BELGIAN police yesterday dug up the garden of one of the houses owned by the convicted paedophile, Marc Dutroux, without finding any trace of the corpses of five girls thought to be buried there, prolonging the agony for a dozen families waiting for news of their missing children.
The house was formerly occupied by Bernard Weinstein, who collaborated with Dutroux in the creation of what police believe may be an international child sex ring. Dutroux has admitted murdering his former accomplice last month.
A police spokesman, Mr Jean Marie Boudin, said the search, aided by German sniffer dogs, had been extended to the cellar and garden of a neighbouring house where signs of recent digging had been discovered.
Weinstein had squatted in the neighbouring house from last September to April, he added, raising the possibility that some or all of the corpses had been moved.
Dutroux, who was smuggled to the scene in the middle of the night last week, had indicated to police that Weinstein had told him the bodies were buried under a shed attached to the first house.
Investigators who had to suspend their digging on Friday because of heavy rain, planned to tear down the shed last night and excavate to a depth of six metres below it, with work continuing until nightfall.
Searches planned for two other houses owned by Dutroux in the region of Charleroi, southern Belgium, could not be carried out because of staff shortages.
Among the bodies suspected of being buried at the Jumet site are those of two teenagers, An Marchal and Eefje Lamb reeks, thought to have been kidnapped by Dutroux last year.
Police were equipped with identification details of at least 12 children who have gone missing in Belgium since 1985 and are still unaccounted for.
Following Dutroux's secret visit to the site last week, the concrete floor of the shed was broken up and earth removed to a depth of 1.5 metres, before the deterioration in the weather forced a halt. The bodies of Julie and Melissa were found at a depth of about five metres.