Carine Russo (née Collet; born 1 May 1962)
is a Belgian politician, member of
Ecolo
Ecolo, officially Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales'', (English: Confederate Ecologists for the Organisation of Original Struggles)'' is a French-speaking political party in Belgium based on green politics. The ...
, and author. She was elected as a member of the
Belgian Senate
The Senate ( nl, Senaat, ; french: Sénat, ; german: Senat) is one of the two chambers of the bicameral Federal Parliament of Belgium, the other being the Chamber of Representatives. It is considered to be the "upper house" of the Federal Parli ...
in 2007.
Her daughter, Mélissa, was one of six girls and women abducted by
Marc Dutroux
Marc Paul Alain Dutroux (; born 6 November 1956) is a Belgian convicted serial killer, serial rapist, and child molester. Initially convicted for the abduction and rape of five young girls in 1989, Dutroux was released on parole after just thre ...
between 1995 and 1996.
On 24 June 1995, 8-year-old Mélissa and her friend, Julie Lejeune, also 8 years old, were abducted from
Grâce-Hollogne
Grâce-Hollogne (; wa, Gråce-Hologne) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality is effectively a part of the greater Liège conurbation, separated from Liège city centre by the municipality of ...
and imprisoned in a dungeon beneath Dutroux's house away in
Marcinelle, Charleroi,
where they eventually starved to death while Dutroux was serving time in prison for theft.
On 17 August 1996, Dutroux led police to the location where the bodies of the girls, along with that of his accomplice Bernard Weinstein, whom he admitted killing, were buried in the backyard of another of his homes in
Sars-la-Buissière.
On 17 August 2016, exactly twenty years after the exhumation of Mélissa and Lejeune's bodies, Carine Russo published a book, ''Quatorze mois'' ( en, Fourteen months), in which she included letters she had written to her daughter during the fourteen months she was missing.
See also
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Marc Dutroux
Marc Paul Alain Dutroux (; born 6 November 1956) is a Belgian convicted serial killer, serial rapist, and child molester. Initially convicted for the abduction and rape of five young girls in 1989, Dutroux was released on parole after just thre ...
*
White March
The White March (french: Marche blanche; nl, Witte Mars; german: Weißer Marsch) was a demonstration in Brussels on 20 October 1996 after serial killer and criminal Marc Dutroux was arrested. The demonstrators wanted better protection for chi ...
*
Jean-Denis Lejeune
Jean-Denis Lejeune (born 1959) is the father of Julie Lejeune, who was abducted along with Mélissa Russo in Belgium on 24 June 1995, and imprisoned in Marc Dutroux's cellar. She was eight years old at the time. She died, probably of starvation, ...
References
Living people
Ecolo politicians
Members of the Belgian Federal Parliament
1962 births
Politicians from Liège
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