Aged 16, the two teenagers were placed in pre-trial detention. The young man is suspected of “murder” while his girlfriend is detained for “complicity”.
Two 16-year-old teenagers, the victim’s stepdaughter and her boyfriend, were placed in police custody for the stabbing murder of a forty-year-old in Ruffey-lès-Echirey (Côte d’Or ), the prosecution said on Thursday. The public prosecutor requested the indictment, and provisional detention, of the boyfriend, for murder, and of the daughter-in-law, for complicity, indicated the public prosecutor in Dijon, Olivier Caracotch.
The custody of the minors, which began on Tuesday after their arrest, should end this Thursday and lead to their presentation to a judge with a view to their possible indictment. On October 29, the 49-year-old victim was discovered lying in his blood in the bathtub at his home in Ruffey-les-Echirey, about twenty minutes north of Dijon.
“Significant disagreement”
“Seriously injured in the neck” and carrying “several throat lesions”the forty-year-old was to die a few hours later in hospital, the prosecutor said during a press conference. Her daughter-in-law, who lived with the victim and was present at the time of the tragedy, called emergency services, saying she had “discovered” the body.
But the investigation established that her boyfriend was also present during the incident and that he would have carried out the fatal blows. The weapon, a pocket knife, was discovered buried in a wood, on his instructions. The minor “don’t argue” the facts, but claims to have been “in a daze”adds the prosecutor. The daughter-in-law admitted in police custody “discussing the criminal project with her boyfriend and facilitating her escape”. The latter had been picked up at the scene of the crime by his mother, who had come to pick him up. The latter, also placed in police custody, was finally exonerated.
The origin of the crime remains unknown for the moment, theft or fraudulent interest seeming to be excluded. On the other hand, the “significant disagreement” between the victim and her daughter-in-law, due “probably a difficult cohabitation”was known, according to Mr. Caracotch.
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