The body of a 25-year-old man was found at his homethis Tuesday, November 19, in Alès in the Gard. It was first the victim's mother who worried. In the morning, she was unable to reach her son by telephone, so she went to his home around 11 a.m.
There, she finds a friend of her son, who refuses to let her enter the apartment and who maintains that the son in question is not there. The mother leaves again, but still unable to contact her son, she alerts the neighbors by telephone in the afternoon. These neighbors contact the owner of the apartment, who lives nearby and has a spare key.
Thanks to this double, the neighbors enter the apartment and find the lifeless body of the young man. The firefighters arrive on the scene, but it is too late to save him, the police and the prosecutor are also called.
In the meantime, the friend, aged 35, who was in the apartment fled, his car was found in the Valdegour district, in Nîmes. He got on a train to Marseille. The police arrested him when he got off the train in Marseille, where he lived.
Death by asphyxiation
Investigators favor the criminal trail. The autopsy carried out this Wednesday did not make it possible to formally determine the causes of this suspicious death. The young man died of asphyxiation, but his body showed no signs of strangulation. He could have been suffocated, for example, using a cushion or a plastic bag, but the death could also be linked to the absorption of a toxic substance, which could include several possibilities. This could be poisoning, taking drugs or an overdose of medication. Only more in-depth examinations will make it possible to determine this. Blood and urine samples were sent to a specialized laboratory. Results are expected by the end of the week.
Private conflict
Finally, it remains to be seen, in the event of a toxic substance, whether it was taken voluntarily by the victim or whether it was administered without their knowledge or by force. An answer impossible to obtain at the moment since suspect number 1 was automatically interned after his psychiatric assessment and could not be heard by the investigators. During his custody he had adopted behavior that was irrational to say the least, sometimes taking real delirious bursts. According to the few elements that the investigators were able to collect, it appears that this death occurred in the context of a private conflict, since the two men knew each other well and apparently maintained a relationship. close emotional relationship.
