This is a major and spectacular step forward in the file of the “disappeared from Isère”this series of crimes from the 1980s and 1990s committed in the same department and for which investigators always thought there could be links: a man, identified by his DNA, was placed in police custody on Monday by the gendarmes of the SR of Grenoble, suspected of being involved in two of these investigations, according to information from RTL confirmed by corroborating sources. On the one hand, the death of Leila Afif, found shot to death in La Verpillère, an Isère commune located south-east of Lyon on May 12, 2002. On the other hand, that of Nathalie Boyer, a 15-year-old girl found slaughtered in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier on August 3, 1988.
These two cases, never resolved, have been taken up by the Nanterre cold-case unit since 2022, which has carried out stubborn work with the support of the “cold-case” section of the gendarmerie, the National Division of Unsolved Cases. (DIANE) and the Grenoble research section. According to our information, it is DNA found in the seals of the Leila Afif file who spoke 26 years later and allowed the suspect to be identified. Other evidence that could incriminate him then appeared, linking him to the death of Nathalie Boyer, which dates back to 36 years ago.
The man in custody is aged around 60 years old.. Little other information about him has been gathered at this time. The challenge of current police custody, which in this specific case of suspicion of seriality can last up to 96 hours, will be to verify this possible involvement in the two cases. The geographical link is obvious because the two communes of Verpillère and Saint-Quentin-Fallavier are joined. The gendarmerie's “cold case” investigators have numerous clues according to a source close to the case, but no DNA in the Boyer file.
The body of Nathalie Boyer, 15, was found by a railway worker on August 4, 1988, on the side of a railway track, the day after her disappearance. The autopsy will show that the young girl's throat was slit, without having suffered sexual violence. His mother had notified the police the day before. The 15-year-old girl, housed in a shelter but returned for the holidays, had disappeared at the end of the afternoon.
The first leads followed by investigators at the time turned out to be dead ends, and the case ended up being abandoned by the courts. The family has continued for years to request the reopening of the case, via their lawyers including Corinne Herrmann, a specialist in cold cases. The Boyer case will ultimately be one of the first to be taken up by the Nanterre “cold-case” unit, dedicated to serial and unsolved crimes, after its creation in 2022.
This is also the case with the Leïla Afif case. On May 7, 2000, the mother went to Saint-Quentin-Fallavier to enroll one of her sons in training. Her children will never see her return. His lifeless body was found five days later in a canal.
Here again the investigation was unsuccessful and a location had been decided before reopening by the cold-case center.
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