On August 15, 1996, Sabine and Leticia, two 12- and 14-year-old teenagers, were released from the house alive, and Detroit locked them in a crypt he had built in the basement. But it was too late for his other victims.
The “House of TerrorIn Charleroi, one of the residences of the Belgian pedophile and murderer Mark Dietrou, where he held many young girls captive in 1995-96, will be demolished and a monument to his victims will be erected in its place.
The demolition work, which is expected to last ten days, started this morning in the popular Marcinel district of Charleroi.
The Belgian property where serial killer Marc Dutroux hid young girls he had kidnapped is being demolished to make way for a memorial to victims of paedophilia https://t.co/RevxyI88iU
– RTÉ News (@rtenews) June 7, 2022
On August 15, 1996, Sabine and Leticia, two 12- and 14-year-old teenagers, were released from the house alive, and Detroit locked them in a crypt he had built in the basement. But it was too late for his other victims. The next day in another house of Detroit were found dead two 8-year-old girls who had also been imprisoned in Marcinel. Julie and Melissa were abducted in June 1995, 14 months earlier, and starved to death.
The workers today, with the help of a crane, removed the roof tiles. The demolition will be done gradually, from top to bottom.
According to local authorities, a garage and the neighboring house will also be demolished, but the basements will be preserved, as the families of the victims wanted. The goal is by the end of 2023 to create a “garden-monument” on the site in place of the notorious houses. The monument, to be called “Between Earth and Sky”, was designed in collaboration with Julie and Melissa’s parents who wanted to plant trees and flowers there, “symbols of life“, Explained Sarah Bunderban, the representative of the mayor Paul Maniet.
The garden will be slightly elevated, in relation to the road, and in the future there will be the possibility to visit the basements.
The families, who feel that not all of their questions have been answered by the forensic investigation (such as the duration of the children’s detention, the existence of possible accomplices of Dietro) want to keep the basements in case further investigations are made in the future.
Mark Dietrou, now 65, was sentenced in 2004 to life in prison for abducting, capturing and raping six girls and young women. Sabine and Leticia, found two days after his arrest, are the only surviving victims.
