Against Their Will

by Nigel Cawthorne

  The van stopped. They collected her bike and the bag with her swimming things, which she had dropped, and threw them into the van. She seized the opportunity to spit out some pills, but she had already swallowed some of them and was beginning to feel drowsy.

  Though the man in the back of the van threatened her, she kept on yelling. But as the van took off again, she began to cry. She was scared out of her wits.

  From the floor in the back of the van, she could not see where they were going. From the sound of the wheels, she guessed they were heading down the motorway. She decided to pretend to be asleep, then try and overhear what they were saying. The guy in the back of the van who had grabbed her was clearly in charge. He had a mustache, greasy hair, and “horrible” eyes. The driver, whom he ordered around, was just “a loser,” according to Sabine.

  Her captors were Flemish speakers from the north part of the country. She did not recognize an accent and could not tell exactly where they were from.

  When the van stopped, they put her in a trunk. It was so small they had to bend her double. After a couple of minutes, the trunk was opened again and she found herself in a room with the man with the mustache. The blinds were drawn. In the corner was a cot and some toys. There was a microwave oven and a frying pan, and cupboards and shelves filled with all manner of things. On the back wall, there was a half-completed fireplace. The floor was littered with bricks and cement. In the middle of this mess was a table and chairs. Sabine noticed a telephone on top of a fridge, but it was too high for her to reach. Next to it was a staircase. Another door had planks nailed across it. She never discovered what went on in the room beyond.

  Her kidnapper took her upstairs. He told her to undress and get into one of the bunk beds. Once she was naked, he put a chain around her neck. It was just long enough for her to reach a chamber pot. He left her there overnight.

  The following day, he returned and told her that he had saved her life. His boss had wanted to kill her. Instead, he had persuaded him to demand a ransom from her parents for her safe return. The day after that, he brought in the driver, who repeated this story. Apparently, the boss wanted to get revenge on Sabine’s father, who had been in the police force. The boss was now asking for either $1 million or $3 million francs for her return. Sabine figured that, by borrowing from everyone they knew, her parents might be able to raise $1 million. But even if they sold their house and everything else, $3 million was out of the question. It was clear that if the kidnappers did not get the money, they intended to kill her.

  In the meantime, they took Polaroid pictures of her naked in her chains. In another bedroom, there was a double bed. The man with the mustache took her in there and sexually abused her. She could not stop crying, which annoyed him. He seemed to think that she should have enjoyed it. She said that he did not beat her or rape her, but the things he did to her were so disgusting that she did not want to think about it.

  She complained about being naked all the time. Eventually, he gave her back her underwear, and then, some time later, her jeans, which she could wear when she went downstairs to eat. But regularly, she was taken up for more photo sessions and “other things,” which she called his “circus.”

  Then she was told that her parents had refused to pay the ransom. The police would not come up with the money either. She was in grave danger.

  The monster who had kidnapped her and done disgusting things to her now cast himself in the role of her savior. He said he had kidnapped her because his boss had ordered him to. As no money had been forthcoming, his boss again wanted to kill her. The house, he said, was the headquarters of the boss’s gang. The boss might come at any time. However, there was a secret hidey-hole where he could keep her safe.

  He took her downstairs. Behind the shelving, there was a large concrete door. With the shelving in place, it was completely invisible. Her captor was really proud of his handy work. Behind the door were stairs that led down to the cellar, which was full of junk. To one side, there was a metal grate. Beyond it was a bed made from wooden slats with a filthy mattress on it that was falling apart.

  The cellar was only three feet wide and nine feet long, and was lit by two light bulbs. It was dirty and was so dank that Sabine feared that she might suffocate down there, until he showed her the ventilation system he had made out of the fan from an old computer.

  At the bottom of the bed, there was just enough room to put her school bag and a chamber pot. To one side was a bench and a table. On the other side there was a plank that served as a shelf, which she put her crayons and glasses on. High up, there was another shelf. On it was an old TV set connected to a Sega game console. The walls had been freshly painted bright yellow. Sabine got the impression that her captor had made this hellhole just for her.

  Once she was installed in the cellar, he brought her some bread, milk, and jerry cans full of water. These were emergency provisions, he said, in case he could not come to feed her for any reason. Sabine comforted herself with the idea that she was not going to be hidden down their forever. Her parents would work something out. She was also sure that the whole of Belgium was looking for her. In the meantime, she had her French homework to do, textbooks to read, paper and pens so she could write, and a video game to play.

  Indeed, the whole of Belgium was looking for her. Police helicopters were roaming the skies above the area where she had been taken. Posters with her picture and description were plastered on walls across the country and abroad.

  Other avenues were also explored. Had she perhaps run away because her parents were angry with her for failing her math exam? At one point, her father even came under suspicion. As hope faded, Sabine’s name joined a list of other missing girls—eight-year-old Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo who had disappeared in June 1995, and seventeen-year-old An Marchal and nineteen-year-old Eefje Lambrecks, who had gone missing together on August 23, 1995. Soon another name would be added to the list—Laetitia Delhez, aged fourteen and a half, who was to go missing on August 9, 1996.

