How was the “rapist of the Sambre” arrested after 30 years of investigation?

Dino Scala is a serial rapist whose hunt lasted 30 years. Between 1988 and 2018, he sowed terror in the Sambre valley, near the Belgian border. During this period, he admits having committed 53 rapes and sexual assaults. His modus operandi was always the same: he went into action on winter mornings, when he saw a woman alone on the side of the road. After throwing himself on the victim, he squeezed her neck, blindfolded her and raped her.

Mélanie was only 14 when she was raped by Dino Scala in February 1997. “He squeezes my throat, my head tilts back, I have time to see his face”, she remembers crying. She is the only victim to have seen the face of the rapist, and she made it possible to establish a very similar composite portrait. But no one has made the connection with Dino Scala. The investigation stalled for 30 years, despite DNA being collected from multiple crime scenes. On February 5, 2018, Dino Scala assaulted a woman again. Thanks to his license plate, filmed by a surveillance camera, he was arrested. On June 10, 2022, around fifty of his victims will face him.