Case snapshot
Sabine Dardenne was 12 years old when she was dragged off her bike on a quiet Belgian road in May 1996. For 80 days, she lived in a hidden basement cell, fed lies about why she was there and why no one was coming to save her. Her rescue didn’t come from the search. It came from a white van spotted in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The moment she disappeared
On May 28, 1996, Sabine left her home in Tournai, Belgium, and pedaled toward school on the same route she’d taken hundreds of times before. It was around 7:00 in the morning. The streets were familiar, suburban, unremarkable.
She never made it to class.
According to witness reports compiled by Belgian investigators, a man in a white Peugeot van pulled alongside her. He dragged her off the bike, forced her into the vehicle, and drove away. The abduction took seconds. One neighbor reported hearing a scream but couldn’t identify the source. By the time authorities were notified, Sabine was already miles away.
Her bicycle was found abandoned near the roadside. No clear signs of struggle. No cameras in the area. No physical evidence left behind. The only lead was the vague description of a white commercial van.
The search begins
Sabine’s parents reported her missing immediately. Local police launched a search operation that expanded across the region within hours. Flyers went up. Volunteers combed parks, empty lots, wooded areas. Investigators followed up on tips that led nowhere.
What they didn’t know was that Sabine was being held less than 50 miles away, in the basement of a house in Marcinelle, a small town near Charleroi. The home belonged to Marc Dutroux, a convicted sex offender who had been released from prison just three years earlier after serving time for the kidnapping of Sabine Dardenne and the rape of five young girls in the 1980s.
Dutroux had built a concealed dungeon in his basement. Soundproofed. Hidden behind a false wall. Equipped with a bed, a toilet, and nothing else. Sabine was locked inside.
What she was told
Dutroux didn’t just imprison Sabine. He manipulated her understanding of the situation entirely.
According to Sabine’s own testimony, later documented in her memoir “I Choose to Live,” Dutroux told her she had been kidnapped by a criminal organization. He claimed he had rescued her from them, but that she couldn’t leave because the organization was still hunting her. He told her that her parents had been informed and were in hiding. He said the police were involved, but that going to them would put her family in danger.
She was 12. She believed him.
He controlled when she ate, when the lights stayed on, and what information she received. He gave her schoolwork to complete and told her that cooperating would keep her safe. He sexually assaulted her repeatedly.
Sabine later described feeling confused, isolated, and desperate to understand why none of it made sense. She wrote letters to her parents, letters that Dutroux claimed he would deliver. He never did.
The second victim
On August 9, 1996, more than two months after Sabine was taken, Dutroux abducted another girl. Laetitia Delhez, 14 years old, was grabbed near a public swimming pool in Bertrix, a town in southern Belgium. Like Sabine, she was forced into the back of a white van and driven away.
This time, there was a witness. A woman saw the abduction and immediately wrote down a partial license plate number. She called the police. Within hours, investigators had a match. The van was registered to Marc Dutroux.
The raid
On August 13, 1996, Belgian police surrounded Dutroux’s home in Marcinelle. They arrested him without incident. When they searched the house, they found the hidden door in the basement.
Behind it, they found Sabine and Laetitia. Both alive.
Sabine had been imprisoned for 80 days. Laetitia had been there for four. They were malnourished, terrified, disoriented. But they were alive, and that made them the rare exceptions.
What else was found
The discovery of Sabine and Laetitia was only the beginning of what investigators would uncover. Dutroux’s property yielded evidence of at least four other victims. Girls who had not survived.
In the backyard, police found the bodies of two eight-year-old girls, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo, who had been abducted in June 1995. Medical examiners determined they had starved to death while Dutroux was serving a brief prison sentence for car theft. He had not told anyone they were locked in his basement.
Two other victims, An Marchal and Eefje Lambrecks, both 19 years old, were later found buried at another property owned by Dutroux. They had been drugged, sexually assaulted, and killed.
Investigators also uncovered hundreds of hours of homemade videotapes documenting sexual abuse. Some of the victims in the videos were never identified.
The accomplices
Dutroux did not act alone. His wife, Michelle Martin, was arrested and charged as an accomplice. She admitted to knowing about the hidden basement and acknowledged that she had been aware Julie and Mélissa were imprisoned there while Dutroux was in jail. She did not feed them. She claimed she was too afraid of them to go downstairs.
Michel Lelièvre, an associate of Dutroux, was also arrested. He confessed to helping with at least one abduction and was charged as an accomplice.
Bernard Weinstein, another associate, was found dead and buried on one of Dutroux’s properties. Dutroux admitted to drugging and killing him, claiming Weinstein had become a liability.
The trial and its aftermath
Marc Dutroux’s trial began in 2004, nearly eight years after his arrest. It was one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings in Belgian history. Sabine Dardenne testified against him in court, describing the 80 days she spent in his basement and the psychological control he exerted over her.
Dutroux was convicted of kidnapping, rape, and murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Michelle Martin received 30 years. Michel Lelièvre received 25 years.
The case triggered a national reckoning in Belgium. Investigators faced intense criticism for missed opportunities. Dutroux had been under surveillance multiple times, and police had even searched his home in 1995 while Julie and Mélissa were still alive in the basement. Officers reported hearing children’s voices but did not investigate further. The failure became a symbol of systemic incompetence and possible corruption.
More than 300,000 people marched in Brussels in October 1996 in what became known as the White March, demanding justice and reform.
What happened to Sabine
Sabine Dardenne survived, but her life was irrevocably altered. In 2004, she published her memoir, “I Choose to Live,” detailing her captivity and her fight to reclaim her identity. She described the psychological manipulation, the fear, and the confusion that shaped those 80 days. She also spoke about the anger she felt toward a system that had failed to find her sooner.
She has largely stayed out of the public eye since the trial, choosing privacy over publicity. In interviews, she has said she refuses to let Dutroux define the rest of her life.
Laetitia Delhez, the second girl rescued from the basement, has also remained private. Little is known about her life after the trial, a decision that appears deliberate.
Where to dive deeper
- Documentary: “Monster of Belgium” (“Crimes That Shook the World”)
- Book: “I Choose to Live” by Sabine Dardenne
- Podcast: “Le Monstre Season 1” (iHeartPodcasts/Tenderfoot TV)
