the alleged perpetrator had left a psychiatric unit the day before

The investigation into the assassination attempt (premeditation is retained, in fact) on the 44-year-old jogger, stabbed on Saturday January 11, 2025 in Vergèzein the Gard, was well carried out by the Gard gendarmerie : a week later, the 25-year-old alleged perpetrator was identified, arrested, placed in police custody, indicted and imprisoned.

We learned this Sunday January 19, 2025 that he had left the day before a psychiatric unit and that he was granted leave. Narrative.

Transferred to the Nîmes judicial court

It is around 2 p.m., this Sunday, January 19, when a gendarmerie convoy composed in particular of unmarked cars from the Nîmes research section and the Vauvert company research brigade enters, with sirens flashing lights activated, into the court premises. judicial of Nîmes. A 25-year-old Gardois resident in a village adjoining Vergèze is transferred under good escort to the deputy prosecutor of the Nîmes public prosecutor's office, Frédéric Kocherafter 48 hours of police custody.

The suspect was arrested at the family home on Friday January 17 around 6 p.m. in connection with the attack on this mother who was doing her usual jogging on the Vergèze fitness trail, not far from the municipal sports complex, where three of her five children were on the athletics track. She was suddenly attacked from behind by an individual who fled, after stabbing her six times in various places on her body. Seriously injured, her life is no longer in danger.

An off-duty police officer witnessed the scene

Two direct witnesses to the scene were nearby, including an off-duty gendarme, who were able to give a precise description of the stranger and especially his clothing. This last detail proved to be crucial, because, on the one hand, it was confirmed by the use of the video protection cameras seized by the investigators, and by the search carried out on Friday evening, in the wake of his arrest: in Indeed, the clothes that the twenty-year-old was wearing during the attack, including a bloodstained jacket, were found at his home.

The deputy prosecutor added, during a meeting with the press this Sunday afternoon, in the company of the lieutenant-colonel Christophe Capsiéwho commands the research section of Nîmes and Colonel Emmanuel Cassocommanding the Gard gendarmerie group, that other elements important for the investigation have also been discovered and will be analyzed, including a knife stained with blood. No information was given on the explanations – motive, act, etc. – given by this Gardois, nor if he had intentions of sexual assault or rape, which also seems a lead dismissed at the current stage of the investigation and investigation.

The deputy prosecutor nevertheless clarified that there is no link between the victim and the accused. They did not know each other and had never met; the forty-year-old lives in Aigues-Vives. The alleged perpetrator made a full confession during the night from Saturday to Sunday and therefore gave details which led the deputy prosecutor of the Nîmes public prosecutor's office to open a judicial investigation at the criminal division of the Nîmes judicial court, not for attempted intentional homicide, but for assassination attemptwhich means that the premeditation of the act is retained

Jogger DNA

If he had never interacted with the jogger, we must therefore deduce from the accused that he had gone to this Vergèze health trail armed with a knife to choose a victim at random. “He admitted to having intended to attack someone and DNA belonging to the victim was isolated on the knife that we found,” confirms deputy prosecutor Frédéric Kocher.

The identity of this neighboring resident of the commune of Vergèze is, moreover, taken from the files of the psychiatric units of the department which were requested, because the gendarmes favored the gesture of an unbalanced person. And they were very interested in the information provided by a psychiatric center in Nîmes designating the alleged attacker as having benefited from a leave of absence from Friday until this Sunday evening, after having been admitted there for four days for reasons which are not known. Who had given as address a house located in a village near Vergèze.

This Sunday evening, the alleged perpetrator was placed under committal order criminalwhile the population of Vergèze breathes, as well as those who frequent the sports complex, the rural fitness trail along the A9 motorway or walking with their children. A big sigh of relief as they say.

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