The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Laetitia Delhez.md

category	tags	summary	location	relations	created	updated
Belgium Scandals	Person Belgium Dutroux	Fourteen-year-old abducted at Bertrix on August 9, 1996, whose abduction led, through a witness's memory of three digits of a license plate, to the arrest of Marc Dutroux on August 12.	Bertrix, Belgium	type with role start end fn subject_of Marc Dutroux abducted August 9, 1996; freed August 15, 1996 1996-08-09 1996-08-15 2	2026-04-28	2026-09-22

Laetitia Delhez, aged fourteen, was abducted at Bertrix, in the province of Luxembourg, on Friday, August 9, 1996. On Monday, August 12, a witness at Bertrix gave investigators three digits of a license plate; a door-to-door inquiry began at two in the afternoon, and at about five Marc Dutroux, his wife Michelle Martin and Michel Lelievre were arrested at Charleroi. On August 13 police and gendarmes searched Dutroux's house at 128 rue de Philippeville in Marcinelle, Belgium with tracker dogs and found nothing. On Thursday, August 15, Dutroux confessed, and on his directions Laetitia and Sabine Dardenne were found alive in the house.¹ The commission of inquiry observed that "Laetitia was found through the memorization of a license plate number."¹

On June 17, 2004, the jury at Arlon convicted Dutroux of her abduction, sequestration and rape, Lelièvre of her abduction and sequestration, and Martin of her sequestration. It found that Jean-Michel Nihoul had no involvement in the abduction and sequestration of Laetitia, rejecting the "network" thesis argued by the prosecution, the Marchal family and Laetitia's own lawyers.²³

The Abduction and the Captivity

She was said to have been taken while waiting at a bus stop after visiting a local festival, by Dutroux with Lelièvre's help, and subdued with chloroform in a white van; the witness was said to have seen the van circle twice and to have noted the plate as PBX 688, a vehicle linked to Nihoul's company Achats Services Commerces. She and Sabine were described as having been conditioned with drugs and hypnosis to regard Dutroux as a protector, and as having kissed him when they came out of the cellar. The cellar, built in 1993 with the help of Claude Thirault, was the one in which Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo had been held. More than twenty calls between Dutroux and Nihoul were reported around her abduction. At the trial she was said to have testified to the roles of Martin and Lelièvre, and Lelièvre to have spoken of orders from Nihoul and of Dutroux's boasts of obtaining girls in Slovakia.⁴

Footnotes

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1. Chambre des Représentants de Belgique. Enquête parlementaire sur la manière dont l'enquête, dans ses volets policiers et judiciaires, a été menée dans l'affaire Dutroux-Nihoul et consorts, rapport, Doc. 713/6-96/97, April 18, 1997, p. 112 and the chronology of August 1996, pp. 264-266; translated from the French. https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713006.pdf ↩︎

2. "Nihoul acquitté pour les enlèvements." La Dernière Heure, June 17, 2004; translated from the French. https://www.dhnet.be/actu/faits/2004/06/17/nihoul-acquitte-pour-les-enlevements-MF73NPYQVBC25I2Y6P54BXIQDA/ ↩︎

3. "Notorious child rapist-murderer convicted." NBC News and Associated Press, June 17, 2004. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5233011 ↩︎

4. Dovey, S. Eye of the Chickenhawk. Thehotstar, 2023. Sole source for the passages so cited. Its full plate number conflicts with the commission's statement that the witness gave three digits, and its date for Dutroux's arrest (August 13, 1996) is contradicted by the commission's chronology. ↩︎