Ludovic Bertin, 29, who faces life imprisonment, will be tried for two weeks by the Isère Assize Court for the murder of young Victorine Dartois, which aroused great emotion throughout France, and for a rape that occurred two years earlier.
On September 26, 2020, the BTS student returned on foot to the family home in Villefontaine (Isère) after an afternoon of shopping with friends. After a final phone call to her family, at 6:50 p.m., to say that she was “coming in 20 minutes,” she disappeared near a stadium adjoining a wooded area. This area runs alongside the Turitin stream, shallow and cluttered with branches, where his body was discovered less than 48 hours later, his pants nearby. The autopsy findings mention bruising on the neck and confirm the young woman's strangulation and death by drowning.
The victim encountered while jogging
Twenty days after the events, a suspect was arrested by the GIGN in Villefontaine thanks to the report of a relative in whom he had confided. This is Ludovic Bertin, a business manager aged 25 at the time, who had already been convicted ten times for common law offenses but without going to prison thanks to reduced sentences.
In police custody, he claims to have encountered the victim while jogging. After an involuntary shove, then an argument, he allegedly “panicked” and “squeezed the neck” of the student before hiding her inanimate body in a torrent.
Even though he denies any sexual motive, he is indicted for murder preceded by attempted rape. For justice, he removed the girl's pants but was hampered by the young woman's resistance and the arrival of a third party.
Cocaine consumed
His defense should not vary during the trial, even if he is “ready to say things” and intends to address, from the start, the victim's family, declared his lawyer, Me Arnaud Adelise, on BFM, early November.
According to Me Adelise, “the sexual motive is refuted by the analyzes which have been carried out since there is no dermabrasion on the genitals”. On the other hand, his client had “consumed cocaine” that day, he said. “He then finds himself in a particular mood and the facts arise at that moment,” according to him.
A few months after his arrest, the suspect, married and father of a son, was placed in police custody again, with another young woman accusing him of having raped her, in 2018, in the Rhône while she was was twenty years old.
But, for Me Adelise, this woman “never wanted to present herself” for a confrontation and it is, therefore; of an “allegation (which) is not supported by anything”.
For his part, Me Kelly Monteiro, who has defended Victorine Dartois's relatives since the start of the case, did not wish to speak before the trial, but he said that the family would speak “as part of the judicial debates”.
A poignant tribute
The disappearance and death of the young girl had caused strong emotion in Villefontaine and the surrounding area. Nearly 6,000 people paid tribute to him during a white march on October 4, 2020. Three days later, more than a thousand people also attended his funeral in Bourgoin-Jallieu, to support his parents, his two sisters and his brother.
The decision of the Assize Court is expected around December 6.
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