Avenue de Philippeville 128 in Charleroi – this address brings back the worst memories in Belgium. This is where the “House of Horrors” stood, where the child molester Marc Dutroux abused and imprisoned his victims. Two girls he had kidnapped in 1995, both eight years old, starved to death in the cellar dungeon while Dutroux was once again in custody. An officer who searched the house much too late heard children’s voices but thought they were coming from the street. When Dutroux was free again, he buried their bodies in the garden. The place will always remain associated with horror. But in the future, the focus should no longer be on the perpetrator, but rather on his victims.
A memorial garden was opened on the property in the Marcinelle district on Tuesday. “Between heaven and earth” is what the parents of the two girls, Julie and Mélissa, called the place. Dutroux’s house and the house next door, bought by the city, had been demolished the previous year. Except for the basement, where the girls Julie and Mélissa died in agony. The relatives wanted to preserve this place in case there were further criminal investigations against Dutroux. The monument now arches in a semicircle in the gap on a street corner. A wall, one and a half meters high and made of white-painted clinker bricks, forms the foundation of the garden. The adjacent facades of the houses were also provided with this clinker brick, which contrasts with their red tones. On one facade there is a picture of a girl flying a kite into the sky.
“Thank you for preserving the memory of the girls,” said Jean-Denis Lejeune, the father of the killed Julie, at the opening of the memorial garden financed by the city. Mélissa’s father once again accused the authorities of making serious mistakes in the investigation. Gino Russo said he could not make peace with the terrible acts. For him, it is already a concession that he is taking part in the project at all. Marc Dutroux was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004. The court found him guilty of kidnapping and raping six girls and young women and murdering two of the victims in 1995 and 1996.
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