Murder mystery as French police investigate woman's death... despite the fact there is no body and nobody is missing

[TootsieFootsie]

French police investigate 'murder case' with no body

French police are appealing for witnesses in a case where they are sure that there has been a murder, but there is no body and no-one has been reported as missing.

www.dailymail.co.uk

French police are appealing for witnesses in a baffling case where they are sure that there has been a murder, but there is no body and as yet no-one has even been reported as missing.

Normandy's state prosecutor Rémi Coutin has asked the public to help find out the identity of the alleged victim.

Police believe that on March 9 the suspect ran into the female cyclist in a black Audi, while under the effects of alcohol, on a road close to the town of Grand Bourgtheroulde, north-west of Paris.

They also believe that he returned to his property for a spade, believing that she had died as a result of his actions.

However, when they arrived at the scene, he found that she was still alive, so he used the spade to kill her and then buried the body, so the story goes.

Police also believe that he then got rid of the bike at a rubbish dump.

 

[Laughing]

WOW! I've never noticed a poster from France. Wonder if we have French speakers to check & translate any further press?

Any French-Canadians available?

@Montrealaise guessing that you may be able to handle French?

jmho ymmv lrr

 

[TootsieFootsie]

The article said there are no female cyclists missing, which made me think, what if the cyclist was a male.
It's not out of the realms of possibility. .
Maybe he didn't get a good look at her, he was drunk and maybe it was dark.

Just a thought anyway.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

French mystery over Normandy murder without victim's body

Police are convinced a woman has been murdered: the problem is no-one has been reported missing.

www.bbc.com

Illustration of the car model. The appeal where the illustration is, is in French.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Dans l'Eure, un homme soupçonné de meurtre, le corps reste introuvable

Le Parquet de l’Eure et la gendarmerie lancent un appel à témoins. Un homme est soupçonné d’avoir tué une cycliste après l’avoir percutée avec sa voiture le 9 mars 2022.

actu-fr.translate.goog

A French article translated. Quite a long article. There's more at the link.

The body of the wanted victim​

The gendarmes searched several places where the body could have been buried.
The Rouen research section and the Bernay research brigade moved heaven and earth, initially, to identify the victim.

According to the few elements they have, she could be between 40 and 60 years old. She was probably carrying a backpack. Europol was seized, but no disappearance on the international scale, nor even national corresponds to the profile of the victim.
The investigators put forward several hypotheses on his identity: this person could be a single person, isolated from his entourage, his family and his neighborhood. This could be a person in transit in the Eure or even a person having a double residence between Normandy and elsewhere in France, or even abroad.

Unfortunately, the investigations did not allow, either, to collect traces of his blood. The search of the alleged perpetrator's home was also unsuccessful. “And the respondent is unable to find the place, or he is pretending”, supposes the prosecutor.

The alleged perpetrator's vehicle is often the key to resolving an investigation. Unfortunately calcined, it does nothing to help the gendarmes. Only, the accident would obviously have taken place on the D80 road, a very busy road in the hamlet of Boscherville. Or on secondary axes.

Colonel Jourdren reminds us, it is a black Audi A4 registered in Poland. Investigators are looking for anyone who has noticed an accident involving the vehicle on this road which connects Le Neubourg to Grand-Bourgtheroulde, or in the adjacent streets.
Furthermore, the Audi was used to transport and conceal the body. The gendarmes widened their research, from the woods adjoining Saint-Pierre-du-Bosguérard, to the forest massifs of the north of the Eure and the south of the Seine-Maritime.

Last element: the respondent would have cut the frame of the bicycle in two and would have thrown it at the dump of Grand-Bourgtheroulde.

If you have any information likely to advance the gendarmerie investigation, you can contact the Rouen research section on 07 77 20 64 00.

 

[Laughing]

@TootsieFootsie , appreciate the translation -- still wondering, especially after our experience with translation on thread for astronomy professor Thomas Marsh.

Um, yeah, coffee kicked in and I found a thread about a Canadian situation:

@GuyfromCanada

@dotr @musicaljoke

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Yes I know. It's difficult with translations, can send you off on a wrong tangent.

