---
category: Belgium Scandals
created: 2026-05-14
died: 1995
location: Hasselt, Belgium
relations:
- end: 1996-09-03
  fn: 2
  role: abducted August 22-23, 1995; body found September 3, 1996
  start: 1995-08-22
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[Marc Dutroux]]'
- fn: 4
  role: daughter
  type: relative_of
  with: '[[Paul Marchal]]'
summary: Seventeen-year-old from Hasselt abducted with Eefje Lambrecks on the Belgian
  coast on the night of August 22, 1995; their bodies were found under a shed at Jumet
  on September 3, 1996.
tags:
- Person
- Belgium
- Dutroux
updated: 2026-09-22
---

An Marchal, aged seventeen, of Hasselt, disappeared with her friend [Eefje Lambrecks](/people/eefje-lambrecks/), aged nineteen, on the Belgian coast on August 22, 1995, on their way back from a hypnosis show at Ostend. The police at Westende did not treat their friends' report of August 23 as serious, and the national criminal intelligence bureau issued a non-urgent notice on August 24; the police at Hasselt acted at once on her parents' report.[^1][^2]

Their bodies were found on September 3, 1996, in a pit under a shed at Jumet.[^2] At the trial [Marc Dutroux](/people/marc-dutroux/) said the two had been taken, with [Michel Lelievre](/people/michel-lelievre/), "for Nihoul's network," held chained on the first floor of his house at Marcinelle for fifteen days, and then taken away by [Bernard Weinstein](/people/bernard-weinstein/) and Lelièvre; the pathologists found that both had died of advanced malnutrition.[^2] On June 17, 2004, the jury convicted Dutroux of the murders of An and Eefje and Lelièvre, who admitted the abduction, of her abduction and sequestration with the aggravating circumstance of torture causing death. [Jean-Michel Nihoul](/people/jean-michel-nihoul/) was acquitted of the abduction charges; the jury set aside the "network" thesis argued by the prosecution and by the Marchal family's lawyers. Her father, Paul Marchal, said: "They are guilty of everything, even the killings, even the torture."[^3][^4]

The gendarme [Rene Michaux](/people/rene-michaux/), who ran the surveillance operation [Operation Othello](/programs/operation-othello/), searched Dutroux's house in December 1995 and did not find the concealed cellar.[^5]

[^1]: Chambre des Représentants de Belgique. *Enquête parlementaire sur la manière dont l'enquête, dans ses volets policiers et judiciaires, a été menée dans l'affaire Dutroux-Nihoul et consorts,* rapport, Doc. 713/6-96/97, April 18, 1997, pp. 78-80; translated from the French. https://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/PDF/49/0713/49K0713006.pdf
[^2]: Fleury, Elisabeth. "Le calvaire d'An et Eefje." *Le Parisien,* April 5, 2004; translated from the French. https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/le-calvaire-d-an-et-eefje-05-04-2004-2004887724.php
[^3]: "Nihoul acquitté pour les enlèvements." *La Dernière Heure,* June 17, 2004; translated from the French. https://www.dhnet.be/actu/faits/2004/06/17/nihoul-acquitte-pour-les-enlevements-MF73NPYQVBC25I2Y6P54BXIQDA/
[^4]: "Notorious child rapist-murderer convicted." NBC News and Associated Press, June 17, 2004. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5233011
[^5]: "Belgian policeman haunted by Dutroux error." *Irish Examiner,* 2004. https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-30140605.html