  At one point, Sabine asked her captor what his name was. He said she could call him Alain or Marc, whichever she chose. She said that she would prefer it if he remained anonymous. The truth was his name was Marc Dutroux and he was a dangerous pedophile. Born in Ixelles, Belgium, on November 6, 1956, Dutroux was the oldest of five children. His parents, both teachers, emigrated to the Belgian Congo, but returned to Belgium when Dutroux was four. When they separated in 1971, Dutroux stayed with his mother. He married at the age of nineteen and fathered two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 1983; by then he was having an affair with Michelle Martin. In 1986, Dutroux and Martin were arrested for the abduction and rape of five young girls. Dutroux was sentenced to thirteen years, and Martin got five. They married while in prison in 1989 and would eventually have three children together, as Dutroux was released for good behavior after just three years.

  Dutroux was an electrician by trade, but in the mid-1990s he was unemployed and living on welfare in the city of Charleroi, known at the time for its high unemployment. He supplemented his income with mugging people, dealing drugs, and stealing cars that were smuggled into eastern Europe and sold in Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary. But his most lucrative sideline was in the sex trade. He made and sold pornography, and sold young girls into prostitution across Europe. By 1996, he owned seven houses in Belgium. Most of them stood vacant and were the perfect hiding places for the girls he kidnapped who were then used in pornographic videos or sold as prostitutes.

  The police knew of his activities. In 1993, an informant reported that Dutroux had offered him between $3,000 and $5,000 to kidnap young girls. In 1995, the same man told the police that Dutroux was building a dungeon where he intended to keep girls whom he would later sell into prostitution. That year, Dutroux’s own mother wrote to prosecutors telling them that her son had been keeping young girls in one of his empty houses. But no one did anything about it.

  Sabine was the latest in a line of girls that had pass
ed through Dutroux’s hands. While he held her captive in his cellar, Dutroux worked on Sabine psychologically. He told her that her parents would not pay the ransom. They did not care. Then he told her that they probably thought she was dead and had packed all her things up in cardboard boxes. The police had given up looking, he said. His boss, if he found her, would kill her. Sabine, Dutroux said, only had him to depend on—if she wanted to live.

  Sabine had to obey strict rules. She was not to cry out or make any other noise. Otherwise, his boss, who was often in the house, would come and kill her. She should occupy herself with her schoolbooks and the Sega game. When he came to get her to take her upstairs to get something to eat or do “other things,” he would say, “It’s me” before he opened the door. If anyone else came, she should lie perfectly still and keep absolutely quiet.

  Not only was Sabine terrified that the mysterious boss would come and kill her, she was also afraid that Dutroux would grow tired of her and dispose of her himself. So she had to do anything he wanted, just to stay alive. If that was not bad enough, Dutroux would describe the tortures that his boss used on those he intended to kill.

  Her life became a circle of hell. When she was let out of the cellar, she would be taken upstairs to be given something to eat. Dutroux would have prepared this himself, and it was usually inedible. Then she would be taken to the bedroom where she would have to do whatever he wanted, no matter how disgusting it was to her. After that, she was returned into the cellar. She did not know which was worse: suffocating in the cellar or being forced to watch fuzzy pornographic films on a satellite channel while he did terrible things to her.

  Even the ordinary things in life became almost unendurable. When she asked if she could bathe, he decided that he must wash her himself. They would take a bath together. To remain even passably clean, she had to undergo this hideous ordeal. He would scrub her so hard that she would come out of the bathroom covered in red sores.

  Naturally, she kept an eye out for ways to escape. While she was upstairs eating, she noticed that he sometimes left a key in the lock, but he always kept himself between her and the front door. If she had reached the door, it would not have made any difference, he realized. She did not know where she was, and he would have grabbed her as soon as she got outside.

  Occasionally, the doorbell would ring. He would go out for a second or two, then return, saying that it was one of the gang. Stories about the gang and his boss began to bore her.

  Sabine also kept up a psychological battle against Dutroux. As well as asking when she could go home and see her parents again, she asked him for the things she needed for everyday life—better food, a pillow for her bed, clean clothes, paper to draw on, a toothbrush. This made him angry. She could tell that he did not use a toothbrush himself. It also annoyed him when she refused to drink curdled milk or eat moldy bread. It was as if it was her fault they had gone bad. In the end, though, she had to take what she was given—she would be forced to eat rancid hamburger while he feasted on steak.

  She asked to be allowed to call her parents, only to be told that the line had to be kept open in case they called to agree to the ransom demand. It did not make sense, as he had already said they had refused to pay. Then he told her that the phone on top of the fridge was the hotline to the boss. If she tried to use it, she would get through to the boss, and she knew where that would lead. The boss, he said, was richer and more powerful than the prime minister

  To hold herself together, Sabine began to think of Dutroux as an idiot who was prey to a thousand tricks. It was her job to run rings round him. She badgered him until he bought her a clock radio. At least she could hear some music, though she could not tune in to a news channel and remained cut off from the outside world. The numbers on the clock also provided her with a diversion. She would associate each number with something from her everyday life—her father’s age, her mother’s birthday, the address of her grandmother’s house. Next she began working on him to get her a new mattress. The one she had was falling apart, and there were insects inside it. Some of them flew around. Sabine was afraid of insects, but she did not like squashing them. Her body was covered with bites. Eventually, he sprayed the cellar with insecticide.

