Investigator recalls building trust with child killer Dutroux

Investigator Michel Demoulin described the painstaking process of gaining the trust of child murderer Marc Dutroux. Demoulin, who had experience with difficult cases, was tasked with interrogating Dutroux after the 1996 kidnapping of 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez.

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You are the investigator with the most experience in difficult cases, do you want to interrogate Marc Dutroux? I didn't know who he was at that moment.

"They tell me: 'You are the investigator with the most experience in difficult cases, do you want to interrogate Marc Dutroux?' I didn't know who he was at that moment," Demoulin recalled. He explained that confronting Dutroux immediately about the kidnapping would have been pointless. Instead, he focused on building rapport.

Demoulin spent time letting Dutroux talk about his life, understanding his personality. "By talking to someone, you can quickly understand their personality," Demoulin said. He identified Dutroux's vanity, self-satisfaction, and need for dominance as key traits he could exploit.

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By talking to someone, you can quickly understand their personality.

The breakthrough came when Dutroux agreed to cooperate if Demoulin was equally honest with his questions. This trust-building allowed Demoulin to eventually elicit confessions, leading to a resolution in a case that shocked Belgium 30 years ago.

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He had some striking personality traits: his vanity, his self-satisfaction, and his need to dominate. I used that to my advantage.