The teenager suspected of the murder of little Rose, five years old, last year in Rambervillers (Vosges), is tried behind closed doors by the Epinal children’s court on Tuesday and Wednesday June 12, three months after a first conviction for rape and sexual assault in another case.
The hearing opened shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday in the presence of Rose’s family and the teenager’s parents. Journalists were forced to leave the room before the start, with the hearing in the children’s court taking place behind closed doors.
Several police officers inside and outside the courtroom were securing the scene when the teenager arrived in the prison transport.
The child drowned in a bathtub
On April 25, 2023, less than an hour after her parents reported Rose’s disappearance, her body was discovered naked in a trash bag, in an apartment in this town of 5,000 inhabitants.
The teenager, aged 15 at the time of the events, admitted to having brought the girl to his house, claiming that he was going to show her a kitten.
He admitted, during a reconstruction two months after the events, to having kept the child’s head underwater in the bathtub.
Traces of semen were also found on Rose’s clothes, although the teenager has stated since the beginning of the investigation that “nothing sexual” had happened that April day with the child.
Already convicted of rape and sexual assault of two minors
In an autopsy report, experts noted “the absence of vulvo-vaginal traumatic traces and the anal margin“, while believing that “this does not eliminate touching“.
But another expert report then noted that the girl’s genetic profile had been found.in a very minor way at the level of the testicles and the penis of the accused” but also on his pants and underwear, according to a Source close to the case.
“The six psychiatrists write that he is perverse, that he is sadistic, that there is a criminological danger, and that the risk of recidivism is inevitable.“, explained Stéphane Giurana, lawyer for Rose’s family at the microphone of BFMTV. “For three or four days, I had the idea of drowning someone. I drowned it for fun. I was zen when it happened“, explains Gabriel, cited in a psychological expertise dated July 2023, consulted by our colleagues at BFM.
In a previous case, the teenager was already sentenced in March to three years in prison, one of which was suspended, by the Epinal children’s court for rape and sexual assault on two minors. The events, which occurred in February 2022, predated Rose’s death.
Placed in a closed educational center outside the department for a year after these events, the teenager then returned to live with his mother in Rambervillers, shortly before Rose’s murder.
The teenager is also the subject of another complaint for acts of rape and sexual assault committed in February 2022, we learned on Friday. A preliminary investigation is still underway on this subject, Epinal public prosecutor Frédéric Nahon told AFP.
