to their story they found the new team had rewritten reginaldo's original statements testimony had been changed we began to check it and we began to read again all the questioning of original wolf to see how they did that they rewrite that and one by one we discovered that john down colleagues of the bats had pretended that the bats manipulate and manipulated the investigation so everybody was tricked to this day no evidence has ever been produced to support the allegations against dabats yet he continues to be accused i met him and his colleague in a brussels cafe their careers are in ruins and the investigation into regina's story is dead and yet two separate inquiries cleared them of every charge that they manipulated her testimony i'll show you the final report the inquiry of the gendarmerie it was made 26 june 2000 so what does this mean another bad policeman but now that's cleared you you face new new charges new allegations new accusations against you i'm not afraid of them because i know the conclusions will be the same but why this constant barrage of accusations i don't know i can imagination things but for six years the parents of the murdered girls have grappled with the inexplicable why were their daughters left to die why has de true never come to trial and why has every lead that might have revealed a network behind de true been blocked or ignored but belgium's lost interest in their struggle today anyone who talks of a network even the parents is dismissed as deranged i talked in press about children who were raped and so on and they started again with saying that i am a little bit foolish and that i'm fantasizing sure that in several years everyone will believe that networks will exist then they have to accept since mark de true's arrest anyone who's questioned the official line has been attacked every lead that might have widened the net has hit the buffers du true meanwhile has sat in jail but outside in the shadowy circles in which he moved potential witnesses in the true affair have died in strange ways a police informer with links to the shalawah underworld jose stepp told a journalist he had explosive information onto true two days before they were due to meet he died his family believes he was poisoned [Music] jean-paul tamino was up to his neck in the shalawah underworld of stolen cars and prostitution he was summoned to see the shalawah police and disappeared the day of detroit's arrest his foot was fished out of the canal it's quite a coincidence that they died just before they want to testify you know that's strange [Music] social worker gina pardons worked with abused children she'd identified the pedophile members of a pornography ring who threatened her when she reported the threats to the police she was killed in an unexplained car crash francois rayskins told a friend he'd seen one of the missing girls melissa alive in holland before he could tell the police his body was found crushed on the railway line some 20 people all potential witnesses in the true affair have died in mysterious circumstances i survived it all i don't know why but i survived my abuses i survived my testimony just because i said it all why kill me now you know i met an uneasy peace is returned to belgium the streets are calm the danger of insurrection has passed the pedophile networks persist sometimes there are even arrests earlier this year 19 men from one village were charged with child rape [Music] but the true affair has paralyzed belgium's judiciary after six years in jail there is still no date for his trial when it comes it'll satisfy no one the trial will be true it will be a theater circus and i don't want to be part of the circus the truth is that there is a network and that they have to search for that network so that you can save other children in the future [Music] in this country we will never get to the truth there is just too much truth that needs to be exposed i'm certain that the people want to understand they're capable of understanding a lot more than the politicians and judiciary want to tell them they treat the public like children i did what i could do i testified i spoke up to the police to the judges i spoke up to the press you know i yelled it out but what can i do anymore no i can't [Music] children continue to go missing in belgium dutreux's arrest has made no difference last year it was more than two thousand fifty two of those cases remain unsolved [Music] a link of frank hill is live online now express your opinions and email her your questions at www dot bbc dot co dot uk forward slash correspondent next week the murkiest depths of french corruption a dead body floating off the coast of taiwan leads to a trail of sex intrigue and missing millions [Music]

Channel: REALWOMEN/REALSTORIES

Views: 243,776

Keywords: Real Women Real Stories, Marc Dutroux, marc dutroux, Dutroux, Michel Nihoul, orgies, sexually abused, human trafficking, Regina Louf, regina louf, pedophilia, Pedophilia documentary, the marc dutroux case, criminal justice system, Belgium, child molester, Child Molesters, Affaire Dutroux, Anneke Lucas, anneke lucas, monster of belgium, belgium monster, Pedophile, sexual abuse, child abuse, murderer, crime documentary, serial killer, sex trafficking documentary, crimes

Id: KZmtuH_Bjt4

Length: 44min 17sec (2657 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 21 2022