The maximum sentence, i.e. 20 years of criminal imprisonment, was handed down on Wednesday against the teenager prosecuted for the murder of five-year-old Rose in Rambervillers in April 2023. The young man, whose “disturbing” personality can bring him closer, according to an expert, of the serial killer Francis Heaulme, also received 20 years of socio-judicial supervision, again the maximum duration authorized for a minor. At the end of his detention and for 20 years, he will be prohibited from entering into contact with minors, from appearing in the Vosges, and will be required to receive treatment.
More than an hour of deliberation
This sentence, announced publicly by the president after more than an hour of deliberation, is in accordance with the prosecution’s requisitions. At the announcement, the teenager did not react and responded favorably to the question from the president of the court to find out if he had understood his sentence.
“You are aware that this does not make you your daughter,” the president declared to the girl’s family at the end of the hearing. “Unfortunately, hearing a maximum sentence for a minor is always difficult, but I believe that it is perfectly justified by the seriousness and atrocity of these facts, and by the personality that was described to us and ultimately does not leave no hope of a possible reintegration of the young man,” reacted Virginie Barbosa, lawyer for the association La Voix de l’Enfant. The 20 years of socio-judicial monitoring are “the minimum that we can do. Will that be enough? I hope so with all my heart,” she continued. In any case, the prosecution requested “everything possible to protect society”.
Targeted by a rape complaint in another case
Despite his young age, the 16-year-old defendant was already convicted in March of rape and sexual assault on two boys aged 11 and 12 in a previous case and he is the subject of a rape complaint in another case. Facts all committed in February 2022, a year before Rose’s death.
The psychiatric assessments, at the center of the debates before the pleadings, are “catastrophic, worrying”, according to Stéphane Giuranna, lawyer for the little girl’s parents. “When you ask the experts whether there is an ounce of optimism… there is none, there is nothing,” he continued. “Everyone unanimously says that he is perverted, sadistic, that he will do it again. There is nothing to do. The only thing to do is watch him, lock him up. As a lawyer, I find it hard to hear that. »
“There, we have no doubt: we know that he will do it again”
“There, we have no doubt: we know that he will do it again,” said the council, saying he was “helpless” after two days of trial. “The only thing we can do is cross our fingers that it’s not someone we know.” It’s horrible, it’s scary. »
The teenager admitted to having wanted to kill the little girl on April 25, 2023: he had lured her to his mother’s apartment in Rambervillers on the pretext of showing her a kitten. The child’s body was found in a trash bag, naked, less than an hour after her parents reported her disappearance, in the apartment belonging to the suspect’s mother. The young man admitted to having killed the little girl and according to Me Collot, he also admitted, on Tuesday, “that he would probably have masturbated after committing the murder”, “which would explain why we could have found his semen on Rose’s sweater.”
The sexual dimension of his actions “is an important dimension of his personality”, believes Mr. Barbosa.