The he, she thing of French translations used to throw me Used to it now ( I think)

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I found another article, there wasn't anything different in it.
Except that it said the bicycle was found broken in half at a recycling centre, while above article seems to say it might have.
I'm wondering why a murderer would take the bike to a recycling centre, that doesn't make sense to me but could be the translation.

 

[dotr]

Man investigated for Normandy murder, but no body or missing person

Police are appealing for witnesses over claims of a man hitting and then killing a cyclist

www.connexionfrance.com

''The crime is said to date to March, but gendarmerie began investigating only two months later, when a woman went to the gendarmerie station in Dieppe, Normandy, to report a murder.

She accused her ex-partner, a 46-year-old carpenter.''

• March 9: The driver called his ex-partner in a drunken panic, to say that he had just been in an accident on a road in Eure. He finally said that he had hit a cyclist, but that the victim was in good health.
• The ex-partner said that one of her friends contacted her to say that they had passed by the driver’s house, and had taken photos of the windscreen of his Audi, which she said looked suspicious. In these photos, a “large circular impact” dent can be seen, with “a red mark in the centre”.
• The woman contacted the local gendarmerie in Bourgtheroulde, to ask if they were aware of a cyclist accident in the area. The gendarmerie had received no such reports and was not aware of any incidents.
• March 12: The woman went to her ex-partner’s house and said she herself could see what looked like “traces of blood” on the right side of the car
• March 13: The woman questioned her ex-partner and he admitted that he had hit the cyclist when he was drunk. The cyclist was a woman in her 60s, who looked like “a tramp”, the man said
• March 13: The man admitted that after having hit the cyclist, he put the bike and her body in his boot, and went to look for a spade to bury her. Upon coming back, he realised that she was still alive, and so finished her off with “several spade hits”, the prosecutor said.

The gendarmerie inquiry opened after several pieces of evidence corroborated the ex-partner’s story, especially the photos of the car found on her smartphone.

Another woman, who said she had had a brief relationship with the man accused, said that he had also told her that “he was not well in the head, because he had knocked down an old lady when at the wheel of his car, and had killed her before burying her”.

The gendarmerie also pointed to another fact: they found the man’s car burned out and abandoned. The man had reported it as stolen.''

 

[musicaljoke]

I found another article, there wasn't anything different in it.
Except that it said the bicycle was found broken in half at a recycling centre, while above article seems to say it might have.
I'm wondering why a murderer would take the bike to a recycling centre, that doesn't make sense to me but could be the translation.

Why would a murderer take a bike to a recycling centre? I believe it would be to dispose of it. There might be some other options: take it home (bad idea), dump it somewhere (might draw attention), throw it in the garbage (no self respecting French murderer would throw metal in the garbage). ;(

 

[TootsieFootsie]

What I mean is if he took the bike to a recycling centre wouldn't he be seen there, or are recycling centres different in France.

Ours is a staffed operation. It's gated off and there are different areas where you take things, some for metal etc.
It's only open during the day.

Our tip (rubbish dump) is also staffed and behind a fence and even a sort of checkpoint. You have to pay to leave rubbish there.
I remember the days when it was free and you could sneak a look at the rubbish. I once found a huge bottle that I made a terrarium out of.

 

[dotr]

Not likely because the dates do not add up, but just in case..

France - France - Susan Forde, occupational therapist from Ireland, est not-for-profit stroke rehab clinic, Montpellier, 16 Oct 2022

I'll just give my opinion that someone would typically check into their hotel first and then head out on any adventure -- unless they arrived really too early for check-in? Unless they wanted to head for that area but didn't want to worry the taxi driver by asking to be dropped off in the...

www.websleuths.com

 

[TootsieFootsie]

The mystery of the murder without a body or victim that leaves the police in France perplexed - The Goa Spotlight

Hugh SchofieldBBC News, ParisNovember 20, 2022Credit, Getty Imagesphoto caption, Normandy prosecutor

thegoaspotlight.com

• Hugh Schofield
• BBC News, Paris