Monday, November 25, a man was taken into police custody in Grenoble, suspected of the murder of a 15-year-old girl in 1988 and that of a 40-year-old woman in 2000 in the department. He was identified by his DNA.
Leila Afif, mother, was shot dead in 2000 in La Verpillière, while Nathalie Boyer, 15, was found with her throat slit in August 1988 in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier. The Nanterre serial or unsolved crimes center (“cold cases”), created in 2022, has relaunched these two procedures. Monday December 2, following his custody, he was indicted by an investigating judge for these two murders, according to “Le Parisien”.
Nathalie Boyer disappeared on August 2, 1988, in Villefontaine, not far from the suspect's home. She was living in a hostel and had gone to visit her mother. In both cases, the victims appear to have been picked up by their murderer at a bus shelter.
The suspect's DNA was found on the seals of the Afif file and “the work of the Grenoble SR made it possible to make the connection” between these two cases which are the subject of the same investigation in Nanterre, specified Me Corinne Herrmann, lawyer for Nathalie Boyer's family.
Nathalie Boyer is one of the victims of the “disappeared from Isère” file which concerns nine disappearances or murders of children in the department between 1983 and 1996. Of the nine cases, four children were found dead, four are still missing and a 7-year-old child was found seriously injured in 1983. He survived. Nathalie Boyer was the oldest of the children concerned.
“This is excellent news, it is never too late to have a bit of truth,” reacted Me Corinne Herrmann, saluting “the tremendous work of the “cold cases” pole and the Grenoble SR”. “We finally became interested in Nathalie after 36 years” and the identification of a suspect is “hope for all the other cases in Isère,” she added.
According to “Le Parisien”, the suspect lives in Dijon in his partner's apartment, in early retirement for at least 5 years and leads “an apparently peaceful existence, only troubled by a reputation as a “runner” which stuck to his skin ”, according to the newspaper. “The charges against him are completely disputed. He is upset. Justice comes to get him and tells him about very old facts. He is also upset by the detention,” his lawyers told the newspaper.