  As there was no one else to talk to in the cellar, she began talking to herself. This helped keep her spirits up. She kept up her schoolwork, especially math. When she failed her math exam, it was a great disappointment to her parents. In idle moments, she thought about her dog, Sam, and her goldfish, Tifi.

  She used an exercise book as a diary to record the terrible things that she had to undergo. She also wrote a letter to her parents, describing her situation. Dutroux said that a friend of his would take it to her mother. In response, he said, her mother told her to eat properly, wash, and enjoy the sex. As they could not afford to pay the ransom, she was going to have to stay there, so she should make the best of it and be Dutroux’s new girlfriend. Sabine could not really believe that her mother had said any of those things, but there was no way for her to know whether or not the letter had been delivered. So she wrote to her parents again saying that she accepted her prison, despite the squalor and abuse. She also that they must have done something really bad for her to be punished this way. But how was she to enjoy the revolting things he did not her? It did not make sense.

  On June 21, Dutroux announced that he was going on a “mission.” This was good news, as she would be spared doing “other things.” On the other hand, she would have to stay locked in the cellar. She could not stand the dark, so she left the light on all the time. And he left her with extra provisions—canned tomatoes and meatballs (she should drink the juice), moldy bread, and cookies.

  When Dutroux returned, he began a new routine. Instead of leaving her in the cellar at night, he chained her to his bed and forced her to sleep next to him. But she did not dare go to sleep for fear he would start doing things to her while she was unconscious. Although she was not strong enough to fight him off, putting up some sort of fight helped her self-esteem. She spent the nights staring at the ceiling, thinking of ways that she could kill him or at least drive him over the edge.

  To annoy him, she whined about everything: not being able to call her parents, her chain not being long enough, not having a TV Guide. Other times, she would curse, call him an asshole or a shit, or tell him what he was doing to her was not normal. It made no difference. He merely dismissed her complaints and “sniveling.” Eventually, she realized that he liked to see her cry, so she resolved to give that up. This was difficult. As a late developer, her twelve-year molars were just coming in, and she suffered from a constant toothache. She had to keep quiet about this, however. The first time she had mentioned it, he offered to pull them out himself.

  From a sideways peek at the mail, she discovered his name and the address of the house where she was being held. She was in Marcinelle, a suburb of Charteroi, fifty miles from her home in Tournai. She also noticed that one of the old magazines he lent her had a cell number on it, and she asked him if he had ever been to prison. He admitted that he had, for a long time. But he boasted that the law now meant nothing to him. He could do what he liked. He was clever enough to cover his tracks and, this time, the cops did not have a hope in hell of catching him.

  As one of her small acts of rebellion, she began to look through the junk in the cellar that she had been told not to touch. In an old shoe box, she found pictures of a naked girl. It was her.

  Although she hated having him around, things were even worse when he went away. She suffered from claustrophobia in the cellar. It was always either too hot or too cold. Down there, she could not wash, clean her teeth, or empty her chamber pot. He would go away for as long as six days at a time, and it was impossible to get away from the stench.

  It was ingrained in her to keep perfectly quiet while he was away. But once the power went off and the ventilation fan stopped. She feared that she was going to suffocate and started screaming as loudly as she could. It made n
o difference. No one came. Eventually, the electricity came back on again.

  However, screaming out loud had stirred up her will to fight. She braced herself against the wall and pushed at the concrete door. To her surprise, she managed to move the door, at first by just an inch. After taking a breath and a sip of water, she pushed again. This time there was a crash and the mechanism jammed. Now she could not open the door any farther; nor could she close it. She feared that, when Dutroux saw what she had done, he would kill her. She knew he had a gun. He had shown it to her. But when he came back, he merely cursed her for being so stupid. The boss could have come and seen the entrance to the hidey-hole. He would have come in and gotten her, then tortured her and killed her. Dutroux’s eyes bulged with anger as he said this. But to Sabine’s surprise, he did not hit her. He fixed the door, and she never tried to shift it again.

  As well as being his sex slave, Sabine was also expected to be Dutroux’s servant. She had to get him his coffee, though she was not allowed any herself. While she had to clean the house, she was not allowed to clean the filthy cellar where she lived. There was no washing machine in the house, so her clothes grew filthy. When she got the chance, she would wash out her panties in the bathroom.

  She wrote more letters detailing the terrible things that she had to endure at Dutroux’s hands. They were never sent, of course.

  As time went on, the sexual abuse got worse. Dutroux finally raped Sabine and showed no sympathy for the physical suffering he put her through, let alone the mental anguish. In her letters to her mother, Sabine pleaded with her to let her come home. Whatever she had done to deserve this punishment, she said, she would not do it again. From now on, she promised, she would be the perfect child.