The teenage killer in the Vosges sentenced to 20 years in prison

“Worrying” personality and psychological profile that could be similar, according to an expert, to that of serial killer Francis Heaulme: the profile of the teenager prosecuted for the murder of little Rose, 5 years old, in Rambervillers (Vosges) in April 2023 , was examined Wednesday by the court in Epinal.

This examination was followed at the end of the day by a verdict: 20 years of imprisonment, the maximum sentence, as well as 20 years of socio-judicial monitoring, in accordance with the prosecution’s requisitions.

When this judgment was announced, the young man had no reaction and responded positively to the question from the president of the court to find out if he had understood his sentence.

Despite his young age, the 16-year-old suspect was already convicted in March of rape and sexual assault on two boys aged 11 and 12 in a previous case, and he is also the subject of a complaint for rape in another case. . Facts all committed in February 2022, a year before Rose’s death.

The psychiatric and psychological assessments are “catastrophic, worrying,” Stéphane Giuranna, lawyer for little Rose’s parents, told the press.

“When we ask the experts whether there is an ounce of optimism… there is none, there is nothing,” he continued. “Everyone unanimously says that he is perverted, sadistic, that he will do it again. There is nothing to do. The only thing to do is watch him, lock him up. As a lawyer, I find it hard to hear that.”

An expert, to whom the question was asked during the hearing, declared that the person to whom the teenager is “psychologically closest” is the serial killer Francis Heaulme, reported Me Giuranna.

“There, we have no doubt: we know that he will do it again,” said the council, saying he was “helpless” after two days of trial. “The only thing we can do is cross our fingers that it’s not someone we know. It’s horrible, it’s scary.”

Tuesday, a first psychiatric expert, “one of the only ones” to have noted the alteration of the young man’s discernment during the alleged events, was heard by the court according to David Collot, one of the lawyers for Rose’s family.

“We are not of this opinion, we are rather of the opinion of the other experts (…) who evoke full and complete discernment, corroborated in particular by the unfolding of the facts and the plan which had been designed by the murderer before let him take action,” stressed Me Collot.

His minority also explains that the hearing takes place behind closed doors in the children’s court.

Possible “dysfunctions” in the monitoring of this minor, placed for a year in a closed educational center in 2022 and then returned to his parents, must also be at the center of the debates, according to Virginie Barbosa, lawyer for the association La Voix de the Child.

“We continue to think that finishing a placement in a closed educational center, which can be more restrictive for a minor, and moving to a placement at home immediately afterwards, was perhaps not the best option to choose” , notes Me Collot. “The sequence between these two modes of support raises questions. We have had answers, not all of them, and we are not fully convinced.”

The teenager admitted to having wanted to kill the little girl on April 25, 2023: he had lured her to his mother’s apartment in Rambervillers on the pretext of showing her a kitten.

The child’s body was found in a garbage bag, naked, less than an hour after her parents reported her disappearance, in the apartment belonging to the suspect’s mother.

The young man admitted to having killed the little girl and according to Me Collot, he also admitted on Tuesday, “a little pushed to his limits, that he would probably have masturbated after having committed the murder” of the child, “which would explain that we could have found his sperm on Rose’s sweater.

The sexual dimension of his actions “is an important dimension of his personality,” believes Mr. Barbosa.

The suspect affirmed since the beginning of the investigation that “nothing of a sexual nature” had happened with the child.

The court’s verdict was delivered late Wednesday.